All is good, or at least entertaining, in the court of Catherine the Great! Hulu has recently released the trailer for season three of The Great, promising the newest episodes will be everything and more than the previous ones. During the second season of this comically eccentric series, Catherine (Elle Fanning) established her role as Empress, reluctant wife and new mother.
The conclusion of season two saw Catherine run to embrace her husband, Peter (Nicholas Hoult), after believing she had fatally stabbed him, while actually having wounded a doppelganger. The reason behind this assassination attempt? Well, Peter did sleep with her mother and simultaneously murder her. As well as this, it also saw the arrest of the nobles that were plotting to overturn Catherine’s reign with the shocking addition of Marial (Phoebe Fox), Catherine’s closest friend, and the exclusion of George (Charity Wakefield), one of Peter’s doting supporters.
Season three’s trailer has shown season three will pick up on these dilemmas after a short time jump. The trailer opens with an amusing, historical take on modern marriage counseling; the couple reflect on the upheaval their union has caused—both on themselves and Russia. As if conjured by the tension, and downright bloodshed, of their previous transgressions, the trailer reveals not all are happy with the progressive nature of the Empress. Fanning even reflects on The Great’s tendency towards the outlandish: “It’s an extremely specific style that takes a while to get used to. We tread a very thin tightrope between tragedy and laughs.”
Catherine simultaneously must juggle the mending of her relationship, a peasant uprising and the violent debauchery we have come familiar to within the palace walls. Peter is shown in a new light as well, with him acting as a confidante to his powerful wife—be it an unhelpful one. This is confirmed by creator Tony McNamara to Entertainment Weekly, “the third season is very much about the court and about the next level of leadership for Catherine and Peter deciding what sort of guy he’s ultimately going to be.”
Hulu will release the next glorifying installment of The Great to our screens on 12 May 2023 with the main cast set to return. Huzzah!
Words by Phoebe Coombes
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