‘With Love, Meghan’ Is Beautiful and Boring, a Millennial’s Nancy Meyers Pinterest Board Come to Life

Her friends sometimes shake the show out of its Martha-Stewart 101 vibe, but they aren't enough to make Meghan—or the show—interesting.

By Nora Biette-Timmons | March 5, 2025 | 12:34pm

Photo: Netflix Entertainment TV

‘With Love, Meghan’ Is Beautiful and Boring, a Millennial’s Nancy Meyers Pinterest Board Come to Life

Meghan Markle’s* new lifestyle reality show is not meant to be a comedy, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t make me laugh out loud multiple times while watching it. I think it was around the third mention of how much she loves dehydrating citrus that I first lost it, or maybe it was when she and her guest Mindy Kaling described a tea party they were having inside a plant-filled glass gazebo as something you could do “on a budget.” Or maybe it was one of a series of other inanities she and her friends drop throughout the show: “The sweetness of this fruit is a real thing.” “I love birdsong.” “Love is in the details, gang.” “I’ve always enjoyed taking something simple and elevating it.” “I love a brunch party. There’s just something really charming about it. And I think it’s a great way to connect.”

These are all excellent representations of just how absurdly banal her new Netflix show is. All eight episodes of With Love, Meghan dropped on Tuesday and if you plan to watch them all, I highly recommend doing so on 1.25x speed. Each episode features a friend coming over to a California-chic property with views of the Los Padres mountains that inexplicably has two kitchens and a produce-filled garden I’d commit minor felonies to own, but is not actually Meghan’s home. Meghan busies herself with pre-visit hosting tasks, sometimes solo (such as preparing “lavender towels” or gathering a “harvest basket” from the garden) or sometimes with the assistance of a professional, like when chef Ramon Velazquez teaches her how to cook ceviche and chicken tinga before some friends come over for game night. (As I’m sure you could’ve guessed, Meghan is a 43-year-old woman who unironically says “the girls are coming over for dinner.”)

Most Popular

With Love is cheesy, occasionally cloying, and utterly insipid…but I didn’t hate it. Meghan is extremely charismatic and always ready to pop a bottle of Champagne while cooking (though she insists on calling it “bubbles”)—my type of gal. She seems to sincerely believe that kindness can change the world, and however naive I may find that perspective, as a viewer, it gives you a real sense of the warm and fuzzies.

Her friends sometimes shake the show out of its Martha-Stewart 101 vibe; Daniel, whom Meghan met when she was on Suits, is a make-up artist who says “fucking” (!) (it’s bleeped) and “ratchet.” Chef Roy Choi talks about being the friend who cleaned up after getting wasted in hotel rooms as a teenager. (Eternal Honor Roll student Meghan does not appear to find this in any way relatable.) And say what you will about Kaling, but she’s great at being on television. But some guests also directly contribute to the show’s fundamental inability to be relatable. Delphi, whom Meghan knows because their husbands play polo together, talks about how she didn’t have Legos and played with sticks on the Argentine farm she grew up on. This is clearly meant to suggest a working-class background; Delphi, however, is Delfina Blaquier, a member of one of Argentina’s wealthiest families. Her grandfather was a yacht designer. (Pausing mid-show to do some light Googling, this fact was something else that made me laugh out loud.) The two women cook together, and Delphi looks like she’s never actually used a stove before.

Meghan and Delfina Blaquier make focaccia together. Note Delphi’s stunned expression. Photo: Netflix.

Throughout the show, Meghan is beautiful and charming (or at least very good at making herself appear that way in a series for which she served as executive producer). But as a member of the gossip-consuming public, my interest in her largely stems from her involvement in, and shake up of, the British royal family—and I don’t think I’m alone in that. What Meghan has to offer the world of entertainment, whether she likes it or not (and she clearly does not), is exactly that; she is one of us—an American born in the middle class and well-versed in social media—and she went in, saw it all, and got out. That’s her unique selling point, not little tips and tricks to “elevate the everyday.” But her stint as a working member of the royal family goes unmentioned throughout.

Taken as a cultural object, the show exhibits a fascinating combination of the royals’ expertise in controlling public narratives, and the insistence of the American rich to prove they are regular people. Meghan works very hard throughout the show to tell us that she’s just another working mom trying to serve her family healthy, tasty meals, which she then makes onscreen. However, the food in these meals is also hand-harvested from a massive backyard vegetable and herb garden that would put an East Coast farmer’s market to shame. (Californians always have the upper hand when it comes to produce.) She mentions that she arranges flowers to relax, and sure, I believe she’s putting on James Taylor and sipping a glass of sauvignon blanc after the kids’ bedtime while deciding just how much baby’s breath to use. The difference is that she’s arranging hundreds of dollars worth of florals that she selected at her “go to” warehouse, a place she visits on the show; she’s not creatively combining a couple of $12.99 bouquets she picked up at Trader Joe’s.

Throughout the roughly five-hour runtime of With Love, I kept wondering who or what this show is for. Obviously, it’s in large part a fulfillment of Meghan and Prince Harry’s reported $100 million deal with Netflix, and a successor to Meghan’s modestly successful, pre-Harry lifestyle blog, which featured photos of her beautiful handwriting, scenic landscapes, and the type of filtered selfies we were all taking 10 years ago. Crucially, With Love also appears to be a very long and expensive commercial for As Ever, Meghan’s foodstuffs brand. In the final episode, she prepares and then hosts a brunch to celebrate her new, unspecified “business” venture. (This brunch is also the only time Harry comes on the show; he appears to be a loving, still-balding husband. Get this man to Turkey.)

We receive no further information about this “business,” but as I read on The Cut after bingeing all eight episodes, Meghan’s company As Ever is now selling jam, “flower sprinkles,” and teas—three items that are the subject of fairly unsubtle product placement throughout the show.

The Weird Al Yankovic lookalike is never introduced, but appears to be Meghan’s beekeeper. Photo: Netflix.

As Ever was formerly known as American Rivera Orchard (a naming decision I will never get over), and had approximately zero commercial success. Meghan relaunched the brand in mid-February, explaining in an Instagram post that “‘As ever’ means ‘as it’s always been’ or some even say ‘in the same way as always.’” Girl, what???? I’ll have what she’s having, and by that, I mean whatever beta blockers she’s on. (Hilariously, the website does not yet seem ready for e-commerce.)

At its best, With Love, Meghan is a millennial’s Nancy Meyers Pinterest board come to life, full to the brim with a level of sincerity that hearkens back to Barack Obama’s first term, when “lifestyle content” was only just beginning to enter our cultural lexicon. At its worst…it’s a millennial’s Nancy Meyers Pinterest board come to life, with a level of sincerity reminiscent of Obama’s first term. It is what it says on the package; there’s nothing deeper here.

Meghan, a biracial woman demonized by the British press because she dared to be Black and marry a prince, emphasizes in the show how much the unique multiculturalism of her native Los Angeles shaped her and her (literal) tastes—which could be an actual statement at this particular political moment in time. (The president has, in the past, demonized her and Harry, so she wouldn’t even be starting a fight.)

But for whatever reason—privilege, wealth, cowardice—she’s chosen to use her public platform to say absolutely nothing except, “Wouldn’t you like to buy my crepe mix?”

*For accuracy purposes, I must note that she is actually Meghan Sussex now, a fact she corrects Kaling on in the tensest (and I’m using that word extremely relatively) moment of the series. Meghan explains that she loves having the same last name as her kids; however, it seems odd to have adopted a royal title that signifies domain over an English county (Duchess of Sussex) as a last name that she uses while filling out preschool registration forms.