The history lesson doesn’t always slide seamlessly into the docuseries, but it’d be nice to hear more from these two elsewhere, please. When slavery was abolished in the 1830s, “the slave owners were compensated enormously,” Olusoga adds-to the tune of £20 million “for their human property,” shelled out by U.K. “The very first commercial slave voyage conducted by Britain was personally financed by Queen Elizabeth I,” Hirsch explains. Journalist Afua Hirsch and historian David Olusoga offer excellent primers on how the British Empire fuelled the slave trade. Your tech skills are just fine! Takeaway #4: Somebody give Afua Hirsch and David Olusoga their own Netflix show ![]() I’m a Luddite.” Meg, give yourself some credit-we remember The Tig. Meghan’s response: “Who is prince haz?” Easier to miss is Meghan’s email signature: “Sent from my iPhone. In July 2016, after Harry got in touch, that mutual friend reached out to see if Meghan wanted to be set up with “Prince Haz,” and their email exchange flashes across the screen. (Netflix / Courtesy of Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex) Takeaway #3: Meghan is… a Luddite? There have been lots of rumoured matchmakers for their relationship-designer Misha Nonoo, Soho House consultant Markus Anderson, Ralph Lauren publicist Violet von Westenholz-but nobody saw the dog filter coming. Seriously: Harry saw a video of Meghan on a mutual friend’s Instagram, tongue out with a puppy’s ears and nose, and said to himself, “Who is that?” Then he DMed the friend to ask about an introduction. It’s cute! Takeaway #2: The Snapchat dog filter launched their courtship “ This is the list.” “Good answer,” she says. “An extensive list.” Garbus prods: “What were a few things on that list?” Harry gives his head a shake. “He had a list, apparently, of what he was looking for” in a woman, Meghan says conspiratorially. Garbus then cuts to a present-day interview with the couple. ![]() There’s a photo from their first dinner together in London, Harry with his arm around her, Meghan nuzzled up against his ear, that is lovely and joyful. Like, it’s ludicrous how smitten Harry and Meghan are. Takeaway #1: These two are really, really into each other In the meantime, here are five takeaways and three lingering questions from the first batch of episodes. Obviously-obviously!-we’ll be back for the second half of the series, when Harry and Meghan make their royal exit and, hopefully, some honest-to-goodness bombshells arrive. It’s the sort of stuff Oprah clears out of the way before the first commercial break. Harry was a half-hour late to their first date. Meghan wore beige and camel to avoid upstaging senior royals. Among the revelations: Meghan is close to her half-sister Samantha’s daughter, Ashleigh, who was adopted by her paternal grandparents 20-year-old Harry, fresh off that whole incident with the Nazi costume, met with a Holocaust survivor to listen and learn. But there isn’t a ton of brand-new information yet. It’s watchable, because Harry and Meghan are watchable (much to the royal family’s dismay), and because director Liz Garbus is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker who knows how to structure a documentary. So far, Harry & Meghan, which just released its first three of six episodes on Netflix, is not spectacular television. She wanted to know if Meghan was silent or silen ced! She wanted the dirt, because dirt makes for spectacular television-and Oprah delivered. She wanted to hear about the wretched institution. She wasn’t much interested in who rescued whom or how closely the couple’s story resembled The Little Mermaid. But it was Oprah-gliding between empathy and incredulity, doling out those strategic “What?!”s-who shaped the interview’s narrative. Harry and Meghan came to that interview with a story to tell and, understandably, a score to settle. Archie, denied his prince title by the royal family, as one unnamed member expressed “concerns” about “how dark his skin might be” once he was born. ![]() Harry, cut off by a father who stopped taking his calls. Meghan, pregnant and contemplating suicide. Last year, when Meghan Markle and Prince Harry sat down in Montecito with the Queen of All Media-sandwiched between stone columns in a fantastically lush garden, dappled in golden California light-the bombshells dropped with punishing speed. (Netflix / Courtesy of Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex)
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