With Love, Meghan. A Second Overview

WITH LOVE, MEGHAN: A SECOND OVERVIEW

Mentions of "Joy": 12 

Mentions of Flower Sprinkles: 4 

Passive-Aggressive Moments: 8 

Gushing Praise for Markle: Infinite

Did With Love, Meghan have one or two seasons? Like why a crêpe feels more special than a pancake, that question may never be answered to everyone's satisfaction. This is what is established. There was a total of eighteen half-hour episodes of With Love, Meghan filmed and released on Netflix. A set of eight episodes were released on March 4, 2025. A second set of eight episodes were released on August 26, 2025. As of this writing, I have seen only the first (batch/season) of With Love, Meghan. With halfway to go, minus a Christmas special threatened for release later this year, I look on With Love, Meghan and I wonder. 

I wonder, not about the specialness of crêpes vs. pancakes. I wonder about why With Love, Meghan exists at all.

The set up of the first eight With Love, Meghan episodes follow a simple pattern. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, tells the film crew about the special guest that will be dropping by her rented home/studio. She then informs them why they are coming and what they are going to do. It almost always is someone that Meghan knows or has heard of. Once the guests arrive, our hostess with the mostest will almost always guide her guests into some cooking or home decorating adventure. On occasion, she will have a professional chef by her side. Said chef will almost always praise the Duchess' mastery of the culinary arts. Meghan may also talk to the production crew about various tips and tricks to improve one's life. 

It could be her guide to farm fresh eggs. It could be on the subtle art of making balloon arches for children's parties. She even tells us of wonderful machines that will blow up the balloons with air, so you won't have to blow them up yourself. If you need to make lavender towels or beeswax candles for your friends, Meghan Sussex is your go-to gal pal. If you have ever wondered about how to style crudités or have the perfect floral arrangement, the Duchess of Sussex is your key to success.

With Love, Meghan is in some ways admittedly fascinating to watch. It is fascinating to see a self-exiled member of the British royal family express excitement about beeswax candles or wax rhapsodic about freezing edible flower sprinkles to use for ice cubes. There is something fascinatingly bizarre about the premise of With Love, Meghan.

I think part of that oddity comes from just the title itself. With Love, Meghan captures what Mrs. Sussex really and truly wants. She wants to be loved. Not just loved, I figure, but admired, respected, adored. She wants to be taken seriously as a domestic doyenne. She wants the world to see her as an elegant, sophisticated lady. She wants everyone to see that classy yet relaxed side of living that she curates.

With Love, Meghan suggests that she is essentially doing all of us peasants a favor. She is gifting us her entertaining acumen. I cannot help imagining that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex sees herself as a guiding light to the art of elegance. We, the little people, will be able to host wonderful children's parties thanks to Meghan Sussex. So, what if the gift bags that she proposes as parting gifts contain gardening tools for the little tykes. Don't all children love to garden? 

The end results of her efforts so far sadly do not make her that mentor of elegant living. Somehow, she comes across as less of a relatable Martha Stewart and more like a more neurotic Wallis, Duchess of Windsor.

I am not the first to make comparisons between Rachel Meghan Markle and Bessie Wallis Warfield. Both are nouveau riche American divorcees who married into the British Royal Family. Both married a popular and beloved Prince of the Blood who became less popular, if not reviled, after said marriage. Both eventually became exiles from Britian. Both obsessed over money. 

There are differences. Whatever Meghan's faults, she never knowingly cavorted with Nazis. Well, Harry did dress up like one once, but I don't think that counts. Whatever Wallis' faults, she never trashed the Windsors, at least publicly. Mrs. Sussex sees her position, tenuous as it is, as a platform to use. She appears to crave fame and fortune. Mrs. Windsor (using Meghan's methodology on surnames) kept a more dignified silence on most if not all matters. She might have craved fame and fortune, but she would not deign to hock homemade preserves. Had such a thing existed at the time, it is doubtful that the Duchess of Windsor would have posted Instagram pictures of her pugs. 

Wallis may have metaphorically (or perhaps literally) danced with Hitler, but she would not be caught dead hosting something like Wallis' Workshop. 

As for the show itself, With Love, Meghan has issues. I have long held that Markle's acting training works against her as hostess. She cannot engage the viewer. When she speaks, she looks not at the camera but at the crew. She sometimes does not even appear to look at her guests. This lack of connection prevents her from building rapport with the viewing audience. It gives the impression that she is talking at us versus to us. She comes across as someone who is not there to help. Instead, she comes across as someone who is there to lecture us.

For all the efforts at being a Martha Stewart, Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor brings to mind something from the Stewart television biopic Martha, Inc. Smugly berating K-Mart executives, Cybill Shepherd's Stewart tells them, "That's why I'm here: not to sink to your level, but to raise you to mine". I genuinely can imagine Markle saying such a thing.

Markle also struggles to come across as sincere with her guests, even the ones billed as "friends". A low point was when The Office actress Mindy Kaling stopped by. Kaling gushed endlessly to Meghan about Meghan. It was a sorry sight, something that looked like it was out of a hostage video. However, when Kaling called her "Meghan Markle", that set the Duchess off. To be fair, Meghan was not slapping Kaling. However, her "you know it's Sussex now" monologue came across as wildly passive-aggressive. She seemed irrationally defensive about the whole matter. It was uncomfortable to watch.

However, I think the nadir of the first half of With Love, Meghan was when one of the three professional chefs that she welcomed basically told her that she was doing something wrong. Chef Ramon Velazquez corrected the Duchess' handling of chicken. The stunned look on Meghan's face is revelatory. She had more passive-aggressive moments when throwing shade at Velazquez, making sharp-edged quips about his work. Again, she attempted to make them sound lighthearted. I doubt anyone would have taken them to be so.

I think Markle's manner when told that she was doing something wrong and being corrected in front of others, reveals a great deal. It reveals a sense of superiority that no amount of edible flower sprinkles can mask. Judging from With Love, Meghan, she truly believes herself to be an expert on the art of entertaining and sophisticated living. She appears to not believe that she can do no wrong in the kitchen or the garden. 

Perhaps her barely concealed hostility at having her hand metaphorically slapped is not surprising. I think just about every With Love, Meghan episode is chock-full of her guests heaping endless praise on her. Every guest, even all the chefs sans Velazquez, told her how wonderful she was. They told her how amazed they were that she even knew who they were. They told her how brilliant she was in cooking, in caring, in baking, in playing mahjong. 

Do people really want to watch endless episodes where the guests all Marvel at Markle?

I do not know if viewers actually learn how to entertain the Successful Sussex way. I figure most people would think it odd to take peanut butter pretzels from one bag and put it in another. I think people would be puzzled at the suggestion of gardening tools as birthday party favors. I also imagine that people would not actually write out the names of their guests to know which mason jar corresponds to said guests. 

What do people learn from watching With Love, Meghan? The one thing that has stuck with me is to not freeze those edible flower sprinkles in tap water. The ice cubes will become foggy. 

Meghan Markle, or Meghan Sussex, or Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor, makes for a bad television presenter. She comes across as remote, brittle, someone who actually does not like people. She never looks the viewer in the eye. She sometimes does not talk to her guests but at them. Her words of inspiration and proclamations of "JOY!" sound either forced or downright insipid. Try as she might, this Duchess Hostess with the Mostest does not look joyful to have people around her.

That is, unless they heap almost cartoonishly hilarious praise upon her. So far, Vicky Tsai wins the "It's the JOY of My Life to Be in Your Presence, Meghan" contest. Not that there weren't strong competitors for that crown. Mindy Kaling repeatedly said, "I LOVE IT" to everything Meghan said, suggested or did until she got Sussex-slapped. Polo queen Delfina Figueras told Meghan to her face that she, Delfina, was obsessed with Meghan's face. 

Tsai, however, was on a whole other level. I doubt making potstickers would have someone declared worthy of four to five A pluses. 

I suppose the sight of seeing people trip over themselves to declare the wonders of Meghan Saxe-Coburg and Gotha is worth stopping by With Love, Meghan. For myself, the best part of With Love, Meghan was when Chef Ramon Velazquez, humble cook, politely but firmly corrected the royal hand when it comes to tearing up chicken meat. The look of disbelief on Mrs. Sussex's face and her barely contained rage via passive-aggressive quips certainly would Elevate the Everyday.

With Love, Meghan Season One or Season One: Part One is cringe television. Watching her do some bizarre seaside-shanty type jig while talking about how "the best ships are friendships" will make people wonder whether Meghan Surname-To-Be-Determined is really human and not an audio-animatronic figure. 

I close this overview and begin reviewing the second half of Season One or the whole of Season Two of With Love, Meghan by quoting Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, herself. 

"AHOY!"

Average Episode: 2.5