Written by Amanda Clark
The Great Season 3 is filled with surprises, but it still goes to show just how talented Elle Fanning, playing Catherine the Great, and Nicholas Hoult, playing Peter III of Russia, are when it comes to being cast as the two leads in the series.
Picking up right where season two left off, the relationship between Catherine and Peter continues to follow the enemies-to-lovers storyline many other movies and shows follow. However, one thing The Great does differently is to still keep around some of the hatred and resentment between each of the two characters to show the difficulties that they have and to help keep the tension in the new season, which also helps Peter grow to be more mindful and respectful toward Catherine with a much bigger character change than in the previous seasons. The viewer won’t be able to do anything but root for them, especially Peter.
Still, even though Peter is now more aligned with Catherine, they constantly cross the line of love and hate, where their love constantly perseveres. Their relationship and what it leads to is one of the best storylines within the show because no matter what one does, the other still goes back to them, and their power grows to another level.
With Fanning’s and Hoult’s characters finding that new sense of difficult romance, the ahistorical take on what is already labeled as an occasionally true story, evolves to become darker.
The Great serves two unexpected deaths (one accidental murder and one actual accident) that have mixed reactions from everyone in the Russian court. The first death, early on in the season, comes out of nowhere and is being played out as a casual occurrence that no one really finds out about, but the viewer will most likely gasp from shock because it is unexpected and there will be questions left unanswered.
The second death is one where the audience might assume it will end in injury, rather than death — as death was the last thing that anyone would think would happen. This turns the direction of events for what will occur and causes everything that is being built up in this season to fall out of control, before the pieces get put back together. This is where we see the season touch that darker side with characters changing, hitting their lows, and eventually becoming the better version of themselves.
Throughout all of the deaths — because any fan of The Great knows people will be killed, whether it’s the main, side, or unimportant characters — there is new backstabbing going on from basically everyone involved in the Russian court. This is what drives each move someone makes in the show and how Catherine acts to try and keep her power. Because of all of the secrets and plotting taking place, The Great allows some of the more minor characters to evolve to have a personality that adds to the deceiving, which expands the more well-known characters even more. Everything that plays out in the show somehow makes sense, even though most of it seems like it should be labeled as far-fetched.
The Great, even with all the new twists and turns, is still the same show with the same style of dialogue that hooked the audience in its first two seasons — which isn’t a bad thing. The new season just builds more on an already successful two seasons to hopefully lead to a fourth season. After all, the season three ending leads to so many different possibilities of what a new season could bring. Yet, at the same time, it ends in a manner where there doesn’t need to be another season and everything that happened leads to a somewhat satisfying ending.
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