Peter really, really wants two of his horses to bang. It is the first step to creating a “European superhorse†that will be his legacy. Unfortunately, no amount of candlelight and violin music is making it happen, and if not that, then what? Well, “what†is making Grigor act as a horse fluffer (horrifying), but even that doesn’t work, thank God.
It’s Nakaz time! After meeting the American ambassador, Catherine is inspired to take this idea of “we the people†and bring peasants, merchants, and the nobility together (with the numbers weighted towards the nobility, of course) to hear their thoughts and vote on laws for a new Russia. Peter thinks this is a terrible idea, but he’s pretty distracted by the whole superhorse idea. The Nakaz was a real thing and, according to some, the reason Catherine became Catherine the Great, despite this new law code never being enacted. How! She’s an absolute monarch who published some ideas she thought would be good, over 400 of which she took directly from Montesquieu and friends, and then she never put them into effect despite the fact that she could, and she is forever called “the Great� That can’t be right. Yale Law Library author, I dispute you.
As Catherine nervously paces their room before the gathering, Peter offers her his booklet of goals from his reign. These include a monkey for every village and renaming raspberries Peterberries. I just love him. But also, those monkeys would be so cold (unless they were Japanese macaques!). Catherine is not drawn to any of these, and it’s not helpful when Marial stops by and calls it a “massive, pointless, self-aggrandizing fucking book club.†She may have a point. Should I stop being Team Marial in every single interaction? … no. No, she is perfect.
Catherine’s very first move, her choice for an easy win, is to outlaw murder. Everyone is mad, but mostly the nobles, because they think she’s keeping all the murder for herself. The merchants are angry too, but I can’t hear why because the merchant spokesperson is Princess Beatrice from The Windsors, a.k.a. the best character on that show. The peasants say they like murder because they think Catherine’s a witch, they’re scared of the nobles, and if murder is outlawed, their lives will just keep going (ahhhh! Abolish the class system!). Georgina saves the day by faking a fit, and they adjourn. Day one did not go swimmingly.
During all this, Peter has been split between his superhorse project and the fact that his mortal enemy Simitz is there for the convening, as he thinks Peter is dead. If there’s one truth about Peter, it’s that he hates Simitz. Have we ever heard of him before? No! But killing him is now the driving force in Peter’s life. That’s the thing about Peter; he lives in the now. Or rather, he lives in the now while wanting to murder someone for decades-old wrongs they’ve done him. Since Peter knows Catherine is trying to ban murder, he tries to expel his feelings by screaming into a bath of ice water, but it’s not enough. Simitz sucks too much. In brief, he abused Peter in front of his father to make Peter the Great laugh. It’s terrible. Down with Simitz. Catherine still doesn’t want Peter to murder him, though.
Before day two of the conclave (I’m just going to keep calling it different fun gathering names), Archie and Elizabeth work behind the scenes to get the peasants and the merchants on their side. The nobles are still an unknown, though, and they make up two-thirds of the vote. In a feat of stunning unpractical practicality, Catherine tells those gathered that the no-murder thing yesterday was a warm-up discussion. The first proclamation is that, yes, every village in Russia will have its own monkey — thunderous applause.
Peter and Grigor decide to kill Simitz despite everything, or rather Grigor does to save Peter from having to lie to Catherine. Immediately after Grigor shoots him, though, Peter cuts Simitz’s throat. Then Georgina bashes his head in with a rock. “You weren’t the only ones he fucked with back then.†Damn, Simitz, how shitty were you?
At the end of the day, Peter and Catherine go to bed. He tells her she had a win because now every town will have a monkey, and when Catherine says that Peter killed Simitz, he only admits that Grigor shot him. The complications of marriage when you are in eighteenth-century Russia and also an imperial monarch!
In the next episode, we see Paul has aged up, but not like in a soap opera where he’s suddenly sixteen and can be paired with the new girl in town. No, now he’s just a visible baby with hair and everything instead of a potato sack in a BabyBjörn. Peter is preparing for Paul’s ordination, i.e., the time when the Church says, “you are special because of who your parents are, and it is your divine right to rule.†We’ve pretty much eschewed this idea nowadays, although England likes to pretend it’s kind of still a thing.
We are told that Peter the Great invented the stag ritual, which, as far as I can tell, involves the baby being tied to the side of a stag, and then his father shoots the stag. The meaning of this is never explained and I can find no record of anything like it in Russian history. Peter keeps practicing so he doesn’t hit Paul. Meanwhile, Catherine thinks history will judge her harshly for the “monkey in every village†idea. It bears repeating that I love this show. She’s dealing with a lot, as she has also received a letter from her sister that starts with “Wo ist Mutter?†Catherine doesn’t really want to explain that her mother is dead, and she was killed by Catherine’s husband, albeit accidentally, while they were having sex. It’s just awkward.
Catherine’s nerves are stretched to their limit when Peter brings Paul in and delightedly states that Paul has said his first word, and it’s “pussy.†This is Catherine’s breaking point, by which I mean she loses her shit and starts shouting that she wants her son to be a thoughtful and kind child, led by love, not by pussy. She immediately equates Paul with Peter and states that the ordination and the stag ceremony are canceled. Catherine goes into another room and screams.
After Elizabeth caws like a bird to calm herself (sure), she and Archie decide to fix things. Archie tells Catherine that she risks the legitimacy of her rule by canceling the ordination and, therefore, the divine right of kings. Elizabeth hugs and then slaps Peter, telling him his feelings and love do not matter, only his family and his job matter, and his job is to preserve the line of succession. Damn, guys!
In her upsetness, Catherine stops ignoring Marial and they become friends again (HUZZAH). They agree not to talk about Peter, which seems very hard to manage, but I love them both, so I accept these terms. With that friendship fixed, Catherine now has to work on her marriage in this, not its roughest patch by any means, but certainly a rougher patch than the average for a marriage. That being said, most couples don’t have to decide whether God should ordain their child to rule a nation. Since Catherine and Peter do, they have a marriage manual to work through.
The Science of Marriage gives them a number of exercises, including tug of war, a yoga (?) move that they must hold while Arkady and Tatyana throw balls at them, and a conversation where they have to make statements starting with “you always,†as in “you always do this, and I hate it about you.†All the prizes for Tony McNamara, except the one from the RSPCA (stop killing animals in your things, dude!). In the end, Grigor and Marial play badminton with Catherine and Peter. Marial holds it together and doesn’t start stabbing Peter, so that’s a win.
Quick side note the Swedish queen is trying (successfully) to get a battle strategy from Velementov, and Georgina and Katya have a flirty vibe going. I would love it if one of my period shows that I recap finally had a decent queer woman storyline.
Paul’s second word is “book,†and Catherine is wavering re: the whole ordination thing. Marial urges her not to give in. Elizabeth wrestles Catherine to the ground and makes her admit she’s using a lemon top as birth control. I think Elizabeth is concerned because of her obsession regarding the succession? Catherine tells her she’s still against the ordination, but they can do the stag ceremony. Because of this, Elizabeth and Archie tell Peter they’ll secretly ordain Paul at midnight. I’m not clear on how this works because it isn’t the point for the population to know, but that’s irrelevant because Peter decides he can’t put that burden on his son’s shoulders in case Paul does not want to be emperor (dammit, Peter, I love you).
Catherine takes out the lemon top. Peter shoots the stag. Archie wakes up Peter’s former double Pugachev and tells him they’re going to fuck over the empress. Well GOODNESS.