Review of Hulu’s “The Great”
Bears, Bullets, and Backstabbing. Not all is well in the court of peter.
HUZZAH! The Great is out now on Hulu and it's a blast. A period piece set in Russia somewhere in the mid 1700’s. A vaguely historical piece of television that revels in displaying comedy and intrigue through acts of conversation, sex, and violence… lots of violence. This is not a kids show folks!
The show follows Catherine (the Great, played by Ellie Fanning) in her rise to power as she joins the Russian court of an incompetent Emperor Peter, her now husband. Catherine gains a few very close friends at the start of the show and after seeing the horrors of her husband's bad leadership, starts planning how she could build a better Russia.
Each episode is about an hour long and it is not a background show, you will have your eyes glued to the screen. With the occasional CGI bear and the set/ costume design being as spectacular as it is, you must find some way to watch this show.
"[With] shows about women, I think people want a 'strong female character!' I'm allergic to that,” Fanning says. “Catherine doesn't always have the right answer. Sometimes she's not the strongest or bravest person in the room. —[She] make[s] mistakes. Those are the characters I want to see. I wanted to make sure Catherine fit into that." Hearing words like this from the actress herself is so refreshing. Taking a powerful character like Catherine and treating her seriously as this show has, it's unbelievable and I love it.
Each character displayed here in the great is given ample screen time. You can feel that the people on and off the screen truly cared for this project and pushed to make it polished. For example, Marial (played by Phoebe Fox) is one of my favorite characters. A lady who starts as a maid to the new empress and, without any spoilers, blossoms beautifully throughout the show. She has many connections to other unexpected characters, and her motivations are presented clearly.
The show can get a little real at times, with portraying how men in the seemingly ancient world of the 1700s will treat women as though they are much less than human. So anyone going to watch this should be aware that it is a period piece and there are a lot of dumb men galavanting around and treating women like objects. For instance Emperor Peter practically rapes Catherine on her first night in the palace. Yeah. The show is filled with badass women to balance this fact out but nonetheless it's there.
In direct opposition to that previous point, my absolute favorite part of the show is Peter's aunt, Elizabeth. She is wonderfully free with her sexuality, which is not defined in the show - probably because she doesn't need to define it for herself - and she doesn't care who knows it. Aunt Elizabeth always feels like she's raving mad in the best way possible. I believe the first time we meet her she is trying to train butterflies ( yes you read that right ) to spell out Catherines name as a surprise. She has… limited success.
“-originally the script was a screenplay” says Nicholas Hoult who plays Emperor Peter in an interview with Gregory Ellwood. Many other actors have stated this same thing and it makes me very happy to know that they made this into a massive 10 episode, nearly 10 hour miniseries. For one of the draws of a show like “The Great” is that time we get to spend with the astounding cast of characters.
Movies don't have enough time to really dig deep and flesh out each character's motivation. But when you have 10 hours to spend showing each side of the coin, you get a spectacular work of art that refuses to release you from its gleaming grip. “The Great” is a show I finished faster than many others, and I'm sure you will too.
At a glance:
The Great
Starring: Ellie Fanning, Nicolas hoult, Phoebe Fox
Summary: Catherine the great takes over russia
Rating: TV-MA
Streaming On: Hulu
Rating: *****
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