'With Love, Meghan' review: Made for people who love TikToks about hosting guests
Look, With Love, Meghan will not be everyone's show. If it's not yours, you can watch something else. But for people who feel empathetically tired for the Duchess of Sussex, enjoy watching one of the most vilified women on the planet find personal happiness and empowerment, and regularly binge-watch TikTok videos about hosting guests that you'll probably never actually implement yourself, this show is for you.
Produced by Netflix with Meghan and Harry's Archewell Productions, With Love, Meghan is a relentlessly positive DIY tips show with Meghan sharing various kitchen and home tricks that have been tastefully filmed for you to either actually try or remain purely aspirational about. If you thrive on lifestyle shows or TikTok videos about hosting guests or making-your-own-anything at home, you might like this.
No, I'm not regularly making my own fried chicken brine at home with chef Roy Choi or making ice cubes laden with edible flowers for brunch, but I'll watch someone else do it. It's like watching Queer Eye; I know I could implement these Emmy-winning tips into my own life, but I probably won't. That doesn't make the show less worth watching.
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Shot at a textbook "quiet luxury" estate in Montecito, California (not at Meghan and Harry's actual house y'creeps), each episode sees Meghan joining the ranks of celebrities grounding themselves as Just Like Us. Throughout the show, Meghan's friends — including Mindy Kaling, Roy Choi, Alice Waters, Vicky Tsai, Daniel Martin, and former Suits co-star Abigail Spencer — stop by for chats about her career and life while she's making various dishes and decorations. But there's some actually usable knowledge here, and aesthetically, it's all fresh, pretty, and illuminated — a far cry from the shows I usually watch, drenched in dread and despair. In a bright, white kitchen, Meghan instructs you how to make stuff that seems simultaneously somewhat achievable and pure fantasy — from prepping a guest room (a what!?) with homemade bath salts to harvesting fresh honey and beeswax from your backyard beehive (you don't have one!?). I personally don't have any of these things like Le Creuset cookware or truffle oil on tap, because The Economy, but I enjoy watching others make Nice Things.
While not everyone has the time or money to do this, With Love, Meghan attempts to give you hacks to make you look like you do — she dresses up store-bought foods with simple additions that could genuinely make me look more capable to my friends (I will be chucking sprigs of mint around Greggs pastries on a platter). However, the show requires more effort of me than I have to give; Meghan makes jars of homemade preserves with an array of fruits to send her friends home with; I will never do this for my friends (I know myself and I'm sorry). The kids' party bags Meghan makes in episode 2 are deeply thoughtful and I will not be making such wholesome treats. And to her credit, the Duchess of Sussex does recognise the privilege of wealth when it comes to fresh ingredients right outside your French doors.
"What you're trying to do is share what you have," says Meghan in episode 7, "Elevating the Everyday." "We don't all have a garden like this. I fully recognise that. I didn't grow up with a garden like this. But if you have a farmer's market, then you can definitely find something that if you have a bite of it and you go, 'I wish they could try it,' then share it with them so they can."
Granted, with all that undeniably cheeseball music, the DIY moments in the series often feel like daytime TV segments — it's giving BBC's Morning Live but more cinematically filmed. In episode 2, Meghan creates a whole whimsical garden tea party for her kids with Mindy Kaling's help. Yes, this episode is slightly projecting Flawless Parenting, especially given the fact that Meghan cooks almost exclusively in white and cream, but there's also some decent tips in here for making little magic moments for your loved ones. I'm not a parent, or a homemaker, but I find this level of detail extremely commendable. Styling vegetable sticks and store-bought hummus as fancy crudités? I've watched a thousand TikToks on charcuterie boards and butter boards and whatever boards I'm never going to make, and I will also watch this.
If you're looking for a gentle, vaguely motivating watch with one of the most famous people on the planet, this ain't bad. Don't overthink it.
With Love, Meghan is now streaming on Netflix.
Topics Netflix
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
