H+MFLIX: THE FIRST THREE HOURS...

... And My First 20 Takeaways (No Fries With That)

1)   For anybody who thinks Harry is somehow being ‘held hostage’ by ‘manipulative Meghan’… FORGET IT. They are both crazy-bonkers in love, inside a big co-dependent bubble. Harry is going nowhere. This really is his Best Life

2)   They both absolutely 100% sincerely believe that ‘their truth’ is ‘the truth’. Nothing is going to sway them from that course because everything they are (not to mention everything they ever want to become) is entirely invested in the narrative of their ‘Lived Experience’. (Which is definitely Harry’s favouritest phrase)

3)   It’s suddenly clear that, before they met, they were (to mangle a lyric) TWO LOST SOULS SWIMMING IN THEIR RESPECTIVE FISHBOWLS, YEAR AFTER YEAR… Together, though… wow-boom! Suddenly — ‘IT’ ALL MADE SENSE. (If only to them)

4)  So, Harry offered Meghan both the fame and the family - however dysfunctional - she craved but had never really had, while Meghan offered Harry a worldly further education he’d never have acquired from a home counties girl with a double-barrelled surname. Plus, obvs he fancies her madly

5)   Which is fair enough, because she is gorgeous

6)   However, it’s not even Meghan’s beauty that’s the biggest draw for Haz — no, he himself admits (in what is arguably THE key quote of the entire piece so far) ‘So much of what Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mum…’

7)   And while that’s the key to this relationship, it’s odd that Harry appears to be completely fine with marrying his mum… apparently so he can then ‘save’ her from… well… from the kind of negative outcomes that, in turn, would never conceivably have happened if she’d remained a C-list TV actress and not married the youngest son of the sainted late Diana.

Basically, this is a psychological can of worms I am wholly unqualified to open — but, I mean… scream emoji!

8)  Anyway, they both genuinely believe they are healing each other from their terrible wounds. And that’s as may be — good luck to them. Unfortunately, however, where they see pain, great swathes of the rest of the world sees endless privileged navel-gazing of the most tediously Californian variety. In fact, what they should really do is spend a week on The Hoffman Process and then move on with the rest of their lives*. Though of course they can never ‘see’ this version of their ‘truth’ simply because privileged navel-gazing is literally What They Do…

9)   … When not collecting awards for their extraordinary humanitarian work. There’s a lot of footage of this kind of self-aggrandising stuff…

10)              While William and Kate have their Earthshots and Early Years Foundations, for all their yadayadayada good intentions H+M haven’t actually done very much at all in their married lives except have a couple of kids and talk about themselves a lot. This is because they’ve been married for less than five years — though for us it feels sooooo muuuuuuuch looooooonger

11)               There is footage of the couple leaving a New York event via the underground garage, jumping into the back of their car and being driven away. Filmed from inside the car they are constantly, obsessively, peering over their shoulders checking for chasing paparazzi. We, however, can’t see any paparazzi so it looks absurd. You watch it and think ‘er, well, why not try ignoring your (imaginary) paps?’

12)               I have it on good authority that, after separating from Charles, during weekends away with friends in the 1990s, Princess Diana would obsessively leaf through the papers, checking every inch of her coverage (it would take up quite a chunk of Sunday mornings). This seems to be a habit that has rubbed-off.

Again, it's impossible not to shrug and think ‘why not just try ignoring all this stuff if you find it so upsetting?’ Especially when obsessing over it as much as they clearly do comes across as a painful variety of addiction. So much for curating your own mental health…

13)                It’s interesting to hear from Meghan’s mum, Doria (‘I’m ready to have my voice heard, that’s for sure’)… though (so far) we’ve heard remarkably little. Still, I do think she is a bigger influence on Meghan’s worldview than we might previously have suspected. That shouldn’t come as a surprise however because we’ve never previously heard from the Silent Yoga Guru, it does

14)               So, Meghan’s High School graduation ceremony was held in The Hollywood Bowl. I mean, even by LA standards, surely that’s a bit weird?

15)               Harry did a really rubbish job of preparing Meghan for life inside the royal family. As M herself says, of meeting the Queen for the first time, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’ When Harry asked her if she knew how to curtsey, ‘I thought it was a joke’.

That is so his bad.

16)               The tinkly piano music that accompanies all the sad-face-emoji footage is wall-punchingly annoying

17)               That absolutely ENORMOUS-yet-bland room with the arche(well)d windows and the sea views—the one where Meghan is filmed solo a lot… please tell me that’s not their home, just a shoot house?

18)               There’s not only a selfie of them on their second date but also — gobsmackingly — actual audio of Meghan on the phone to a girlfriend literally at the precise moment where she peers out of the window at Kensington Palace and spots Harry setting up his marriage proposal …  at which point Meghan whispers down the phone ‘oh my god, it’s happening!’.

This totally out-Kardashians the Kardashians

19)               There are several random clips of ‘eccentric’ chaps wearing Ruritanian-style fake ‘uniforms’ with lots of frogging, the kind whom you invariably see on local TV hovering on the fringes of big royal occasions. They are the blokes who carry trumpets and/or handbells and unfurl fake parchment scrolls while declaring ‘Hear-ye, People — verily the Princess has birthed herself a Baby Boy!’

And you can tell that whoever has sourced these clips thinks this is actually, genuinely how we live in Olde Englande. (It’s conceivable, of course, that both H+M think so, too). Which is fair enough, because how can Americans be expected to tell the difference between Brian-from-the-garden-centre-in-his-special-costume and, say Black Rod? Or indeed, everybody who was marching during the funeral of Her Majesty

20)               Whenever it actually comes to pass, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that, after this show(er), Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s pet project — aka The Commonwealth — is basically over. Personally, I think that’s fine and that King Charles should probably hurry things along. However, I do hope David Olusoga doesn’t take all the credit…

(*And let us move on with ours)

And finally… here's me chatting all things H+Mflix with Bev Turner on GB News this morning: https://www.gbnews.uk/royal/harry-meghan-make-the-kardashians-look-shy-and-retiring-in-netflix-show/403325