Ummmmm. Okay. So. Obviously the elephant in the room that we all love and want more of is no longer with us, and we’re going to talk about it, but first, we have to talk about the things that came before the elephant’s absence. Is that vague enough for those who have stumbled across this recap before watching the episodes?
THE ELEPHANT IS MY FAVORITE. WHY. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?
Okay, no, it’s fine, I am fine. We’re going to get through this. Let’s all pull a Catherine, deny reality, and cheerily play badminton by ourselves, by which I mean, let’s talk about Pugachev and effigies and the ghost of Peter the Great. “HUZZAH,†she wept into her tea.
Archie hires Pugachev to impersonate Peter and rile up the peasants by calling Catherine a witch and saying things like she has a black tongue in the shape of a bat. Checks out. Pugachev tells them she is building a school and vaccination center in this town, which is poison for their mind and bodies, so they should go burn that shit down. Hm. A little too relatable, y’know what I mean? They’re also making effigies of Catherine, then defiling them. Archie brings her one, and she has it brought to her apartments for some reason. Peter is so excited (“A big Catherine doll!â€), and then even more excited because Catherine tells him the people are rising up because they think Pugachev is Peter.
As Peter contemplates this new love of the people and tries to cure Paul’s colic, the ghost of Peter the Great appears and regrets that he can’t punch Peter in the face. He does try to get Peter to punch himself in the face, but fortunately Peter demurs. Hugo comes in and pretends he will shoot himself because no one listens to him since he stopped being king. This is part of the complicated plan he and Agnes have created, and I continue not to understand or support it. When Hugo tries to goad Peter by saying Catherine will be remembered and Peter will be a blip, Peter punches him in the nose (so many punches and punch requests). Hugo is really bummed about this not-being-king thing. I guess I get it. It’s like if you move to a place with a dishwasher after years of handwashing dishes, and you’re like, well shit, I’m never going without a dishwasher again, but then you move to a place without a dishwasher and discover that nothing has ever been so terrible as having to hand wash a dish.†Exactly like being an eighteenth-century monarch.
Marial is furious with Archie for making her complicit in this whole Pugachev plot just when she is back on Catherine’s good side. Archie is really jazzed about his plan and thinks it will go perfectly, so you know it’s not. His goal is Paul’s ordination, the slowing down of reform, and the supremacy and power of the Church. I would also have these goals if I were Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Elizabeth shares at least some of these goals (mainly the ordination one), but she is unaware of Archie’s plotting, and she works with Catherine to discover who’s behind The Rise of Pugachev. She does this by setting her sofa on fire.
While everyone runs out of the palace, Catherine and Elizabeth search Georgina and Archie’s apartments for evidence since they seem like the two prime suspects. Unfortunately for them, they run into Marial and tell her their idea, so she runs into Archie’s office and shoves the letters in his desk up her skirt. Marial is a good friend. In this case, a good friend to Archie and not Catherine. But they have been friends longer. Side note that while Maxim has been an absolute shit lately, I enjoy his shoe obsession and the visual of him lugging a trunk full of shoes out of the burning palace.
During all this, Swedish queen Agnes semi-seduces Velementov in the woods, and he trips and bashes his head on a log and I was VERY concerned he was dead, but he’s alive. Huzzah! Velementov has been especially endearing this season, possibly because he’s dying. I hope he gets to bang Agnes someday. She seems into it, despite it being part of her Secret Plan. I can’t tell what her plan is here exactly. To make Velementov drunk and late to his meeting with Catherine about the Pugachev situation? It’s probably to get Velementov fired. Which he is. Catherine doesn’t think he can plan an offensive to capture Pugachev, unlike this new soldier, Petrov, who is funny and clever, so I don’t trust him. Petrov is in charge of capturing Pugachev now, and Velementov is retired.
And so the Swedish plan comes together! Hugo proposes to Velementov and Peter that they secretly take back Sweden. Peter agrees to do this and tells Catherine he’s going hunting for a week. Surely this will go well.
In the next episode, “Ice,†my heart is broken. But first, Hugo and Peter argue about cooking fish in the snow. The way the situation is set up, it looks like Peter, Hugo, and Velementov marched towards Sweden by themselves with full confidence they could conquer it, but we’re told there are three battalions, which Google tells me usually consist of three hundred to a thousand men, so let’s say 1,500 soldiers. Just trust that they’re off-camera somewhere. The fish is cooked next to a vast frozen river, and across its banks are Catherine and Grigor. Catherine figured out where they would be based on a cunning invention called a map (Grigor is very impressed). They both want Peter back and for this ludicrous expedition to end.
But before we get into that and my heart further breaks as I face these events again, let’s check in on Archie and Pugachev. Pugachev killed 47 nobles in one town, which Archie is peeved about because they’re nobles, but he’s not super peeved because he wants to bang Pugachev. A twist! Not about Archie being sex-obsessed, just a twist in that I did not see Archie being into this very gross man who I cannot believe is also played by Nicholas Hoult. The percentage I care about male actors is close to zero, but Nicholas Hoult. Damn, sir. So impressive. When Archie returns to the palace, he learns that Elizabeth knows that he’s the one behind the Pugachev scheme, but he’s so focused on thinking about sexing Pugachev that he doesn’t really care. Oh, and how did Elizabeth find out Archie was behind it? Because his letter drawer was empty. IMPRESSIVE, Elizabeth.
Okay, here I go, feet dragging back to the frozen river. Peter rides his horse across it to talk to Catherine. He immediately calls Grigor disloyal, and Grigor is wounded. Catherine is furious that Peter stole her army and is trying to secretly invade Sweden, which is fair. His counterpoint is that they don’t do many things together, and the marriage advice book says they should. They argue some more and Peter throws a snowball at her, and she tries to trick him into the carriage with promises of food and sex, which definitely make him waver. Peter tells Catherine there are many versions of her, and she knows he’s the only one who sees and loves them all, “even when I find them baffling and idiotic.†He just wants the same from her. Catherine still doesn’t want him to go. Peter and his horse walk halfway across the ice. Peter turns and says, “Actually, I—†and the ice cracks and PETER AND HIS HORSE FALL IN. THEY’RE GONE. PETER IS GONE. Grigor runs and we watch him from the shore as Catherine stands stuck in one spot. At the palace, Elizabeth suddenly has to sit down. I CANNOT. I CANNOTTT. We see Peter in the water, frozen. WHAT. Aghhhhhhhhhhhh! I hate it. Peter is the greatest thing about this show and I refuse to believe he is gone.
Guess what? So does Catherine. Grigor is stricken by mortal grief and Catherine bounds up, talks about how beautiful the lake is, and gets back in the carriage to go home. If you’re wondering what’s up, she demands that they both imagined it and it didn’t happen. So there we are, I guess. On the ride back, Catherine rattles on about growing up in Germany and how there was a circular garden and how she will make all gardens circular now, and yes, there is an insane gleam in her eye the entire time. I said Nicholas Hoult is great, but I don’t want to neglect Elle Fanning, who continues to do an amazing job with an increasingly interesting straight-man (so to speak) role.
The next morning, Catherine makes all the nobles come to breakfast at some ungodly hour and she tells them they’re in the process of invading Sweden, makes them all sing, and then leaves to play badminton by herself. And by “play badminton by herself,†I mean play the most unhinged game of solo badminton I have ever seen. Grigor tells Georgina what happened and that Peter is dead and he can’t tell anyone, and Georgina, also grief-stricken, finds Catherine playing her maniacal badminton and joins her. And that’s the end of the episode, I guess!!! Okay, show! Where do we go from here?