I Watched Meghan Markle’s Net flix Show and Need a Lobotomy

This Week

I survived Meghan’s Netflix show.

Best White Lotus moment ever?

This could save the country.

A perfect casting idea.

Thinking of Dolly.

Who Is Meghan’s Netflix Show For?

There’s a scene in the first episode of With Love, Meghan, Meghan Markle’s new Netflix homemaking series, that I rewatched immediately after I first screened it. The clip has been shared—and reshared, commented on, and shared again—on my social feed this week, and I watch it each time I encounter it. What I met at first with disbelief I now greet as if it’s a balm each time I see it; this scene has become a bewildered comfort-watch.

The moment in question comes as Meghan preps a welcome tray for a house guest she’s about to have. She prepares her own recipe of bath salts. She puts flowers in vases. (So, so many flowers.) And then, there’s the moment I can’t get enough of. It’s announced as a major hosting tip with great fanfare—or at least as much bombast as Meghan’s muted presence ever delivers in the show.

She then proceeds to grab a bag of what appears to be Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels, take the pretzels out of the bag, and put them in another bag, which she then labels “peanut butter pretzels.” That’s it. That’s the big party trick, the secret of a royal millionaire and one of the most famous people in the world for hosting, the glimpse into what it would be like to be the houseguest of a person of such glamour, stature, and mystery: Take things out of one labeled bag and put them in another.

On the one hand, I could watch Meghan take pretzels out of one bag and put them in another bag all day. On the other hand, I’m mystified how this is what I’m watching at all.

When it comes to With Love, Meghan, how could a show that would undoubtedly be greeted with such scrutiny be so utterly innocuous? In an age of TikTok tutorials and personality-driven cooking shows, it’s a failure at both being particularly instructive and at giving us any glimpse into the “real” Meghan—let alone any sort of personableness or starpower that we’ve, for whatever reason, been deprived of seeing.

It’s not entertaining or revelatory. The series is as sanitized and low energy as just about every other entertainment product—be it a podcast or docuseries—that we’ve had from the Sussexes thus far. It is, essentially, taking the same Meghan from one bag and putting it in another.

It’s important to clarify that I don’t harbor the intrinsic, sometimes baseless hate that so many do when it comes to Meghan, whose every career move or appearance seems to be met with a thundering global ire. I find her generally likable and, often, serene as a celebrity presence; she’s hardly a fireworks show of charisma, but that’s not a mortal sin in showbusiness. The transgression here, and with so many other projects, is that, each time, we’re being sold that we’re about to witness Meghan and her family be “real”—and it never rings as anything beyond woefully inauthentic.

This is a homemaking series in which Meghan talks constantly about the things she loves to do when hosting in her home, the gardening she loves to do at her own home, the fruits and vegetables and herbs she loves to pick at her home—and it is not filmed at her own home.

Each episode begins with Meghan hyping how thrilled she is to cook and craft and throw parties with her friends, with her busily making tea and food for them to eat when they visit. She and the show are open about the fact that they’re filming on a set, but there’s a strange tension between her desire to show-off how she’d do things at home…and not being at home.

There’s also never been a sense that Martha Stewart levels of cooking and hosting has ever been a passion of Meghan’s—at least not one that’s been telegraphed to the public before. Combined with her somewhat insecure camera presence and clear discomfort with having to babble on narrating every task she’s filming, you’re never convinced that arranging pieces of fruit into the shape of a rainbow for a kids party or making candles out of local beeswax for her friend are things that she is enthusiastic enough about to merit an entire TV show.

Some of the projects are objectively cute. She has gorgeous handwriting. Netflix owes Mindy Kaling a bonus for injecting the show with sorely needed humor and a hunger for gossip in her episode—leading to the headline-making news that Meghan has adopted the last name Sussex, the same as her children’s. But around what seems like the 45th time she makes an egg dish or garnishes yet another dessert with edible flowers, you can’t help but think, “What’s the point of all of this?”

We learn few new things about Mrs. Sussex and, frankly, even fewer homemaking tips that I’ll try on my own. However, Meghan’s much-talked-about homemade jam is given a special guest star spot in many episodes, and it looks legitimately delicious.

Meghan, you couldn’t convince me to be a fan of your show. But you’ve earned a new jam customer.

Today’s Top Entertainment News

Give Her a Special Emmy Award

If you or anyone close to you is watching The White Lotus, that means that a solid 70 percent of conversations you had this week were about the dinner scene where the three rich white ladies talk about Trump. And I don’t mean 70 percent of conversations about The White Lotus. I mean all topics of discussion.

And rightfully so.

In the scene, Kate (Leslie Bibb), Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), and Laurie (Carrie Coon)—three lifelong friends reconnecting after too long apart at a wellness resort in Thailand—find their conversation turning to politics. Kate and her husband are now pillars of their community in Austin, whereas Jaclyn lives in L.A. and Laurie in NY.

Kate first stuns her friends with the revelation that she goes to church every Sunday. Moreover, she actually likes the conservative Texas community that religion has made her a part of. Once it comes out that Kate’s husband is a Republican—to Jaclyn and Laurie’s great relief, Kate swears that she’s an Independent—the obvious question has to be raised: Did Kate vote for Trump?

The smile that Bibb gives in response to the question made me shriek. You could tell me the moment lasted for a split-second or for 30 minutes, and I would believe either one. What a perfect expression of smugness, exasperation, belittlement, and irritation—plus about a dozen other emotions—all at once. “Are we really gonna talk about Trump tonight?”

Someone on social media likened the three actresses’ performances in that scene to “a best supporting actress in a drama series Emmy-off,” and I couldn’t agree more. And while I would be hard-pressed for which woman—or their co-star, Parker Posey—would deserve a trophy more, I do have to argue for a special tribute at this year’s ceremony to Bibb’s smile alone.

If the Oscars can make me sit through that interminable James Bond segment, the very least the Emmys can do is this.

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The Winner (Me) Takes It All

I know God is out there looking after me, because every time the chaos of the world becomes so overwhelming, depressing, or infuriating—or, lately, a toxic combination of all three—that I want to move to a cabin in a mountain and hide away from it all forever, he throws me a little something to boost my spirits. To look forward to. To make my entire personality about for a given period of time, to the extent that my friends and family’s tolerance will be truly tested.

That happened this week with the announcement that Mamma Mia! will be returning to Broadway this summer.

There is no greater experience a human can have that seeing Mamma Mia!. I have seen productions in different U.S. cities—heck, different countries, even—and can speak as an authority on this matter. Oh, you don’t like musicals? You don’t like ABBA? NONSENSE! Mamma Mia! is immune to such lazy dismissing. Mamma Mia! appeals to all.

Pictured below: Me marching everyone I know to go see Mamma Mia! on Broadway for a 14th time.

I had a conversation with friends recently about how whenever someone starts a statement with the phrase, “Now more than ever…,” you’re about to hear them say the most absolutely cringe-inducing, annoying, and quite frankly, meaningless thing. Well, friends, now more than ever, I think what the world needs is Mamma Mia!

A Cast of Snowflakes

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong is making his feature directorial debut with a new movie starring Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith. Would you believe that they will play a group of billionaire friends? Shocking subject matter for the creator of Succession.

More interesting to me is that the film will shoot in Park City, Utah, aka the ski town a stone’s throw away from Salt Lake City. Jesse Armstong, if you don’t seize this opportunity to populate every scene with at least one cast member from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, you don’t have any business making this movie. Perfect entertainment is right there for you to take advantage of. It wouldn’t even be hard to get them to set. Just put a bottle of Vida tequila on the craft services table, and they’ll show up. Don’t worry.

What an Amazing Love Story

Dolly Parton’s husband of 60 years died this week. Sixty years. What a truly amazing life together. Obviously, every post Dolly has made about it has made me cry, especially this one:

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed

The Righteous Gemstones: The final season goes out in filthy, raunchy glory. (Sun. on HBO)

Eephus: Terrible movie title; great baseball movie. (Now in theaters)

Mickey 17: Turns out that two Robert Pattinsons are not better than one. (Now in theaters)

Daredevil: Born Again: Quick thought: Maybe we should just let him die. (Now on Disney+)

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