The Royals season premiere
We open with party girl Princess Eleanor, who spent the night getting coked up and drunk, then dancing on tables. She of course then fell, flashing her crown jewels at someone's camera phone. Prince Harry may sympathize.
Anyway, it's little wonder she took a turn about the table. She's wearing an ice-skating costume made of tinsel. It's only natural she'd attempt a few toe loops.
The Royals season premiere
Then we cut inside to this sanctuary, wonderfully unmarred by dumb pig farmers, and Sarah Bunting: Turf Toe, and any number of other such inanities that invade our enjoyment of Downton Abbey's spaces. A butler no one cares about tells King Simon -- whom no one cares about yet either -- about the sudden death of his son Robert, the heir to the throne. And no, we don't care about HIM yet, either. We don't even see his face. I understand the idea of launching us into the show with a family tragedy, but the problem is, none of it MEANS anything. The death of the heir would be a GREAT midseason or end-of-season-1 trick to pull, when we actually know the characters better and the Oh Shit moments have more heft. The effect is that we're being dropped into the middle of something dour and rather drunk.
The Royals season premiere
Prince Liam's security guard wakes him up by calling out to him AS "Prince Liam," which is asinine, because he'd be "your Royal Highness," and then "sir." Or just "Liam" if we're to believe these guys are friends, which they are. "Prince Liam" is SUCH Exposition 101. They might as well have had the dude walk in and say, "Excuse me, Prince Liam, but your father King Simon and your mother Helena, who are your parents, would like to chat to you about your older brother Robert who is one heartbeat ahead of you in line for the throne. Care to chat in the ruling palace that is in England which is one of the many nations over which your family presides? Much obliged."
Prince Liam has just woken up from a drunken dalliance with Ophelia, daughter of Ted, the head of security, and hopefully soon to go elaborately insane. THIS isn't satisfying EITHER because it means there's literally no sexual tension nor potential payoff. They already did it. Off-camera. BORING.
The Royals season premiere
Elizabeth Hurley plays Helena, who is married to King Simon of A Whole Mess of Countries of Which England Is One. Not that you would know it. I believe I counted eight times in which central characters say "the King of England," or "Queen of England," or "the English crown." Right now the rest of the UK is like, "Um, HELLO, IS THIS THING ON? Except actually, we're okay with being left out of this, so carry on." And while I understand that the producers probably don't care and are leaning on the colloquial... sigh. Because I CANNOT IMAGINE Queen Elizabeth II throws out the rest with the bathwater. She'd never be so cavalier as to sit around talking to Phil about "the English crown" unless she is referring to an actual specific piece of hardware in her vault. There's no really easy short write-around for the whole title., but as someone who just had to deal with that... you could just say "the King." Because WE KNOW WHERE THEY ARE. WE KNOW IT IS NOT PLANET UNICORN. WE HAVE EARS. [I'm sure someone will hoist me on my own petard with this, but... whatever, I will risk it anyway.]
Helena is extrmely cranky with Eleanor when her daughter chips herself out of the limo and tumbles through the door. "ROYAL BEAVER," she reads in her classic clipped tones. "My daughter, the princess, behaving like a common whore," she hisses, in case we still aren't clear on how everyone's titles work here. (Question: Do the Brits use "whore"? It felt really American coming out of Hurley's mouth right there. Not as much as if she'd said "hooker," but for some reason I expected "prostitute." Educate me, Fug Nation.)
The Royals season premiere recap
Eleanor and her single long earring of frosty lovelessness blurts out, "Robert's dead." And looks a lot like Kristen Stewart while doing it. If you told me they auditioned people for this part who all used to be Twilight impersonators, I'd believe you. Although at least Eleanor's KStewness gives her a watchability.
The Royals season premiere recap
Liam, on the other hand, is no Harry. In fact, he's something of a limp biscuit. Not to be confused with a Limp Bizkit.
As he sprints through the palace -- ALONE -- we get a totally random wild line of VO from Ophelia here that she'll "never forget the look on his face" when he found out his brother died and he was the new heir. That she isn't in this scene and never narrates anything again is extremely jarring, and makes me wonder how many time this pilot was butchered in the edit bay.
The Royals season premiere recap
This is actually exactly the way I like to imagine Kristen Stewart at home. ESPECIALLY if it turned out Kristen was secretly related to Martha.
Eleanor and Liam are apparently twins. Although I read that on the Interwebs. If they mentioned it here, I was too busy nodding off to notice. They have a low energy and chemistry-free scene here -- well, she's trying; he looks like he's trying to figure out where all the other little dishtowels live so he can go there -- which ends with Liam saying how close she was to Robert, and her tossing off a very American, "This sucks, huh?"
The Royals season premiere recap
Welcome to Blenheim Palace, birthplace and ancestral dwelling of Winston Churchill. It now sits with the dukes of Marlborough, and owes its current grandeur to the restorative fortunes of one Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married the 9th Duke in what Wikipedia deemed "typical of socially advantageous, but loveless marriages of the Gilded Age." So basically, she's the Cora to the duke's Robert. It's clearly a wretched building that must be razed or be a blight on mankind forever.
The Royals season premiere recap
This is how I shall be mourned. I know it to be true.
There's a bit here about Helena taking a tiny moment of grief before shaking it off firmly. "When a mother loses her firstborn son, I believe she is allowed to grieve," says Simon, who sounds a bit like he was told this was set a century ago. "Not when she is the Queen," hisses Helena. Well, technically she ISN'T. She is either the queen consort, or Queen Helena, consort to King Simon, because he is the king regnant and she is his spouse. Camilla Parker Bowles and Duchess Kate will have been schooled about THAT distinction by now, over and over again. Helena calling herself Queen feels about on par with Michelle Obama being like, "We are the President of the United States!" to Barack. Although hey, maybe she does. I don't know her life. I do know she can't put that on letterhead though.
The Royals season premiere recap
I was referring to these two as Peach and Pear after the twins in What A Girl Wants, until I looked up that their names are Penelope (okay) and Maribel (that is... a reach for the British aristocracy, no?). They are King Simon's dilettante nieces, and are the moronic comic relief. They tumble out of their car and greet everyone with complaints about flying coach with their seventeen dogs or whatever, and then one of them remembers Robert is dead and says, "Like, no fair." They're horrible but a hundred times more entertaining than the others because they are actually LIVELY and have personalities, even if said personalities are "thick as two planks that have been nailed to a stack of a hundred other planks."
The Royals season premiere recap
This is Cyrus, King Simon's younger brother, and the man we are meant to believe fathered Peach and Pear (sorry, that's going to take some adjusting for me). That is some strange casting. He looks like their creepy older brother. And his motives are as checkered as his outfit, and equally subtle. Eleanor sidles up to him before the wake and says, "I'd have thought you'd be happy, Dear Uncle," because clearly there is no other way we could ever have sussed out who this mysterious person is. She snarks that now he only needs Simon and Liam to die before he reigns. "Oh, and me too," she adds. He blithely suggests that drugs or syphilis will kill her before he can. Seriously, it is a good thing she called him "dear Uncle," in the end, because this entire scene both sounds and FELT like the two of them were NOT related and instead having secret hate sex in a closet.
The Royals season premiere recap
These two bump into each other at the pre-wake cocktail hour, or whatever, and seem totally perky and not at all hung over nor grieving nor in any way affected by anything other than some hard-working shine serum. It's completely tonally strange; all you need to know is that they're both basically using this as an excuse to twinkle at each other. Grief can't kill the libido, I guess. "Whatever, my brother is dead and I'm going to be king of a bunch of places no one remembers but MIGHT I SMELL YOUR HAIR SOMETIME?"
The Royals season premiere recap
Apparently the Palace Gates, IF they exist, have been thrown open to the public for a memorial. A memorial that proves totally lame and almost entirely off-camera. They all parade out of the front door and stand around in a line looking taciturn...
The Royals season premiere recap
... and randomly accompanied by Ted of Security and his daughter and her kicky Grief Hat, which is the equivalent of Charles inviting his personal secretary's kid to hang out on the balcony with them during the Trooping of the Color. As in, IT WOULD NEVER. Also, they all hate her because she's American AND "common." Helena would have locked her inside.
The Royals season premiere recap
God, and then this wet rag. Where did all his hair come from? Is it like one of those tiny novelty sponges that starts out tiny until you put it in water?
The Royals season premiere recap
And then suddenly there is ONE REPORTER and her TV CREW standing around doing interviews while the assembled masses are totally silent. She says, "Prince Liam, it is with heavy hearts that we offer our condolences," and a) WE KNOW THAT'S HIS NAME PEOPLE; b) she would call him "your Royal Highness," and as a British TV reporter she would know that unless she is secretly Bridget Jones; and c) on the occasion of the death of his brother I'm fairly sure they'd use a spokesman, but okay, for dramatic purposes, let's go with this. I know he is going to be King Liam, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith. But would they really pick the blandest washcloth in the cupboard?
The Royals season premiere recap
This bit of stage business was amazing. I don't know if I hope it was planned, or that it was organic: As Helena tries to lecture her children about not being sniveling morons, she cannot wrangle that veil to save her life and ends up practically spitting it out of her face.
Helena is in the car with Liam and Eleanor, and they're accusing her of not being sad enough and being more worried about their images and her Botox levels than Poor Dead Faceless Angel Clown Robert. "At least I'm not slumming it with the help," she says. "She's so PLAIN." Didn't that JUST happen? Might've been nice to see the dastardly H find out about it. And what ensues is super unappealing for the opening act(s) of your show about already PROFOUNDLY unlikable people. Helena notes that perhaps locking children in the Tower was the right idea, and Liam retorts that he thinks Henry VIII was onto something when he beheaded some of his consorts ("one for being fat," he claims, and I am not sure what version of H8's history he's reading, because Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard were NOT beheaded for that, and the one whose appearance he did revile -- Anne of Cleves -- was one he actually remained somewhat friendly with post-divorce). "They always take the good one," Helena snits, and I think she's referring to The Heavens snatching the child she actually liked. The whole scene is supposed to be bitchy-funny and instead what's basically happening is that she hates her kids and wishes they were wasting away in captivity, and Liam just suggested he'd enjoy his mother having her head cut off and plonked on a spike. It's SO MUCH HATE for so early.
The Royals season premiere recap
And then we cap it all off with Eleanor. She's the Poor Little Rich Princess, right? But we have no clue WHY she's miserable, what made her that way, no kernel of sympathy for the sadsack. And so when they're discussing the lack of specifics about Robert's military death, she comes up with: "Whatever it was, good for him. If you ask me, Robert was the lucky one." Yes, suddenly, the brooding brat wishes herself dead because her life is SO MISERABLE because... what, she has a mean mother and a dullard of a twin? None of this suffocating self-pity is making me curious about her inner pain. It just makes me want to throw a shoe at her face. Which, incidentally, in this light looks like ten years older than she is.
The Royals season premiere recap
What is King Simon doing? Hugging and learning. And maybe shopping for a replacement child. Shouldn't Prince Soggy be out there living up to his birthright, instead of sullenly pouting in a car while Charles did all the glad-handing? Harry would NEVER. Especially not when a small child needs a hug.
The Royals season premiere recap
Obviously they cap off their day of grief with a big dinner with chandeliers that look like they were floated in from Hogwarts.
The Royals season premiere recap
Liam idiotically invited Ophelia to join in this intimate family moment. That Ophelia said yes actually makes me dislike her -- it's NOT YOUR BUSINESS RIGHT NOW, Ophelia -- and also she shows up late and they're all already eating, which is insane. But it's just a gambit so the show can exposit the following: She was born in England but raised in America because it was "safer," which... is that because her father is like the Royal Family's Secret Service? Does that really affect HER that much? I mean, I guess if her father trots her out at royal funerals and stuff, but that's kind of on HIM.
The Royals season premiere recap
But then King Simon drops the bomb: He has been thinking about it, and right here, right now, in front of an employee's kid, he'd really like to float the idea of abolishing the monarchy entirely. He'd like to push for a referendum. Peach and Pear are horrified. "Can they DO THAT?" they squeal. "Have you ever heard of America?" oversimplifies Cyrus, at which point the girls panic that they don't want to be American and "walk around like Justin Bieber with no shirt and [their] trousers hanging off." Eleanor points out that Bieber is Canadian, right as Canada thought it was going to be let off the hook for that one. I cannot believe JUSTIN BIEBER and his nationality are suddenly a plot point on this thing.
The Royals season premiere recap
Cyrus thinks King Simon is idealistic for thinking he understands what the people want instead of a monarchy. He also gets to sneer at Ophelia for being of lesser station, because he is Prince Obvious. If anyone needs an anvil that says "HE RESENTS YOU ALL BECAUSE HE IS THE SPARE," just lightly tap him on the shoulder and one will shoot out his nostril.
The Royals season premiere recap
Obviously, the next step is for King Simon to put on the impenetrable disguise of a cap, and roam around London being pensive. Then he removes the cap right in the shadow of Big Ben. You drama king, Simon. You so want someone to come up to you and be like, "You look totes famils; are you on Game of Thrones?"
The Royals season premiere recap
I hope this implies that Ted -- not a particularly British nickname -- and Ophelia, as father and son, live inside Big Ben. Or even better, behind the Countdown set.
There's a lot of blah-blah about how Ted doesn't think Ophelia should see Liam, and she pretends she has no interest in sponge-bathing herself with the dampest cloth in the realm. She then accuses him of not caring about her dead mother because he never goes to visit her grave. Sadly, Ophelia is not a great actress, and the whole Dead Mother gambit is tossed off so ham-fistedly that my heartstrings fail to vibrate even a little.
Also, in their first scene, they both REPEATEDLY refer to each other as "the Head of Security and his daughter" or something of that ilk, because I guess our attention span is five seconds? And Ted here is the first person to drop the ol' "King of England" chestnut. Scotland has a LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS, YOU GUYS.
The Royals season premiere recap
Simon returns home via some random back door ALONE and into this totally empty kitchen. Mrs. Patmore would have a stroke. "Is that the King of England skulking about?" Eleanor asks her father "I don't know," he replies. "The script has been maddeningly vague on this matter."
Eleanor is stoned, having partied with Peach and Pear for a bit, and insists to Simon that she's on his side about chucking the monarchy and moving into a Bed Bath & Beyond with Liam. She tells him she thinks he's a groovy dude, and then asks if she disappoints him, and he lovingly tells her that he sees in her those same qualities that she admires in him. "Don't medicate all that wonder," he says. That is my new comeback to everything. Instead of "Don't harsh my buzz," it's, "Ew, don't medicate my wonder."
The Royals season premiere recap
Simon then pops upstairs to his furious wife, who lists her week's grievances: Royal Beaver (incidentally, that epithet for vagina is also fairly American, no?), then dead son, and finally,a husband who "wants to abolish the only life I've ever known." Pet, unless you and he are sibling spouses, then this isn't the only life you've ever known, as you were not raised inside the royal family. I guess if her mother is titled -- and she is, we shall learn later, made-up though it may be -- then you could argue abolishing the monarchy AND thus the peerage would... but you know what, I am giving too much credit.
Simon says that Robert was only in the military out of obligation to his station in life, and so basically wanting to rub out the throne is all because Simon is super bummed out. This is a really flaccid reason for social change. I'm beginning to see where Liam gets his moistness. THEN Simon mopes that their family is a huge mess. "I'm not sure ending this will help, but staying the same will destroy us." Or, you could... I don't know... parent your remaining children? Repent for not doing anything with them the first time? You can't unbreak a glass, Simon. You're already in the public eye. If you quit being King, you'll just be followed by paparazzi who want the story on your miserable family's new life in a shed on the Isle of Man. It will suck just as much.
Helena agrees. She says, "The English crown [UGGGGGH]" has withstood a lot more death than this, and adds, "You are the King of England, goddammit. Act like it." He growls that he IS. And maybe that's true, because he himself is from England, and therefore he's not thinking about what abolishing in the monarchy would do to anyone or anything else -- like Wales, Scotland, Oz, the whole Commonwealth. You guys, it's not The England Games. It's The Commonwealth Games. When in doubt, look to sports.
The Royals season premiere recap
More down-the-nose acting from Elizabeth Hurley, as she tries to warn Ophelia to step off Liam -- via threatening her father's job -- and Ophelia is noncommittal. "You're the Queen of England. I get it," Ophelia says. NO SHE ISN'T. "I AM the Queen of England," Helena retorts. NO YOU AREN'T. YOU MARRIED A KING. NOT THE SAME. Helena makes a dig at Ophelia's dead mom and then tells her to curtsy. "I would, but my mother never taught me how," Ophelia sasses in what has to be the worst mic drop in history. It's basically like, "YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, DEAD MOM IS STILL DEAD."
The Royals season premiere recap
Are Liam and his security dude -- who has the worst fake accent in the entire show -- just hanging out in some random local pub? Or is this supposed to be a staff pub on the palace grounds? I am confused. Also, Liam's hair appears to have a new fancy idea in every scene.
The Royals season premiere recap
This was as upbeat as you can imagine from the look of it. Subtle, too: Ophelia is in an angelic (yet truly ugly) shirt-dress and Eleanor has skull boobs. They share a bottle of wine from the palace cellar, and Eleanor tells Ophelia some story about how during her thieving phase, she would run across Ted on the same bench in every park sobbing his guts out... basically, it's the touching story that convinces Ophelia to go hug her father and WHOOO CARES. As she leaves, she tells Eleanor that she is a badass, and Eleanor says to herself forlornly, "No, I'm just a bitch with money and power." And I still don't feel sorry for her and I'm not that interested in her pain. So far she's JUST a spoiled brat who's bummed out about how she's a spoiled brat, but hasn't given any good reason for why she has to be that way, so... yeah. Also distracting: She kind of looks like Brenda Walsh here. Brenda Walsh would just go off to Paris and fake an accent.
The Royals season premiere recap
Conveniently, Eleanor DOES go off to Paris. First, she stops outside the Palace gates to talk to The Dead Pilot Robert as if these flowers from the people are at his actual gravesite. Also, she's outside the gates, and it's seven-deep with flowers, but NO PEOPLE ARE THERE. AT ALL. No photographers, well-wishers, tourists, vagrants, nothing. This London is such a quaint place. Eleanor tells HER new security guy, Jasper, that she wants to go away. "I've never been to Paris," is what I believe she says, even though she was there at the beginning of the episode (per the tabloid headline) and heads out to exactly the same club.
The Royals season premiere recap
"It's the future King of 16 out of the 53 member rates of the Commonwealth of Nations, Head of the Commonwealth, and Supreme Governor of the Church of England," Ted of Security does not say.
The look on Ted's face here suggests that he's not enjoying the smell of wet towel that just invaded his clock tower. Boringly, Ophelia and Liam boringly agree to boringly go out for coffee sometime. Boringly.
The Royals season premiere recap
And then I guess these two find a quiet place to chat with a view of the London Eye, so they can discuss the dissolution of a centuries-old social strata in front of a landmark that's all of 15. King Simon says he wants his children to have "a life lived, and not destined," and then drops the nugget that Ophelia's mother was somehow killed because of him. I still don't know when she was killed. Maybe when O was very young, and THAT'S why it was "safer" for her to go to America? Anyway, Simon then craps on Ted -- "he chose duty over love" -- and Robert, for choosing honor. Even though Simon himself didn't particularly offer any alternatives, and also, honor and serving in the military are not bad things and CERTAINLY not tantamount to death sentences in every case. Way to darken the idea of service, there, E!
The Royals season premiere recap
Eleanor wakes up with Jasper and casually informs him that he's totally going to get fired for this, and gosh, she's so sorry, but whatever, he's no Edward Cullen. Jasper then reveals he roofed her, and then videotaped everything she did, so he can blackmail her for all eternity. How much of what she did can be WORSE than what the tabs already had on her? Her Hot Messitude seemed pretty unambiguous already.
The Royals season premiere recap
But, you know, it's always nice to (almost) end your pilot with a shot of a naked girl quivering on the bed, having just been told she was drugged and thus violated. The only particularly nice thing I have to say about this is: The set designer clearly spent a LOT of time making sure the headboard pattern fit in seamlessly wit the matching one on the walls.
The Royals season premiere recap
These two go hunting, while Cyrus presses Simon about whether he's really serious about blowing everything up. Cyrus asks what Simon wanted to be. "No one's ever asked," he said. "I'd like to have been a fisherman." Cyrus's answer? "King," he says, and then as Simon walks away, Cyrus raises his rifle and takes aim...
The Royals season premiere recap
... and shoots just over Simon's shoulder. "That was close, brother," Simon says...
The Royals season premiere recap
... to which Cyrus replies, "Long live The King," with the most OBVIOUSLY EVIL EXPRESSION AND TONE. If you are plotty, don't go around ANNOUNCING IT TO EVERYONE. That only works if you are Darth Vader, and even he skulked around for a bit first.
The Royals season premiere recap
Ugh, these two. They meet in the palace to go out on a date to some coffee shop in the middle of London -- RIGHT -- and then he throws open the doors and A PRESS SCRUM IS RIGHT THERE. Like, DIRECTLY on the doorstep. Of the Palace. So there was nobody by the Pile of Sad Flowers, where Eleanor was loudly speaking to her dead brother, but all of a sudden every photographer and reporter in the country is gathered outside with a finger raised to the doorbell? Step one: FIRE TED OF SECURITY.
The Royals season premiere recap
Hurley hates this. She hates it so much. She also can't believe none of those yahoos looked up at a turret and thought, "Oh, look, there's Helena stroking her extension and looking like she wants to MURDER." I do love that this shot makes it appear as if Hurley is wearing NOTHING except that fur stole. I have decided that is the truth, because if her mother is going to be played by Joan Collins, then we need SOMETHING that they have in common.