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The second season of Meghan Markle’s lifestyle series “With Love, Meghan” released all eight episodes on Tuesday, weeks after the royal couple signed a new deal with Netflix—but as with the first season, critics are not impressed, with reviews ranging from “baffling” to “intolerable.”
“With Love, Meghan” season two released Tuesday, five months after the first season debuted on Netflix to scathing reviews from critics and viewers, earning just a 38% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
In the lifestyle and cooking series, Markle invites celebrity friends, professional chefs or other guests to a farmhouse near her home in Montecito, California, where they cook together as Markle occasionally offers revelations about her life as a royal and her relationship with Prince Harry.
In season two, Markle’s guests include Chrissy Teigen, whom Markle once worked alongside as a briefcase holder on “Deal Or No Deal,” and a brief appearance by Teigen’s husband John Legend.
Other guests who appear in the show’s second season include “Queer Eye” co-host Tan France, celebrity chefs David Chang, Samin Nosrat and Christina Tosi, and British life coach Jay Shetty.
In a two-star review, The Guardian critic Lucy Mangan slammed the series as “so painfully contrived that it’s genuinely fascinating.” Mangan called the series “boring,” but by the end, “you find yourself wondering things you would never normally wonder, such as, what would it take for me to embark on making vegan macaroons?” The Times of London critic Hilary Rose urged viewers to “start therapy now,” stating it “never becomes apparent why we should be interested in watching” any of Meghan’s culinary or fashion pursuits. Rose called the series “baffling,” stating it “occupies the sweet spot where irrelevant meets intolerable” and is “an advert for somewhere we’ll never go and aren’t invited.” In another two-star review, The Telegraph’s Anita Singh criticized the series for “tone-deafness” and branded Markle a “Montecito Marie Antoinette,” stating she “emerges from her house to find that the production team have created an ‘impromptu flower mart’” for her, suggesting the show is inauthentic. The Independent roasted “With Love, Meghan” in a one-star review, stating watching the show is like being “gaslit by a multimillionaire,” noting “recipes are only half explained” as if “they already know that no one in their right mind is going to attempt this stuff.”
Netflix and Archewell Productions, the production company founded by Markle and Harry, announced earlier this month they had signed a new deal under which Netflix has already said it will produce a holiday episode of “With Love, Meghan” and a film adaptation of the novel "Meet Me at the Lake.” But the New York Times reported the deal is worth less than the deal Archewell Productions signed with Netflix in 2020, which was reportedly worth $100 million. The new deal is also lower-commitment, as it gives Netflix the first shot at streaming Archewell-produced content, whereas under the previous deal, Netflix paid them for the exclusive rights to all their content. Before announcing the new agreement, rumors had swirled in tabloids that Netflix had cut ties with the royals. Aside from Markle’s lifestyle series, Archewell Productions has also backed multiple documentaries for Netflix, including “Heart of Invictus” and “Polo.”
Since stepping back from royal duties in 2020, Markle and Harry have embarked on various media ventures, though not all have clicked with audiences. Markle launched a short-lived podcast for Spotify, “Archetypes,” which aired just 12 episodes in 2022. Spotify and the royal couple cut ties in 2023, and days later, Spotify’s podcast executive Bill Simmons slammed them as “grifters” on his podcast. “I have got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories… F— them,” Simmons said. Harry, however, shattered nonfiction book sales records with his 2023 memoir, “Spare,” though it was met with mixed reviews from critics.
Harry And Meghan Sign New Netflix Deal After All—But For Less Than Previous Mega-Deal (Forbes)