I’m still making my way through With Love, Meghan’s Season 2. Just my luck, WLM S2 dropped in the first week of the US Open, so I have a lot going on, viewer-wise. Yesterday, I watched the episode with Samin Nosrat, which I absolutely loved. To me, those are the kinds of WLM episodes which sing – Meghan with a food professional, talking about food, cooking and doing a cool crafting project. Nosrat was wonderful – upbeat, chatty, charismatic, and she and Meghan had a lot of just-met-my-new-bestie chemistry. Well, something else happened on Wednesday. Vogue published “With Love, Meghan Is Just Not Worth Getting So Worked Up About” by Raven Smith. The piece basically says “why are people getting so worked up about a sweet cooking show?” An excerpt:
The internet still hates it, but with less of the vim that the cold-plunge shock of Season 1 inspired, now that we’ve acclimated to Markle’s waters. (It’s hard to know if I’m adding to the din of detractors by even commenting on the show, but here we are.) Meghan’s approach seems simple—“There are easy ways to show up lovingly”—which doesn’t seem like a bad sentiment, does it? Making things a bit nicer while the world burns just means… things are a bit nicer.
Sure, I see how this is cloying for some, sticking to the roof of your mouth and coating your tongue. There’s something a bit naff about her dependency on the matchy-matchy, a little too smudgy-pastels when I want vivid strokes. But With Love, Meghan offers easy watching, not hate-watching. It’s pumiced enough to have no snags, no irks. I don’t know why people are so riled.
Obviously, being married to a prince of England—however estranged—is a factor: The Sussexes’ $100 million deal with Netflix has seen them trauma-doc their departure from royal duty. But with With Love, Meghan, Season 2, there’s no royal gossip. There’s no sense of vengeance. There’s no “Beyoncé’s texted.” Meghan just seems fairly—dare I say it?—normal.
The season is a polished, unmessy outing from a woman whose life is inexorably intertwined with a family that lacquers over their messes with aplomb. Perhaps it’s just the normalcy that rubs people the wrong way? Meghan’s story follows the contours of the American Dream—start from the bottom and make something of yourself—but has garnered the vitriol of the British press, who continue to see her as somehow undeserving (of her platform, of her prince). Her refusal to succumb to all the airs and graces we’re so acclimatized to in the UK is considered a weakness rather than a strength.
I will say this for Harry and Meghan: They seem to have forged what they needed, a family unit away from the royal glare. Though their lifestyle is not to everybody’s taste, they’ve made it out. They’re on American soil, with Lilibet and Archie, an ocean away from an island that only continues to reinforce their un-wantedness.
“An ocean away from an island that only continues to reinforce their un-wantedness.” That’s just it though, even with all of the screaming, crying and throwing up over every little thing Meghan and Harry do, there’s still a sense of “but why don’t they WANT to come back to the UK???” That is, more than anything, the overarching complaint, from the Abandonment Issues Kingdom. That Harry and Meghan should want to be in the UK, so that their British detractors can scream into their faces. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment that WLM really isn’t worth all of this negativity. If it’s not your flavor, don’t watch it. It’s my flavor and I’m only halfway through the series! How are Meghan’s biggest detractors already through the entire season? Just admit that you’re a fan. You’re not hate-watching an entire season of a cooking show, you know? You’re just… watching. Because you’re enjoying it.
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Photos courtesy of Netflix.
