'The Great' Season 2 Trailer Sees Catherine Claim Her Throne
The Great -- Episode 201 -- In season two of “The Great,” Catherine finally takes the Russian throne for her own — but if she thought coup-ing her husband was difficult, it’s nothing compared to the realities of ‘liberating' a country that doesn’t want to be. Peter (Nicholas Hoult), Catherine (Elle Fanning), shown. (Photo by: Gareth Gatrell/Hulu)
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Hulu has released the trailer for the second season of its satirical period drama The Great which shows us Catherine finally taking the thrown in her own right, even as she faces a variety of new challenges, including pregnancy, political machinations on all sides, and the arrival of her mother (played by Gillian Anderson).
The Great Season 1chronicled Catherine's rise from outsider to Empress, before she goes on to become the longest-reigning female ruler in Russia's history. The show's story is not entirely historically accurate, but it certainly is tons of fun, frequently wrestling with much broader, more impactful, and modern concepts, such as questions of leadership and religion, the role of women in power, and how we remember the figures of our own past.
In Season 2, it looks as though the new Empress will discover that claiming the throne was the easy part of her new rule. Because now that her coup has succeeded, Catherine will have to figure out how to rule a country that doesn't particularly like her and isn't all that interested in the progress the Age of Englightenment supposedly promises.
And then, of course, there's the Peter of it all. In real life, Catherine's husband was jailed and died - or, you know, was murdered depending on who you believe - a few short months after she assumed power. Given the outstanding chemistry between stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, it is unlikely that the series is going to be very interested in that little historical tidbit and the Season 2 trailer certainly seems to back that assumption up, with its buckets of innuendo and even something that might be a declaration of love.
Watch for yourselves below.
"You're calling yourself 'the Great?' Seems arrogant," Peter tells his wife. "It is if you're not great, but if you are, it is just calling things what they are," she says.
The ten-episode second season will premiere on Friday, November 19. The first is currently streaming on Hulu.
