The first three episodes of the documentary series ‘Henry and Meghan’ are available in Netflix from December 8th, the next three will arrive on December 15th. the docuseries it was announced as a great revelation in which the protagonists would tell their story by showing material from their private archive and indeed there is some of that, but there is also a lot of image campaign and attack against the British press, rather than against the royal family, although the latter may be implicit. We will have to see if the second part goes into more detail.
The Serie begins after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Henry of England and Meghan Markle, decided to abandon their royal duties and move with his family to the United States. In fact, the first images we see are some videos that they themselves recorded as a diary explaining how they felt. As they explain, they do so following the recommendation of someone close to them to document what they feel at that time. It is hard to think that they did not already have the idea of the documentary in mind. Those images — in which, for example, we see a casual Meghan in jeans and apparently fresh out of the shower because she’s wearing a towel turban to tie up her hair — they are interspersed with private videos in which they are seen with their children and personal interviews both together and separately, in addition to interviews with the closest relatives and friends who witnessed their relationship. Some interviews that clarify that they finished recording in August 2022, that is to say that the Queen Elizabeth II was still living. It is also noted at the beginning that the members of the royal family have not wanted to participate, so only their version is told.
‘Henry and Meghan’ also has some of the juicy content that was expected after the trailer and it is that they themselves tell how they met on Instagram from a common friend and how their first date in London to which, by the way, Enrique (better known as Harry) was late. That was in July 2016, the connection -according to what they say- was immediate and from there they began a secret and distance relationship with many video calls until he invites her to accompany him to Botswana and she accepts, taking a risk as she herself admits because she only they had seen it twice in person. Then they tell of the difficulties in continuing to see each other despite the distance because she lived and worked on the set of the series ‘Suits’ in Toronto, while he fulfilled his obligations as a member of the British royal family. Throughout the story as a backdrop is the figure of Diana of Wales and how she suffered belonging to the royal family, of which Enrique speaks as “the system”, and also about the relationship of the “royals” with the press. For him, the presence of the paparazzi is an uncomfortable reality that has been present for as long as he can remember and the docuseries reviews some of the headlines he made during a youth in which he tried to deal with the loss of his mother. In addition, without giving a name, he assures that the harassment of the media meant that his previous relationships did not come to fruition. That is why it was very important for him to hide the relationship for as long as possible until they were both sure. He knew that when it came out, the bullying would begin, but he goes so far as to say that even he was somewhat naive. with possible media reaction. One day before the exclusive, the press team notifies them and they decide to have one last night as “anonymous” at a costume party to go unnoticed.
We can say that The two central themes that are dealt with in these first three chapters are the role of the British media and latent racism in a colonialist state. that even today maintains vestiges of that system in the so-called Commonwealth. After finding out about the relationship, there is a first phase in which she seems to be well received both by the media and by the population who see the arrival of Meghan Markle as a breath of fresh air for an institution anchored in the past. Nevertheless, as its popularity begins to grow, the headlines of the press begin to be more aggressive and there the docuseries also begins to reveal that kind of verbal agreement that exists between the royal family and the tabloids. In parallel, several testimonies refer to racist traces after information referring to the origin of Meghan Markle, the daughter of a black mother and a white father, and which also alluded to her social class. Already in the Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah Winfrey They commented that after becoming pregnant, a member of the royal family commented on the fact that their child would be mixed-race.
Despite the fact that in this first part both Meghan and Enrique talk about how only they “know the truth of what has happened” or that their decision was “to protect their family” because they did not want “history to repeat itself”. Until the third episode there are no major revelations beyond showing his version of events Faced with the stories that were spread about some relatives of Meghan Markle such as her stepsister or her father when the time for the wedding approached. We will have to wait and see what the last three episodes that will arrive on Netflix next Thursday, December 15, bring.
