What I love about this show is that it's about instincts and how to go up against them or to go with them. It's becoming more and more clear that Catherine won't be able to change Russia as she wants to because in reality her methods, intentionally or outside of her control, are not really differ from what it used to be the norm. They are more of recontextualizing and moving by an inch in a direction, just lots of nuances to show how everything changes but noting changes, and I think it can be difficult to write that kind of evolution. Russia will not change drastically, not just because the continuous isolation you still see today and what was also a problem 300 years ago, but because if you put this show and The Favourite on a timeline with Veep and The Thick of It, they can be viewed as each others predecessors. The idea of Catherine to bring up a civilization is not futile because it's impossible to do it, but because they are not as civilized as one imagines them. If you look at other countries, in the film and the shows or in real life, you will still see incompetent leaders incapable of change. These can be understood as dry satire of people wanting to stay close to the fire and the emotionless/rarely emotional sacrifices they make for it, or they can be seen fighting their instincts and limits of their make-to-believe powers. The two horses can't fuck, we don't know if they don't want to or they can't, but when they are allowed and it happens, noone cares that it happened. Marial in the bitter feud sees through Catherine's inactions and hypocrisy for real change, but so does Elizabeth and Archie who both realised stability is good, doesn't matter how it is achieved, and Catherine is merely a facade to their methods to practise their same ways of ruling by fear. Orlov's death was such a good move because it represented how ruling, Catherine's rule in this case, parted ways with the effort and possibility of real change that pushed her in the first place. Don't get me wrong, there is no great tragedy here to sink into, but the bittersweet realisations this show presents without major powerplays amaze me. Powerplays here are tertiary or lower because power is relative, but characters and their instincts about nuances framing them make everything else work.
I truly don't know how much is left of this show, and that will they break the cycle of never ending satire and Catherine will realize the error of her ways or she will stay like this and fit in the corresponding theme of incapable leaders? Because I think at this particular point both are possible, but also choosing one can break the other. Good show, interested to see how it turns out! Huzzah!
Review by EdrickBlockedParent2023-06-06T15:25:27Z
What I love about this show is that it's about instincts and how to go up against them or to go with them. It's becoming more and more clear that Catherine won't be able to change Russia as she wants to because in reality her methods, intentionally or outside of her control, are not really differ from what it used to be the norm. They are more of recontextualizing and moving by an inch in a direction, just lots of nuances to show how everything changes but noting changes, and I think it can be difficult to write that kind of evolution.
Russia will not change drastically, not just because the continuous isolation you still see today and what was also a problem 300 years ago, but because if you put this show and The Favourite on a timeline with Veep and The Thick of It, they can be viewed as each others predecessors. The idea of Catherine to bring up a civilization is not futile because it's impossible to do it, but because they are not as civilized as one imagines them. If you look at other countries, in the film and the shows or in real life, you will still see incompetent leaders incapable of change. These can be understood as dry satire of people wanting to stay close to the fire and the emotionless/rarely emotional sacrifices they make for it, or they can be seen fighting their instincts and limits of their make-to-believe powers. The two horses can't fuck, we don't know if they don't want to or they can't, but when they are allowed and it happens, noone cares that it happened. Marial in the bitter feud sees through Catherine's inactions and hypocrisy for real change, but so does Elizabeth and Archie who both realised stability is good, doesn't matter how it is achieved, and Catherine is merely a facade to their methods to practise their same ways of ruling by fear. Orlov's death was such a good move because it represented how ruling, Catherine's rule in this case, parted ways with the effort and possibility of real change that pushed her in the first place. Don't get me wrong, there is no great tragedy here to sink into, but the bittersweet realisations this show presents without major powerplays amaze me. Powerplays here are tertiary or lower because power is relative, but characters and their instincts about nuances framing them make everything else work.
I truly don't know how much is left of this show, and that will they break the cycle of never ending satire and Catherine will realize the error of her ways or she will stay like this and fit in the corresponding theme of incapable leaders? Because I think at this particular point both are possible, but also choosing one can break the other.
Good show, interested to see how it turns out! Huzzah!