"With love, Meghan" on Netflix

The American review. Hits the nail on the head;

I watched Meghan Markle’s new cringey Netflix lifestyle show, so you don’t have to. Okay, I admit, I actually gave up after a few episodes because it was too unbearable even to hate-watch for long.

To be honest, Meghan kind of reminds me of the female robot at the beginning of that creepy new movie “Companion,” with the saccharine sweetness bar all dialed up. By that I mean, programmed and fake. Does she speak 10 languages? Maybe not, but she puts FLOWERS in crudites (and knows how to pronounce it).

Meghan markle netflix show review
The female robot in companion.
Ick.

Correction – Meghan Sussex, or whatever she calls herself now. In case you missed it, Meghan snapped at “friend” Mindy Kaling in one sugary episode when Mindy referred to her as “Meghan Markle” because she’s supposedly changed her last name. Don’t the royals go by Mountbatten-Windsor or Wales? Isn’t her real name Rachel? I thought she didn’t want to be royalty because they’re a bunch of racists (a claim that crumbled upon scrutiny). Has she even been to Sussex more than a couple times? Oh, never mind.

Here’s the problem with Meghan’s “trad wife from Montecito” metamorphosis (I thought she was a liberal feminist? Who is she, today?) It’s inauthentic. Real trad wives are actually living the life, and they don’t preach insufferable wokeness at us every chance they get (as she’s done in the past). They’re connected to their extended families, and they don’t live to merch.

Meghan’s not really a trained cook, she’s never made bee’s wax candles before, she’s estranged from both sides of her family, people have told other publications that she’s not actually very nice to people, it’s not even her real house, and the “friends” are B List celebrities she hasn’t known for that long (like her wedding, attended by George Clooney, Oprah and a single family member).

In short, she symbolizes everything wrong with modern, influencer, merching, look-at-me culture.

We don’t get to see Lili or Archie in this make-believe candyland, and Harry, insufferably referred to as “H,” only speaks 17 words across eight episodes.

Instead, we get to see Meghan grating lemon zest on a cake, dumping packaged spaghetti “noodles” into a pan with “blistered” tomatoes, making rainbows out of fruit (how innovative!), and prancing around someone else’s kitchen that none of us can afford (especially now with inflation), when she’s not teaching us how to fill jars with homemade bath salts to make our houseguests feel so cared for. Just like her.

At one point, she actually said, “Let’s get some honey, honey.”

I’m a Midwestern mom with multiple jobs. I don’t have time to make jars of lavender-tinged bath salts for houseguests or bake a three-layer raspberry studded lemon cake with homemade preserves carefully piped between each layer out of a plastic sandwich bag. Wish I did.

I also don’t have time (or the money, frankly) to harvest honey with a borrowed beekeeper and turn it into carefully crafted homemade candles. I just buy them for $5.99 at the Piggly Wiggly. Don’t get me wrong. I admire people who have time for those things, and maybe we should all find a way to slow down. Everyone loves a clever DIY hack. I enjoy cooking homemade meals for loved ones, and maybe I should put Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels into neatly wrapped plastic bags with a bow for house guests like Meghan says she does. My mom and friends come over for movie nights, but they don’t usually stay for a bath.

My grandpa used to tap trees in the woods to make his own homemade maple syrup here in Wisconsin, and it was the best syrup I ever tasted, so I am all for things like that. We need to move away as a culture from a processed, mass-produced society to something more real and healthy. Just ask RFK Jr.

The problem is that Meghan’s show feels like the former even as it pushes the latter.

Don’t get me wrong. I like watching Pioneer Woman, Ina Garten, and even Giada, if I can get past her faux-Italian accent. Cooking shows are a good way to clear one’s mind from the negativity in the news. I might even check out Pamela Anderson’s new lifestyle show (which eerily resembles Meghan’s, apparently) because I like how Pamela’s evolved. I find her transformation interesting. I like how she’s embracing aging and dares to go to awards shows without makeup, and I want her to succeed because she seems authentic and nice. That’s the key word here. Authentic.

There are two big problems with Meghan’s version of this.

She’s not likable. And she doesn’t seem genuine. She seems like she’s playing the kind of person she wants us all to believe she really is – a role. So she can profit off it. Maybe it’s her head-spinning list of reincarnations that’s confusing. What happened to the podcast?

We’ve moved into the Age of Authenticity, where candid conversations on three-hour podcasts help people win elections, you need actual talent (not just a title or mother wound), and people appreciate those who acknowledge their imperfections (like Pamela without makeup). We’ve moved out of the age of scripted and edited TV, air-brushed celebrity, and careful curation, and into the rambunctious world of TikTok and Facebook reels. Meghan’s latest venture feels very 2019 – or earlier, frozen in the Time of the Tig.

Her show is basically a Pinterest Board. If you’re going to do a Pinterest show, at least make the hacks interesting. I don’t need Meghan Markle to tell me that I can form blueberries and strawberries into a rainbow or put sliced cucumbers on a plate. And, sorry, but I’m not going to sprinkle little flowers on the plate. My daughter would probably say, “Mom, why are there little flowers in my carrots?”

I can’t figure out who Meghan Markle really is, and therein lies the true problem. If you’re going to cry racism on Oprah, please have facts to back it up. Don’t lecture us about climate change while jetting around in private planes. And leave Kate alone.

There might be an audience for the real Meghan, with all her obvious imperfections. Who among us is perfect? I certainly am not. We loved Princess Diana because she was like us; she had traumas, and we related to her pain and loneliness. She didn’t copy others; she led from the heart (such as when she clutched the hand of an AIDS victim). Diana was real. I’m still not over the sadness of her death. I got up at 4 a.m. as a kid to watch her wedding.

It might be interesting to see a glimpse into Meghan’s actual life behind-the-scenes with Prince Harry and the kids. I’d be curious to see her actual house and Lili, not just from behind. I’d be curious to learn what she is REALLY like. But then you have to deliver that. This doesn’t.

Meghan’s new show is about how great her life is, how perfect, how wonderful she is, and what a great Stepford Wife… er hostess she is. It’s a lesson in narcissism. “Don’t you want to be like me?” is the message. “You can be like me!” But the rest of us are just trying to pay the bills.

She’s been dubbed “meagain” and this show is basically “Me, me, me, again!” Look, she makes honey from real bees! She turns them into candles! She puts little leaves on lemon cake! She has tea parties in a flower-festooned gazebo in a floral dress and makes balloon arches! She cooks in white shirts but never gets a stain on them! When she’s not uttering banal cliches or drawing them on a chalkboard with perfect calligraphy, she’s gasping in awe for the cameras and informing us (again and again) how great she is, how wonderful her life is, how family-focused she is… except.

Except she didn’t film the show in her actual house; we don’t see it. It’s someone else’s rented mansion.

We all know the real story. She is estranged from her dad, and her half sister, and her half brother, and the rest of her mom’s family, and her best friend from high school, and her father in law (the King of England), and her stepmother-in-law, and her brother-in-law, and her sister-in-law, and her previous best friend Jessica Mulroney and the entire country of England and… you get the point. She ghosted Piers Morgan, supposedly.

Who is Meghan Markle, really? It appears that she is whatever she thinks she can merch, at the moment.

In that way, she is a symbol of everything that is wrong with culture. The late Queen, who didn’t deserve the stress the Sussexes heaped on her at the tail end of her life, embodied values worth emulating. Duty, honor, country. In short, service. She didn’t give interviews, didn’t complain, didn’t politicize, and didn’t commercialize. In so doing, she became a truly unifying figure.

True royals don’t merch.

Maybe the Netflix series IS the real Meghan Markle.


.

Now, I am not a fan, but can you show me where she or Harry asked for ‘privacy’, because I don’t think they did?
You're quite right, Daddima, Meghan and Harry did not ask for privacy, nor did they put out a special request to that effect. What they have done, though, is to whinge about how they are portrayed by the media, in a bad light. And how they wish not to be hounded, for example with all that nonsense about the cross city car chase.
It is the constant need for validation that drives Meghan, but in order to achieve that, she has to throw herself open to the public.
I think her desire to keep the children private is admirable. I don't see anything wrong with mentioning them on occasions, yet not showing them to the world.

I have only seen Episode 1, but it was extremely boring! Very beautifully filmed, though - looked like an M&S food advert! What annoyed me the most was Meg’s insistence on wearing white or cream outfits for all her “cookery”! The message I got was, “Look at me! I’m so darn wealthy I can wear white clothing all day every day, because I have wardrobes full of the stuff!” The visitor Daniel was very sycophantic- I assume all the “house guests” were paid to take part?

Skodadoda

There’s a piece about it in today’s i newspaper. Amongst other things that I found off putting was this gem. ‘She, (Meghan) lives on the edge by occasionally carrying chopped veg by hand to add it to a pan rather than taking the chopping board over to the hob.’
This and the idea of sprinkling children’s sandwiches with dried flowers. Such pretentious claptrap.

On the edge!😂
Of course M isn’t the ‘devil incarnate’ she’s far too bland a personality to be that.
What she is tho, is an entitled thin skinned needy and pretentious woman who’s lived a privileged life but wants to ruin the lives of others.Her own family and now the RF and Harry’s, cutting him off and encouraging him to denigrate those who loved him.
I will use my Netflix for better things.

There’s something in the back of my mind that Meghan said she had to wear beige with the royals yet she seems to wear beige/white quite frequently. Am I mistaken?

ayse

There’s something in the back of my mind that Meghan said she had to wear beige with the royals yet she seems to wear beige/white quite frequently. Am I mistaken?

No, your memory is good. She said she had to in order not to clash with other women in the family.
Actually she loves white cream and all shades of beige and brown and wears them regularly.

Boz
That journalist was bang on😄

Oreo

Boz
That journalist was bang on😄

Wasn't she just!

Doesnt interest me. It is not a programme I would watch even though we have netflix.

ayse

There’s something in the back of my mind that Meghan said she had to wear beige with the royals yet she seems to wear beige/white quite frequently. Am I mistaken?

No you’re not. She told so many porkies around that time it was hard to keep track of them.

Her ‘friends’ are a million miles away from Harry’s old life. I wonder if he has made any genuine friends of his own and not just sycophantic hangers on?

I watched the first ten minutes and that was enough for me, sorry but to be honest can't stand her voice or her..

I don’t dislike Catherine or Meghan, nor am I a particular fan, but what I dislike is the constant nastiness directed towards one and the deification of the other.
As for the surname, it’s complicated as technically Harry doesn’t have a surname. He was Wales when at school from his father, similarly William and Catherine’s children were Cambridge at school but I guess they are now Wales? Edward’s wife was Duchess of Wessex now she’s Edinburgh. it’s a royal thing. The Sussex children have Sussex as a surname not Mountbatten - Windsor which was made up by QE2 for her descendants so they all can use when it suits them. So it’s not unreasonable for Meghan to use Sussex as a surname when her husband and children do.
As for the show it’s not my thing and I wish Meghan would use her platform for something a bit more worthy, but I guess she would be hounded for doing that too.

Ilovedogs22 - William was criticised on St David's day for his pretty poor Welsh.

Just saying.

Ilovedogs22 - William was criticised for his poor Welsh on St David's day.

Just saying.

Oops.
Posted twice. 🤔
Sorry.

I think William and Catherine do come in for a fair bit of criticism. It comes with the job.

Catherine had to cope with endless comments for over a year whilst suffering with cancer. Journalists writing dreadful articles. The Sussex Squad spouting endlessly about William having an affair. Where is she? National news covering it daily. There was even domestic abuse accusations leveled at William.
Is she really ill? Is she wearing a wig? She hasn't got cancer because she's having preventative chemotherapy. Sadly there were many people who didn't know about adjuvant chemo.

I could go on and on but I won't. But please, don't say that William and Catherine don't get any grief.

Because that's blatantly untrue

Binge watched every episode last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.
You can see by her skills in the kitchen that she’s very used to cooking etc.
Well done Meghan.

Mountbatten-Windsor is an amalgamation of father/mother surnames. It’s quite usual nowadays. I know lots of children with a double barrel. I don’t know how it works when people then have children. You can’t keep adding to it can you? Or maybe you can? But Harry’s surname/family name is Mountbatten-Windsor unless he’s changed it by deed poll.

But Sussex isn’t a surname/family name. It’s a title referring to “estate” in the traditional sense of the word and not just in royalty. As in other Dukedoms. Like the Duke of Bedford family name is Russell. Harry can be referred to as Sussex but not as Harry Sussex and Meghan should be given the full title Duchess of Sussex when being addressed.

It’s all a bit antiquated and I don’t blame her for getting in a muddle with it. It’s a bit like when didn’t understand Archie and Lili not getting Prince and Princess straight away. Perhaps best not to do it n film though.

My goodness sherrieB! The Galloping Gormet!
There's bit blast from the past. 😊

Sr69

Binge watched every episode last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.
You can see by her skills in the kitchen that she’s very used to cooking etc.
Well done Meghan.

Yes indeed sr69, Well done Megan. 😊💕👍

Harry’s children have Sussex on their birth certs not Mountbatten - Windsor.

vegansrock

I don’t dislike Catherine or Meghan, nor am I a particular fan, but what I dislike is the constant nastiness directed towards one and the deification of the other.
As for the surname, it’s complicated as technically Harry doesn’t have a surname. He was Wales when at school from his father, similarly William and Catherine’s children were Cambridge at school but I guess they are now Wales? Edward’s wife was Duchess of Wessex now she’s Edinburgh. it’s a royal thing. The Sussex children have Sussex as a surname not Mountbatten - Windsor which was made up by QE2 for her descendants so they all can use when it suits them. So it’s not unreasonable for Meghan to use Sussex as a surname when her husband and children do.
As for the show it’s not my thing and I wish Meghan would use her platform for something a bit more worthy, but I guess she would be hounded for doing that too.

Well it's good to finally see you using Catherine's name.
I dislike is the constant nastiness directed towards one and the deification of the other. and yet you were the one who immediately came on with 'St Kate'? Why introduce your own nastiness if you dislike it so much? This seems a contradiction at best and hypocrisy at worst.

vegansrock

Harry’s children have Sussex on their birth certs not Mountbatten - Windsor.

If you look it up I think you’ll find they are registered as Archie Harrison Mountbatten- Windsor and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.

vegansrock

Harry’s children have Sussex on their birth certs not Mountbatten - Windsor.

www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a27506227/royal-baby-archie-birth-certificate/

This one certainly says Mountbatten-Windsor. I do remember reading that Meghan had her forenames Rachel Meghan removed so that she was just HRH Duchess of Sussex on the revised one.

It’s claptrap from me too. Can’t imagine what NF really feel having given them so much money!