Yes, it's Packed with Absurdity, Extreme Hosting and Self-Help Jargon. However, I Honestly Love Meghan's Festive Episode.
No considering the season, it's always hunting season for criticism on the Meghan Markle's Netflix series, With Love, Meghan. Reviewers, expert and amateur alike, have hardly ever agreed so completely as when gleefully ripping the program's first and second seasons to shreds. The common opinion held that a bigger monarchy-related faux pas had seldom occurred than the much-discussed pretzel re-packaging incident.
Presently, as a festive rebel, she has returned with a new offering with a "Christmas Special" (or a holiday episode). But this time, the dynamic has changed. The familiar ingredients viewers are accustomed to – psychobabble word salads, intense hospitality – are still present, but set of a holiday show, the purpose becomes clear. The pieces have fallen perfectly; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
At this stage, Meghan has become the quirky relative at most festive family gatherings – offering unsolicited, unnecessary advice, and supplying the periodic peculiar declaration. ("I love spinach!" … "A tradition has to have a beginning." … "A tree is part of my memory and love of the holiday season.") She's quite a personality, but her aura is known and unexpectedly soothing. And she appears happy enough; she's inflicting a bit of damage.
She understands her every micro expression, utterance and gaze will be analyzed and criticised, but nonetheless looks relaxed and serenely untroubled.
Perhaps this is the first occasion in history where that well-worn saying – "Pay no mind, it's only envy" – could actually be true. The reason is, in all honesty, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration truly is delightful. Yes, it's all painfully excessive, nonsense and flamboyant – but is that not just what Christmas is about? And the words she speaks might be laughable, but the example she sets genuinely looks beautifully curated.
Whatever she sets her mind to, she pulls off with flair. Her cooking looks delicious, the festive decoration she crafts is breathtaking, her gifts are almost too pretty to tear into. Not a single thing is average or aesthetically displeasing – even the way she secures her kitchen garment is creative and fashionable. She doesn't throw a meal in the microwave, it "takes a twirl", and she wraps wrapping paper like an origami guru. She also seems to be genuinely relishing herself throughout. How could any skeptical viewer not be convinced, bursting with seasonal cheer and left with a powerful yearning for crafted festive snaps or a vegetable display where greens is organized in the shape of a Christmas ring?
Meghan had a career in acting for a living, obviously, but nonetheless, after the level of examination she has endured from the moment she started dating Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of acting royalty would have difficulty behaving this genuinely. Her decision to alter or even moderate her routine, even though it being so relentlessly, internationally ridiculed, is strangely reassuring. In our volatile world, here is one thing we can count on: Meghan will remain herself, no matter what. We will always know where we are with her.
If you're not yet convinced by what she's selling, a point that will surely come as a comfort: you don't have to. We don't have mandatory conscription in this country, and if there were, it would be doubtful to include watching With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, on the other hand, you decide to tune in and are consumed by envy about her flawless Christmas, you can take solace either. If you are a duchess or a data administrator, hardly any child fully understands the effort and hard work their parent puts in in December. So you can console yourself by picturing her children's faces when they open a handwritten message that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a homemade Advent calendar, in place of a sweet treat.
