Whew! Just when you think you’ve gotten an idea of where a documentary was going, Volume 2 drops! Volume 1 primed us for the battle lines between Harry/Meghan and the Royal Rota, with all of their racial undertones and unconscious bias. Episode 4 (the first episode of Volume 2) has introduced a new battlefront and new parallels. But before we dive into the war, let’s take a look at how the lady launched the first cannonball.
Meghan opens this episode with a story about fish in the sea, a story told to her by a longtime royal staffer. The fish are swimming along and suddenly an “organism” invades the school—the institution, shall we say? It’s a foreign organism. The school rebuffs. What are you, who are you, what are you doing? We were swimming along fine until you came along. But then, Meghan was told by the royal staffer, then! The fish began to recognize that they were stronger and faster with this new organism in their midst. Meghan says she wanted to believe that. She tried so hard to hang on to that. (Not long enough, I would argue. She gave up too soon; massive institutional paradigm shifts take longer than two years.) Anyway…. After Meghan’s fish analogy, the show cuts to Opening Credits and Theme Music.
Then we cut to wedding. Fairy tale. Crowds lining both sides of the route to the castle. Windsor Castle! George and Amal Clooney. Serena Williams. Oprah. That’s just the bride’s side! On the groom’s side, all the royals from Prince Michael of Kent to the Queen. Diana’s family too, naturally. Everything went well. The wedding was lovely. By the way the couple described it and showed us in pictures, it was the greatest wedding that ever happened. In fact one of their friends who speaks in the documentary (I forgot her name) outright says every wedding ought to be like theirs. They highlight the orchestra and the Kingdom Choir who sang “Lean on Me” during the service. We get all the symbolism of then-Prince Charles walking her down the aisle—leaning on her new father, since her biological father’s betrayal. We have a sense of Meghan being wrapped up in a new family and a new life. She brings with it all the good things from her old life and leaves behind all the bad things. Hope and change, the promise of a better future! She tells us about her first one-on-one outing with the (late) Queen. The monarch wore bright green; Meghan wore beige. (In the previous episode, she had explained her tendency in royal life to wear muted colors as a way to avoid wearing the same color as other royal ladies.) She describes the grandmotherly feeling she had from the Queen as the old lady shared the blanket with her in the car between engagements.
Immediately from there, and all those cozy feelings, we are taken into the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Meghan sprang to action to boost morale among the ladies of “The Hubb,” an initially informal social group of fire survivors who organized at the local mosque to cook meals for their community. Meghan was a natural amid these foodie types. One couldn’t help noticing how “Meghan Markle” came back to life as she helped them with the pouring and stirring of ingredients in enormous bowls. Why didn’t they cook everyday, she asked. They said woefully that there was not enough money. And thus, Meghan’s first big to-do as a royal patron took flight: the Together cookbook. She wrote the preface, they wrote the recipes, and with her fame and title in the sails, it became a bestseller.
If only the “Harry and Meghan” story could have stayed on track in that vibrational gear. Alas! What happened? Sibling rivalry? Or a competition between sisters-in-law? Who was more popular, the Cambridges1 or the Sussexes? I always had the impression that the competition was more in the imaginations of the fans than the principal parties involved. That is, I figured it was an ego-driven melodrama continually playing out between “Sussex Sugars” and “Cambridge” whatever-you-call-its. Now, after watching Episode 4, I realize that Harry and Meghan were drinking the Kool-Aid all along. In their narrative, the media turned sour on Meghan because she was becoming too popular. She was the New Diana, we are told, and Camp Cambridge (supporters of William, now Prince of Wales) simply would not allow that. Unable to work together, the “Fab Four” broke off. Meghan and Harry left their Kensington Palace cottage for a slightly bigger cottage near Windsor Castle. They abandoned the “Kensington Royal” communications team—so-called after the Twitter/Instagram handle that used to be @KensingtonRoyal. Meghan and Harry made their own social media handle @SussexRoyal. (The New York Times analyzed the neck-to-neck engagement metrics of the official royal accounts.)2 It was a little cringy to see Harry and Meghan shaping their struggle out to be “War of the Waleses” 2.0. In this version, Harry and Meghan are Diana; William and Kate are seemingly cold-blooded Charles. If they kept this up for 5 and 6, they might as well hand in their royal credentials now and just go for broke, whatever that might look like. There is nothing to lose at this point. Just join the anti-monarchist league. Hell, Meghan might as well drop the foreign title and declare a run for Congress. Their fans want them to be duke and duchess, and their children to be Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet; it’s quite entertaining to see the talk-page arguments around what to call Lilibet and Archie on Wikipedia. But after Episode 4, I simply cannot envision a scenario in which Harry and Meghan regain favor to return to British public service. They will have to return, of course—for the coronation that is coincidentally marked for Archie’s fourth birthday. (May 6 was also the date, in 1910, of the accession of King George V, great-grandfather of King Charles III.)3 I’m just not seeing a way back to a prime-time royal slot. It turns out my prediction in my pre-show article stands, after all. This Netflix documentary spells just more… of the same. With the battle lines drawn in Episode 4, they have sealed their place as the royal adjacent residents of Montecito—half in and half out.
I’m still going to watch 5 and 6—mostly because I now feel committed to this journey, and I’m determined to see it to the finish line.
The journey so far, from trailer releases to where I am now:
For readers uninitiated in Royal Titles 101, the pair who now go by the style of Prince and Princess of Wales (William and Kate) were previously known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The Cambridge dukedom was their first title as a married couple. Shortly after William’s father became King in September, William was elevated to “Prince of Wales.” The heir apparent to the throne, as William now is, wears a lot of hats and many titles: Duke of Cornwall in England, Duke of Rothesay in Scotland, besides Earl of Chester and Earl of Carrick, and many others. “Duke of Cornwall” is most important because that’s the money bag that funds the heir’s life and work. “Prince of Wales” is the most illustrious.
Weaver, Caity. “Meghan Markle’s Instagram: A Mystery.” The New York Times. 27 February 2020. http://archive.today/Bey9t.
Article by Laura Hampson for The Independent (UK), 19 October 2022: https://archive.vn/UEq0G.