This season was sooo overly sexualized, that I think writers missed the mark on what we liked about the show in the first place and just thought the formula was to just "make sex references every 10seconds". Other than that great costumes as usual
Even though I'm very vaguely aware of some real-life history, I felt we'd strayed far enough with also the chemistry between Fanning/Hoult so strong that I thought they would just keep it going and forgot about that bit of history by mid-season 2. So Episode 6 just completely blindsided me, with my immediate aftermath reaction basically the mix of Catherine/Grigor. Episode 6's post-event and the whole Episode 7 are emotionally rough, especially with Fanning' performance.
But it's about time too, because as much as I feel the performances and scene-by-scene writing of the season's first half remain strong, the overall arc of palace push-and-pull between Catherine and Peter starts to feel repetitive, even if the underlying romance still makes it not too stale. That mid-season big event jolts some urgency into the narrative, so the season's latter half ends strong.
Shout by TerrenceBlockedParentSpoilers2023-06-16T11:06:15Z
Peter will be missed, but i hope this comes back for another season.