In the second series of With Love, Meghan, the Duchess has finally learnt some self-awareness
Alarmingly, not even six months have passed since the parodically inane first season of With Love, Meghan.
That relentlessly mocked bonanza of edible flowers and wasted time presented such an astonishingly dated “lifestyle” it seemed to confirm Markle as detached from reality and vapid as her very worst critics have always accused her to be. News that we would be subjected to more of it – and that Netflix had renewed her and her husband’s $100m content deal after it was so lambasted – was not well-received.
And yet either I have been lobotomised or Meghan has changed, because the biggest “surprise and delight” – the Duchess’s life philosophy, usually delivered on top of a slice of bread or dissolvable in a silk drawstring bag – of the second series is not that she loves Lisa Stansfield and Magic FM (shocker though this was) but that I actually enjoyed it.
Oh, don’t we know by now that Meghan’s nqot relatable? Can’t we accept that she’s a bit unbearable? Okay, she stole Harry away to California and the royal rift may never be healed. And she continues to smile seraphically from her Montecito mansion while keeping bees and selling preserves, and trying to profit off other little-girl activities otherwise indulged only by parents desperate to entertain their children during a rainy summer holiday.
And, okay, she spends a disproportionate amount of time revelling in other people telling her how thoughtful she is. But put that aside and you will notice that this series has lost its preaching, and its perfection, and matured into a passably pleasant lifestyle show unafraid, at last, of a little self-deprecation.
Look for something to sneer at in these eight new episodes and you’ll find it, as Markle invites more “friends” – from celebrity chefs she has never met before, to her beloved makeup artist – to a rented showhome to do some “moving meditations”.
She’s water marbling scarves and pocket squares, she’s telling us how to pack a cabin bag, she’s explaining how to maximise the bounty of a fruit platter, she’s “honouring olive oil”, she’s invented something called a “shower soother” using baking soda and essential oils (which, with my Stockholm Syndrome, I am actually considering trying out).
Markle likes to “show up lovingly” for the people in her life. Her methods of doing this range from so rudimentary you marvel that Netflix is paying her hundreds of millions of dollars to do something a toddler might excitedly demonstrate on its return from nursery (potato stamps, with Queer Eye’s Tan France), to such a ridiculously elaborate faff nobody not in the possession of a “craft cabin” on their property has ever in human history attempted it (resin jewellery using dried flowers of each of her children’s birth months, with chef and model Chrissy Teigen).
She’s home-making things that have never demanded to be home-made, such as graham crackers and (turmeric) marshmallows, for s’mores; “cheez-it” snacks using sourdough discard (a word she does not like); Thai iced tea with boba pearls and salt and vinegar crisps. I suppose it’s better than pouring pretzels from one plastic bag into another, like last time.
But the real difference is that this time round, she’s lightened up. I think Markle is willing to concede that, yes, she’s a bit ridiculous, naff and uptight. She still can’t resist sprinkling nasturtiums on everything but she’ll laugh along convincingly when France tells her that’s “the gayest shit I’ve seen in a long time”.
She’s forcing New York chefs Christina Tosi and David Chang into a flower-arranging competition with her, and bashfully winning it, but she reveals she’s so neurotic she’s been sneaking back to fiddle with her flowers all day. She breaks the fourth wall, a bit, when she slams a freezer drawer closed and refuses to let the camera men see the mess inside, as if embarrassed by her own obsessiveness rather than the filth.
And when her kitchen is invaded by the gregarious and energetic Spanish chef José Andrés, squeezing squid ink across the counter and cracking the heads of lobsters loudly as she cringes at the sound, you get the sense she’s more put off by her own squeamishness than the unsightly reality of the food (in another episode as she scoops the mangled black guts out of a clam, unperturbed).
I must stress that this only sounds revolutionary if you endured that first series because, obviously, everything is still beautiful and serene, not least Markle herself, whose wardrobe has ventured beyond 50 shades of cream and into occasional accents of mustard and burgundy.
But the shift here, and what allows you to forget about the divisive Duchess at the centre, is that despite sharing that she makes a cooked breakfast every morning for her family, Markle is no longer trying to impress upon us an idea of herself as a perfect mother, wife, and friend, that was only ever going to be infuriating.
She’s not even, really, suggesting that if you do any of what she does, from making coconut-crusted French toast to packing your bag with fabric softener sheets, your life will be better or easier or more fulfilling. She’s just having a bit of fun and actually – sincerely – putting her guests first.
She really thinks about their backgrounds and tastes, she surrenders to their expertise, she relishes learning from them and trying a few new things – making her own naans and vegan curry with podcaster Jay Shetty and his wife cook Radhi Devlukia, deboning a halibut with Michelin-starred chef Clare Smyth, who catered her wedding.
The attention has moved away from Markle and her nauseating life lessons, and the focus instead is on the real indulgence and pleasure on display. Andrés barks at her about the oysters on the barbecue; Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat author Samin Nosrat twirls around the kitchen counters with abandon and improvisation.
Markle, I suspect, possesses neither – if you look closely, her confidence in the world of lifestyle, rather than cookery, is betrayed by her shaky knife skills. And I have to wonder how many times they had to pause filming in order for her to wipe down a marble surface. But while she will never be relatable, the more she relaxes – or tries to – the more endearing she becomes. If you can see past the nasturtiums.
