Inside The Great’s Boundary-Breaking Second Season and Shocking Finale
If season one of The big, Hulus genre-bending retelling of Catherine the Great’s reign, encircling the lines of historical accuracy, season two abandons it with colorful fervor. In the second chapter of this “in between true story”, Catherine has taken control of Russia from her politically incompetent husband Peter. Now she has to decide how to implement the comprehensive reforms that her court seems to be refuting.
Star Elle fanning says the show remains committed to exploring Catherine’s mistakes as well as her accomplishments. “Yeah, this is a feminist story,” Fanning tells me from the set of Hulu’s The girl from Plainville, where she will play Michelle Carter, who was convicted of negligent manslaughter in the infamous texting suicide case. “But we do not want it to feel like she’s always the smartest or always the bravest person in the room, because that’s not real life.”
Show the creator Tony McNamara admits it he was left in search of answers during the height of the pandemic, as it became logistically impossible to shoot parts of the season as it existed in his head. “We probably had to throw out a few planned episodes and quickly rewrite them when we realized how difficult it would be to have a lot of people in places,” McNamara says. “But I think it’s okay. Sometimes limitations are good.”
Limitations aside, it turned out to return to set after months of lockdown liberating for Fanning. “I was really impressed to get to perform and see my friends. And we were in such a little bubble,” she says, “so we could just party together and experiment together. I felt looser this season to experiment. I do not know; I think Catherine is also becoming a little bit to Peter. She will be more ruthless this season. “
It was important for Fanning to lean into Catherine’s more nervous persona as Empress, even as she prepares for the birth of her first child. As the actress sees it, Catherine’s impending motherhood is less personally significant and more political capital. “I think it was an annoying nuisance to Catherine,” Fanning says of the monarch’s pregnancy. “She’s like, ‘I’m trying to rule this country, and then I’m wildly pregnant.’ But it gives her a time frame.It’s like until the baby is born, I’m safe.I have five months to implement all the changes I want to make and make this country perfect, because once I have the baby , I can easily be overthrown and killed that day. ”
While she was in character, Fanning also made a conscious effort to avoid rocking her belly. She explains: “I find in shows and stuff like that that when people touch the belly, it looks fake” – even though actual pregnant women do it in real life. “So I chose and chose when Catherine should pay attention to the baby,” such as when a kick or sudden urge for dirt hit.
Then there is the question of Peter, played by a never better Nicholas Hoult. Although the real Catheirne had already killed her recently overthrown husband in the period depicted in The big season two, the series’ bid for Catherine shows that she is involved in a relationship that daily threatens to overthrow Russia. Peter is now madly in love with Catherine, despite the coup she has planned against him – and Catherine can not bring herself to kill him, even though it seems like the most obvious course of action.
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