<\/p>\n
Altering one\u2019s art to appease critics is a dangerous and slippery slope. Yet it\u2019s one I\u2019d hoped Meghan Markle at least attempted to slide down \u2014 fork and garden hoe in hand \u2014 before beginning season two of her Netflix homemaking series With Love, Meghan<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, in the words of 18th-century poet Alexander Pope, hope springs eternal.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n The first episode of season two, which debuted on Aug. 26, begins almost exactly as the March 4 season premiere pilot<\/a>, with the Duchess of Sussex and her friend\/makeup artist Daniel Martin together in a Montecito farmhouse kitchen. The scene signals viewers are in for more of what critics mercilessly panned<\/a> the first time around. And the remaining seven episodes confirm that criticism fell on deaf ears; though, that\u2019s not completely surprising, considering it was announced<\/a> that filming for season two had been completed just three days after season one\u2019s premiere, which was pushed back<\/a> from its original date of Jan. 15 in consideration of the Los Angeles wildfires.<\/p>\n This time around, audiences at least get a tiny morsel of an explanation as to what Markle is attempting to accomplish with the show by way of a conversation with episode four guest, chef Samin Nosrat, who makes an offhand remark about how she loves the \u201cchaos\u201d of Markle\u2019s kitchen because it\u2019s \u201chow people actually cook.\u201d The word \u201cchaos\u201d doing quite a bit of heavy lifting to describe the perfectly prepped space in which they\u2019re making chicken and bread salad. The Duchess, however, doesn\u2019t miss a beat, replying, \u201cThat\u2019s the thing, is to just be real about it and let\u2019s work with what we have as opposed to going, \u2018Here\u2019s a recipe,\u2019 [and] I have to go to the store [or] order all these things.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOr you feel really sad because you maybe don\u2019t have every single thing,\u201d Nosrat retorts.<\/p>\n As genuine as that concern likely is for Markle and a handful of her viewers, the actual real thing is the average American home doesn\u2019t have the chicories chef Nosrat noticed in the kitchen that made her eyes light up at the thought of making Zuni Caf\u00e9\u2019s famed salad, much less a well-maintained garden from which they can whimsically pick an assortment of flowers for an afternoon bouquet-making arts and craft session, as took place with David Chang and Christina Tosi in episode one, or organic vegetables for the fresh green juice with which she greets chef Clare Smyth, who designed her wedding menu, in episode six.<\/p>\n Nor do I think anyone who has the patience to sit through each 45-minute episode feels sad about that. In fact, I\u2019d wager audiences wouldn\u2019t mind Markle slyly reminding us how broke we are through her lavish California-country living \u2014 is it not that unattainability that has led viewers to tune into 10 iterations of the Real Housewives<\/em> franchise for two decades? But rather than fully lean into her reality, it\u2019s as though Markle is trying to occupy the space of the middle class that we as a society know no longer exists \u2014 and she wouldn\u2019t be a part of anyway \u2014 making the twice-failed attempt at relatability in the series all the more painful to watch, again.<\/p>\n It would appear some guests got the memo that it\u2019s not okay to be themselves either, as a historically outspoken Chrissy Teigen presents a muted version of herself in episode two. The most interesting thing to come from her is that she has each of her four children\u2019s birthdates tattooed on her forearm, because she can\u2019t remember them otherwise. That said, there\u2019s a marked difference in entertainability between the guests who are assumed to be playing by the rules and those who say \u201cto hell with them,\u201d like Tan France, who in episode three, seems to help Markle bring out her true personality a bit by being his naturally vibrant and inquisitive self.<\/p>\n It\u2019s in this episode that Markle reveals her husband, Prince Harry, said \u201cI love you\u201d first, and that she also shares how hard it was being away from her children for nearly three weeks one time \u2014 \u201cI was not well,\u201d she says \u2014 though she doesn\u2019t utter the reason, which has been deduced as being the time she and Harry\u2019s stay in Europe was unexpectedly extended due to Queen Elizabeth\u2019s funeral in 2022.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also at the end of that episode that France smears a glob of Greek yogurt mixed with green tea on his cheek, recommending it to Markle as his natural go-to face mask. She looks on unconvinced, replying \u201cOkay\u201d with a tone that lets us know she absolutely will not be following suit, which I\u2019d argue is one of her most authentic moments. Because, why would a woman married to an abdicated prince (with whom Netflix just \u201cextended its creative partnership<\/a>\u201d to include a first-look deal for all of their company, Archewell Productions\u2019, film and television projects, as well as Markle\u2019s \u201cAs Ever\u201d lifestyle brand) need or want to make her own skincare?<\/p>\n That interaction begs a larger question of whether Markle really spends six days making homemade bread for her houseguests in a manner viewers are supposed to glean inspiration from to do, too \u2014 as evidenced by the cooking and crafting tutorials interspersed between guest interactions. Or is this all one very expensive and beautifully shot Suzy Homemaker-esque ruse? The truth not nearly as material to the show\u2019s success as is the need for viewers to actually care about the answer.<\/p>\n It\u2019s perfectly fine for Markle to be unrelatable, though I\u2019m not sure she knows that; however, the absence of that ingredient makes the richness of the entertainment factor in this series all the more important. Unfortunately, the show lacks an engaging draw on that front as well, with its safe conversations that just barely surpass small talk. Without both, season two of With Love, Meghan<\/em> is as sour as the first.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Altering one\u2019s art to appease critics is a dangerous and slippery slope. Yet it\u2019s one I\u2019d hoped Meghan Markle at least attempted to slide down \u2014 fork and garden hoe in hand \u2014 before beginning season two of her Netflix homemaking series With Love, Meghan. Unfortunately, in the words of 18th-century poet Alexander Pope, hope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1982706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[356066,356069,34395,356068,23067,356067],"class_list":["post-1982705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-alexander-pope","tag-daniel-martin","tag-hollywood-reporter","tag-hope-springs-eternal","tag-meghan-markle","tag-samin-nosrat"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\u2018With-Love-Meghan-Sticks-to-Original-Recipe-in-Season-2.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1982705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1982706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1982705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1982705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1982705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}