Archetypes podcast: do we need more insights into Meghan Markle’s life?

The Spectator’s Steerpike agreed that Archetypes is nothing more than a vehicle for the duchess to “concentrate on talking about herself”.

“It’s hard to believe that it took 28 people, including eight executive producers, to make the episode,” added the anonymous gossip columnist.

‘Spotify execs will sigh with relief’

Although positive reviews of Archetypes have been few and far between, a personal anecdote by the duchess did “bring me some clarity” about why the Sussexes quit their royal duties and the UK, said The Independent’s Clémence Michallon.

In a brief story that “exemplifies the complete dysfunctionality of life as a royal”, according to Michallon, the Los Angeles-born duchess told how back in 2019, the nursery that son Archie was supposed to be sleeping in caught fire – and revealed that she and Harry were not told until they later returned from an official engagement.

“And of course, as a mother, you go, ‘Oh, my God, what?’ Everyone’s in tears, everyone’s shaken,” she said. “And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement? I said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ … I was like, ‘Can you just tell people what happened?’”

Many listeners may have related to her frustration at being told that a problem which “could easily be solved with a little bit of pragmatism” actually “can’t be for completely amorphous reasons (optics, stiff upper lip, ‘it’s not the way things are done around here’)”, wrote Michallon.

But regardless of whether listeners sympathised, odds are they will return to hear the duchess “air her old grievances”, said Bel Mooney in the Daily Mail. After all, episode one of Archetype provided “the kind of gossipy, headline-making stuff that will make the Spotify execs sigh with relief that their investment” in the Sussexes and their Archewell Audio production company “has delivered”.

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/meghan-markle/957739/archetypes-podcast-meghan-markle-private-life