Dottie Cantrell Roman, we hardly knew ye! No, seriously. Not to harp on this for two recaps in a row, but my mind remains blown that Monarch just up and killed off its most interesting character. Even in her funeral episode, there’s more and more evidence that Dottie was just the pettiest bitch in a cowboy hat you ever did see while she was alive, and while people like that are horrible in real life, they are a hoot to watch on television. I mean, the woman was hell-bent on tormenting Canadian treasure Shania Twain even in the afterlife! That is someone I want to watch! So while the Roman family and Dottie’s fans are mourning the loss of a mother and a country-music legend, I will be mourning the loss of getting to watch Dottie terrorize her loved ones for an entire season of TV. How devastatingly unfair for us.
In the immediate aftermath of Dottie’s death, there’s a lot going on. That seems to be Monarch’s M.O. in these first two episodes; it’s speeding through a ton of plot, and it seems like character development has been thrown to the wayside because of it. Here’s hoping the show takes a breath or two after Dottie’s funeral because some of these characters are out here making absolutely zero sense. Gigi gets the worst of it: At the end of the premiere episode, she seemed to be throwing down the gauntlet and warning Nicky that she was ready to snatch the country-queen crown from under her and then here, in episode two, she outright tells her Aunt Nellie, Dottie’s sister who was perpetually overshadowed and pushed to the side by Dottie herself, that she and Nicky aren’t in any kind of competition. She gets upset after seeing Nicky with their dead mother and yells at her for killing her, but she is also happy to keep her secret because she doesn’t want to “lose [a] sister and [a] mother at the same time.†She’s the one who calls out her siblings for romanticizing their mother, reminding them that Dottie sent Gigi to both a weight-loss camp and a conversion-therapy camp, that she was the one who pushed Luke and Albie apart so she could have Luke to herself, and, as we’ve seen in flashbacks, emotionally abused Nicky by building her up only to tear her down over and over. And yet Gigi still seems gutted by Dottie’s death. Listen, you can argue that a person can be conflicted, especially when it comes to family, but this is done so clumsily it’s giving more confused than conflicted vibes.
The three Roman siblings are feeling all sorts of emotions, which leads to a big screaming match in front of the house that is quieted only when Albie fires off his shotgun and yells, “Show some damn respect!,†which tracks for this dude. The siblings take time to cool off: Nicky writes a new song for her mom that Gigi miraculously knows all the words to by the time she shows up, and the Romans remind themselves that they owe it to their mother to be a united front. Not only do they want to do right by Dottie, but they want to show the world that the Roman legacy will hold in Dottie’s absence. Legacy — it’s the word of the day again.
In true queen fashion, Dottie has already planned out her entire funeral. She has even prerecorded the narration, which, come on, you have to respect. A lot of the funeral is filled with moving musical tributes from country stars and words from her family, but it’s also filled with some of the pettiest moves you could imagine. She requests that Twain, apparently archenemies after Dottie stole “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!†for herself and it was a huge hit, sings one of Dottie’s biggest flops. That’s queen shit, baby! She also requests that Nellie perform a song for her and then surprises her sister with a Dottie hologram that takes a whole verse for itself — even in death, she could not let her sister outshine her! And this is after Dottie bequeathed her sister the use of Earl, her stylist, noting that she believes Nellie “will benefit greatly†from it. Dottie wrote that! In her will! That burn is notarized, babes.
The funeral mostly goes off without a hitch. Sure, there’s some anxiety when Albie refuses to sing the song Dottie picked for him and Luke forbids him to sing the song he wants to because there are “some problems with licensing†and they could be sued, which I’m sure we’ll hear more about in the future. This is followed by a whole scene about how Nicky’s son, Ace, can’t sing because he “just had a panic attack,†but Albie comforts him and then Ace comforts Albie about losing Dottie. It’s supposed to be a moment, but we’ve only been told about Ace’s anxiety issues — we’ve never seen them — and that makes it much more difficult to drum up the empathy needed to make this scene hit (it’s another casualty of Monarch not taking its time with character development). Anyway, Albie and Ace end up duetting to Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph†in front of Dottie’s casket. It’s fine.
It’s what happens after the funeral, however, that we really need to pay attention to. You see, Luke can’t wrap his head around the fact that his mother was given months to live and she seemed mostly fine the day leading up to her death; something doesn’t add up for him. After learning from Earl that Dottie and Albie had a bit of a fight right before she died, Luke first theorizes that his father must have had something to do with it. When he confronts him, Albie punches him in the gut and basically tells him to get off his lawn. So, yeah, that’s a super-normal and healthy father-son relationship.
After the funeral, Luke takes a closer look at the cheesy handwritten note that he and his sisters were given at the reading of Dottie’s will, a final message from Dottie to her darling children. He compares the note to Nicky’s signature on her contract and realizes that Nicky wrote those notes. I’m sorry, but Nicky is terrible at subterfuge — the woman didn’t even attempt to mimic her mother’s handwriting?! She deserves to be caught! So now Luke knows Nicky is up to something, and he puts in a call to the medical examiner’s office to get some more info on his mother’s body (she’s already buried, but okay!). Now, Luke should tread lightly in regard to pissing Nicky off: Since Luke and Kayla — who I would like to remind you all is Luke’s sister-in-law — cannot keep their paws off each other even when outside a venue full of people who know them, Nicky spots them making out in a dark alley. That’s called leverage, kids. Will Nicky be smart enough to use it when needed? Honestly, there’s a fifty-fifty shot with that lady.
We also get a quick update on the shady stuff going on with the Romans three months into the future: We head back to the dark woods and find Albie finishing up his impromptu burial of whomever he shot and killed in the premiere episode. Unfortunately for him, as he pulls out onto the road, a cop spots him. Albie heads home, where Nicky is waiting for him. He tells his daughter not to ask any questions but assures her that “everything’s gonna be all right now.†Just then, there’s a knock at the door and it’s the police; they have questions for Albie. So that’s not great for him nor Nicky. What are those two up to?
Liner Notes
• Daaaang, that Wade guy is really giving Nicky some eyes. You know the ones (they’re horny). Nicky needs to drop her douchey husband and hook up with this cowboy sooner rather than later. It’s part of the grieving process.
• Speaking of Wade, is he a dummy? He pretty willingly gives up details about how a few years back, when he stepped away from music due to anxiety issues, it was all a cover-up for a huge drinking problem. He says all of this to Nicky (who is looking for advice about her son, Ace), but he barely knows her! Something tells me that intel might come in handy in the future.
• Nicky does inform her siblings of their mother’s last words about how she has “done things that can never be forgiven,†so don’t think that thread has been dropped just yet.
• We also meet a mother-daughter duo, Catt and Ana. Ana recently blew up on TikTok from singing, and Catt is adamant that she meet with the execs at Monarch who keep blowing her off at the moment (in fairness, Catt picked the worst actual time to pay them a visit). Catt keeps telling her daughter that Monarch is her “destiny†and clearly has a disdain for the Roman family, so my hunch is that these two are in some way related to the Romans. There’s no way that info about Albie’s affair 40 years ago doesn’t come into play now, you know what I mean?
• Nellie delivers the line “It’s not show family — it’s show business†with a straight face, and maybe she deserves to be upstaged by a hologram of her dead sister!
• Oh, the Dottie hologram has butterflies flying around her hair à la Medusa’s snakes, and you know what? That’s a 10/10 “no notes†situation for me.