Editor’s note: The below contains major spoilers for The Great Season 3.The Greatreturned last week with Season 3, allowing loyal fans to return to monarchical Russia under the reign of Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning). The series follows the life of the iconic empress as she battles against her husband, her subjects, and everyone in between to seize and maintain power over the country. The show has always hadlittle regard for historical accuracy, instead opting for a campy romp through the gilded age of Russia. Catherine is surrounded by political infighting, cultural revolution, and sexual tension as she attempts to solidify her reign, creating an entertaining — if somewhat misleading — narrative.
In the third season, Catherine faces some of her biggest challenges yet. After failing to kill Peter (NicholasHoult) at the end of the season, she has realized she is in love with him and is committed to making their relationship work. This proves even more difficult than killing him, as she tries to balance motherhood and family life with the complex conflicts that come along with governing a country (especially when everyone else sees your husband and son as the rightful rulers). Plenty of drama unfolds over ten episodes, and major deaths and plot twists have left many wondering: is this a fitting end for the series?
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Too Many Major Characters Have Been Killed
One of the best things about the show is its cast, both in terms of actors and the characters they play. Taking place in a royal court reminiscent of Versailles, the plot relies heavily on having a healthy number of scheming nobles. From the beginning, Catherine has had some very clear allies and enemies, but in Season 3, these dynamics begin to shift, and many central characters are abruptly killed. At the beginning of the season, Marial (Phoebe Fox), along with Grigor (GwilymLee) and several other recurring members of the nobility, has been sentenced to die by choosing between being shot or mauled by a bear. At first, it seemed that Marial and Grigor dying would be a huge blow to the cast, but their possible executions proved to be a red herring that foreshadowed even more deaths.
The first notable death is Orlo’s (Sacha Dhawan). For two seasons, he had been Catherine’s greatest ally. As a fellow intellectual and the soul supporter of Catherine’s movement towards social enlightenment, he played a large role in the first two seasons, helping her to conspire against her husband to take the throne. In the end, it seems that Orlo was more sure of his convictions than Catherine, and when she fails to kill Peter, he abandons her cause. In one of the most shocking scenes in the series, Catherine unknowingly shoots him between the eyes as he approaches them from behind a bush to assassinate Peter himself. What’s worse, she never seems to discover that she has murdered her closest advisor and assumes he has left court out of spite. Orlo was the only real champion behind Catherine’s cause, and the end of his character was an unsatisfyingattempt to shock fansand further the narrative of Catherine as a simple, power-seeking woman.
The second and most important death of the season is Peter. Although the series skirts around the true history of Catherine’s life, her husband’s death is not one that can be ignored. For three years, Catherine has been endlessly plotting ways to usurp Peter’s throne without killing him, only to have him fall through the ice on his horse and drown. While he had to die eventually, his death should really be tied to the end of the series. From day one, Peter has been a perfect foil to Catherine. Her only equal in court, he balanced her ambition with tradition, and she kept him from killing everyone who looked at him wrong. Without Peter, Catherine is one step closer to rebellion and her circle of friends keeps getting smaller and smaller. Aside from the plot, Hoult’s presence on the show was a key component to making the formula work, and for a moment it seemed the writers had found a convoluted way to keep him around after Peter’s death. Pugachev (also played by Hoult) is essentially Peter’s stunt double, but when he goes rogue and stirs up rebellion, he is also killed. The decision to kill both characters and say goodbye to Hoult completely means losing the biggest source of comedic relief in a series that is becoming increasingly less comical.
We all know it’s possible to have too much of a good thing, and when a show goes on too long, it can lose its luster. Over the years, we have seen that Catherine is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her throne, but at the end of the day, she always finds a way to do the right thing. In Season 3, her personality begins to change as she suffers loss after loss in both her political and personal lives. The serfs are rejecting her, the nobles aren’t interested in her big ideas, and her family unit is faltering. Although she has been managing similar conflicts since day one, she now takes a different approach to things, and she is beginning to appear as more of a dictator than a benevolent monarch.
While acknowledging that power corrupts everyone, it’s important to be wary of character arcs like this that portray kind, innocent womenbecoming heartless, murdering tyrants because they don’t get their way(insert comparison to Daenerys Targaryen here). Catherine has lost and suffered much this season, but stripping her of her allies and assassinating her character until she is playing badminton with herself is a bit extreme. The use of Peter’s death to launch her into madness and cruelty feels a bit sexist, especially when paired with the fact that the indicator of her mental health is how neat her hair is. While she hasn’t done anything downright evil and unjustified yet, it seems that she might be heading that way if the series continues, and that arc isn’t something fans need more of.
The final scene of Season 3 seems to show Catherine as a fully formed monarch. She has shed everything holding her back now that she has purged the court of anyone conspiring against her, and she no longer has Peter’s birthright hanging over her head. As the comet passes through the sky and people cheer it as a sign of God’s approval of her, it feels as though she has everything she wants while she dances alone in the palace. Although the series definitelycouldgo on, the Season 3 finale ofThe Greatcould also serve as the most fitting end for Catherine, and the show as a whole.
