After not-very-successful documentaries about polo and the Invictus Games, With Love, Meghan (available now) carries with it a sense the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been casting about for ways to fulfil their Netflix contract.
The show doesn’t really make clear what it’s about, kicking off with Meghan and her beekeeper checking out a hive. But it soon becomes clear that, for episode one at least, the focus is to be on “the joy of hostessing”.
This is complicated by the fact that – presumably to prevent stickybeaks from judging her décor – our hostess is hostessing from someone else’s Montecito mansion. We see Meghan prepare a greeting tray featuring home-made bath salts and popcorn, plus shop-bought peanut butter pretzels – a down-to-earth move somewhat undone by their prompt transfer into a different, fancier, plastic bag.
Her guest – nervous-looking make-up artist pal Daniel – shows up to be greeted by an arty looking crudité platter. “Every time I leave your house I gain like 10 pounds,” he quips, tucking into a pea. He’s put to work on a ‘single skillet spaghetti’, which looks pretty good, though we don’t get precise enough instructions to be able to faithfully copy the recipe.
The pair’s bantz leaves something to be desired: “This is literally cozy,” says Daniel of the pasta. “It’s like that Beyoncé song,” Meghan shoots back: “Cozy.” Yep.
After constructing beeswax candles, they move on to a cake. It looks good and the recipe is spelled out this time, but viewers seem more likely to have tuned in for gossipy titbits (Harry pops up in the final episode) than icing tips. Meghan seems as good a cook as she is a TV presenter – which is to say not brilliant, but not bad either. For her rabid fans and nutjob detractors alike, With Love is likely only to confirm existing biases.
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