I won’t stop reviewing each episode of The Great just because the series won’t come back once the season ends. I am anticipating grief and sharing the pain of the characters. Of course, they’re crying for Peter (Nicholas Hoult), which freaks out Marial (Phoebe Fox).

We had left Catherine (Elle Fanning) when she was still in one of the stages of grief: denial. She managed to omit her husband’s death for a frantic 24 hours, but the inevitable could no longer be postponed. We see a divided Court: those who are genuinely sorry for Peter, those who are already trying to navigate without caring what happened, and those who celebrate the end of tyranny. Catherine instituted divorce in Russia and the immediate effects are unexpected, triggering the same mixed feelings she faces with unexpected widowhood. She is now in the stage of deep depression and just as her manic onset of the past week brought instability to her realm, so does her torpor.

Marial is fighting to slap – literally – the freedom of Grigor (Gwilym Lee), who can now divorce Georgina (Charity Wakefield). Unexpectedly he walks in doubt. Marial is a new life, but Georgina is all her past, one she shared (also literally) with Peter. From what we see at the end of the episode, he may have come to a conclusion. We have already commented on this, another dispute between Marial and Georgina is the ears of Catherine who is strangely close to her former rival. They have a torturously frank conversation about Peter in which they forgive each other for their love for him. By the way, if you made it to the end of the episode without crying, congratulations.

Tony Mcnamara‘s text is stunningly precise, short, and emotive, and in Peter and the Wolf, which plays with the Russian fable, he plays with every narrative inversion they gave us in The Great. Peter is scary, cruel, and downright villainous when we first meet him. Elizabeth (Belinda Bromilow) explains to Catherine that this monstrous version of Peter was the result of a childhood of physical and psychological abuse, which requires perspective before judging him. Something that Grigor also defends because he witnessed everything as the Emperor’s best friend since childhood. However, Peter does not help us and it is complex to differentiate evil from trauma. Unlike History, The Great‘s Catherine eventually succeeds and the two effectively fall in love. In this deviation, we have Marial as the voice of reason, revolted by the emotional manipulation that Peter manages to exert precisely on the two people she loves most. No matter how many times she repeats everything bad he’s done – and the list goes on – anyone who falls under Peter’s spell (audience included) is bordering on insanity.

And here is my only issue with Marial. What she says is right. Even the dislike she feels for Peter until the end, but her anger at not being able to “wake up” people makes her insensitive and aggressive. And worse, her attitudes in general are not based on reason, but on the advantages she gets, and that had Peter as an opponent. At no point did she confront the real problem without seeking something for her own benefit. Catherine, who is very isolated, doesn’t listen to her, but she doesn’t condemn her. But it is Grigor who now draws the line. Marial screams that she can’t lose to Peter again, but it’s his defeat. Again, a turn by an extremely intelligent and sensitive author, without losing humor at any point.

We end the credits with Yazoo‘s hit Only You (post on the way!), only to have us fall into the trap of loving Peter and Catherine. A crushing defeat by Marial.

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