Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace. The Television Movie

HARRY & MEGHAN: ESCAPING THE PALACE

I often say that a Part III will be either a disaster or the harbinger of a greater disaster. The third and final part of the Sussex Trilogy more than lives up to that idea. Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace is one of the worst things ever to be broadcast in human history. This love letter to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has no redeeming qualities, nothing to say that anyone should watch it outside of psychological torture.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (Jordan Dean) is still haunted by the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales (Bonnie Soper). It is to where when he dreams of his mother's fatal car accident, it is not Diana whom he sees crumpled. It is his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (Sydney Morton). All that Meghan and Harry want to do is make the world a beautiful place. Unfortunately, all criticism against them is based purely and solely on racism. Harry is enraged that his brother William (Jordan Whalen) will not release endless statements against the racists who criticize Meghan. For his part, William is at most noncommittal on the subject.

Meghan, for her part, is collapsing emotionally. The strain of the never-ending racism, sexism and anti-Americanism within and without the British Royal Family and its supporting institution is leaving her emotionally spent. Just like his mother, Meghan is on the verge of a total meltdown. Soon other resentments come the Sussex's way. Harry is displeased at the criticism that they get for spending three million pounds on their small Frogmore home while William and his wife Catherine (Laura Mitchell) can spend five million. On their trip to Africa, Harry realizes that they have to leave The Firm. Surprisingly, it is Meghan who thinks this is wrong.

Nonetheless, the blocks against all the good that the Sussexes want to do leave them no choice. The Firm will not grant them permission to have a "Sussex Royal" brand that they can market, not even a Sussex Royal webpage. Harry is desperate to get out. Dropping a bombshell on his father, Prince Charles (Steve Coulter), the Duke of Sussex gives his father, the Prince of Wales, a ten-minute warning before announcing what was dubbed "Megxit". 

William is quietly enraged at his younger brother. Harry is more popular than William. William is jealous of his sister-in-law: her intelligence, her class, her compassionate, her kindness. The so-called Sandringham Summit did not please everyone, but now Harry & Meghan will now be free. At last, they in their California exile can speak "their truth" to Oprah, a final mirror between Harry's mother and wife.

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace premiered on August 6, 2021. Oprah with Meghan and Harry premiered on March 7, 2021. This is an important, if not vital detail. I figure that the two previous Harry & Meghan Lifetime films were rushed into production to cash in on the wedding and anniversary. This five-month difference, however, is a surprising turnaround time. I figure that you need time to cast, write a screenplay, gather your crew, make the film and edit it before releasing it; five months to my mind seems an incredibly fast production.

As such, I am highly, highly suspect that Escaping the Palace was de facto Sussex propaganda. It is so openly and shamelessly pro-Harry & Meghan that at one point, I did ask, "Who produced this, Harry and Meghan?". Everything that Harry and Meghan did was good. Everything that everyone else did was bad. I do not know a production where the protagonists were painted in such a way that you end up surprised that you did not see them literally walk on water. 

As a side note, I cannot help noticing that in the Oprah interview, Meghan gets top billing. I do not know why that detail stands out to me. It just does.

Escaping the Palace went out of its way to showcase that the villain in this drama was none other than Prince William. I'm genuinely surprised that screenwriter Scarlett Lacey and director Menhaj Huda did not give the-then Duke of Cambridge a mustache to twirl. I'm also suprised that Lacey and Huda were not taking literal dictation from Harry and Meghan about what to put in the film. It would not surprise me if it ended up that Lacey and Huda collaborated with the Sussexes the same way that they allegedly collaborated with Omid Scobie, a British reporter who cowrote Finding Freedom, which is seen as favorable to them.

William's scowl, his lack of sympathy for the almost divine Meghan Markle, his refusal or reluctance to welcome our bright light of California sunshine, all show him as a cold man. If Escaping the Palace is to be believed, William comes dangerously close to agreeing with all the racists who mock his sister-in-law. This William is a cold, emotionally disengaged figure, one who will not bend on anything. He, for example, refuses flat-out to have lunch with his brother prior to the Sandringham Summit. William does not even want to go and would like to see them cut off entirely.

The villainy of Prince William is such that on their final official engagement, he very pettily had the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's names removed from the program. He also had them sit with Commonwealth officials rather than the Royal Family if memory serves right. All this one-sided animosity, from what I understand, is driven by William's blinding jealousy towards Meghan. Meghan, in short, can be a star, while William will have nothing. 

I cannot help but think that Escaping the Palace had almost a vendetta against the-now Prince of Wales. "You're a disruptor," he tells Meghan to her face when the Sussexes learn their names were stricken off the program. Honestly, it would have been easier if Escaping the Palace had shown William literally shooting at Meghan. 

Even if all that Escaping the Palace showed was true, the entire production has such cringe to it that it was genuinely painful to watch. The film has some truly awful bits of dialogue that no actor could have made them sound anything other than pretty groan-inducing. Meghan has been made guest editor of British Vogue magazine, where she will profile history-making women. Ever professional, we see her typing away, laser-focused on her work.  Harry comes in to see his wife looking admiringly at the various females who will be profiled as Forces of Change. "All these women are going to bend the arc of history," Meghan wistfully notes. Harry, looking like a besotted puppy, adds, "Just like you".

It is a pretty nauseating moment. I do not know of any husband who would make such a statement short of coercion. Many things will Meghan Markle, or Sussex, or Mountbatten-Windsor, or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha will do. "Bend the arc of history" is not one that comes to mind. Become a failed podcaster, she will do. Host a lifestyle show where her guests will praise her, she will do. Sell jam online, she will do. Bend the arc of history, though?

As if that was not laughable enough, we get this monstrous bit of dialogue when news of them stepping back as senior royals hits the headlines. "Megxit. Like it's all your doing. Like you're the wicked witch, stealing their beloved prince because he's no mind of his own". Thus spoke Harry, and that bit is all kinds of wrong. I understand that this is meant to communicate what Harry thinks is the public impression. However, it is too on-the-nose to be believable. It suggests less genuine thought than it does the production's perceptions about the public's perceptions. 

Escaping the Palace has so many awful bits of dialogue. Perhaps the nadir of all this is when they go on that African tour. Surprisingly, it is not Meghan's lament of "I couldn't even speak my truth without all these caveats", the Firm pushing against Meghan's insistence on reminding people that she is a woman of color. It is when Harry decides that they must leave the Firm. As portrayed in Escaping the Palace, Meghan is the voice of reason, urging her husband against even the mere suggestion of stepping away. He insists that he is leaving the Firm, not the family.

"But the Monarchy is a family," she says. Harry responds with "So is the Mafia". It is a ghastly thing to say. Had I been Prince William, I would have been incensed that my brother was comparing my family to a criminal organization.

Escaping the Palace hammers hard on making Meghan the new Diana. We see constant flashbacks and flashforwards between the two, whether suffering breakdowns while pregnant or speaking candidly to the press about their troubled lives inside the Palace. Oddly, the effect is not to make one sympathetic and see the parallels between the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Sussex. It ends up coming across as calculating on Meghan's part, attempting to force a parallel to her very stupid husband.

There are no performances in Escaping the Palace. I want desperately to believe that Jordan Dean can actually act and was not cast because he is a pale man with bright red hair. Again, the dialogue would test the skills of any actor. However, there were times when I genuinely wondered if Dean was trying to make Prince Harry Scottish. He and Sydney Morton are out third Harry & Meghan, and both are awful. Simply awful. Morton is so blank as Meghan that one would have liked for her to go on a rampage just to see her be anything other than saintly.

We do have some returning cast members from past Sussex films. Jordan Whaley is back as Prince William, making him the villain of the film. Laura Mitchell completes the trilogy as Catherine Middleton. She still looks more like Sarah Brightman than Catherine, Princess of Wales to me. She also made Catherine this bit of a dimwit. One scene has her having her nails done while Meghan discusses important matters. 

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace is as close to pro-Sussex propaganda as one can find outside Sussex Squad fanfic. Terrible in every way (acting, writing, directing, the sappy score), this is enough to make one yearn for the evenhanded tone of With Love, Meghan. As I conclude this Sussex Trilogy, I never figured that each succeeding production would get progressively worse. Then again, perhaps that is a reflection of how the general public sees Harry & Meghan now.

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