The familiar fury at “With Love, Meghan”

What’s great about haters is their predictability. No matter what the object of their disaffection does — arrange flowers, bake vegan macaroons — they will always pop up quite punctually to make a stink based on how they feel about the person as opposed to their actions. Place that shade on a sundial and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could time her bakes to it with the utmost accuracy.

Since the requisitioned-for-TV kitchen featured on “With Love, Meghan” has a decent timer, there’s no need. But when is taking potshots ever necessary? For haters, sniping is a world-class sport. That means every new season of a show like “With Love, Meghan” offers an Olympian level of insult competition, especially in the U.K. press.

Hours after its Tuesday debut, The Times of London reduced the duchess’ eight newest episodes to “a series in search of a meaning, fronted by a woman in need of some cash.” The Guardian is relatively kinder, summing up Season 2 as “so painfully contrived that it’s genuinely fascinating.”

While that’s not entirely complimentary, it is a more honest appraisal of the content than what the Telegraph served up when it referred to Meghan as “Montecito Marie Antoinette.” This echoes what most of the British press and that other American Meghan, she of House McCain, harrumphed about the supposed tone deafness of Season 1. There is never the right time or the right way to be Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Functionally, there’s also little difference between the first and second seasons since they were filmed back-to-back. Proof of that is in the presence of Meghan’s beloved beagle Guy, still loafing in the corner as our host roasts chicken and throws together caramelized onion tarts. While royal expert and author Andrew Downie alleged to The Irish Star that the Windsors’ PR team has tried to brand Meghan as a “big bad witch,” I doubt that necromancy is part of her dark arts knowledge. Guy died in January.

Point being, although some production tweaks are evident, this is essentially the same show we saw in March. Somebody in charge probably had a few notes to offer, which explains why we’re seeing more Netflix celebrity chefs this season and fewer of Meghan’s friends, whether celebrity or commoner. (Her bestie, makeup artist Daniel Martin, is an exception; he must have tested well.)

Maybe a few of the how-to asides are superfluous; I really didn’t need a lesson on how to gift wrap books. On the other hand, her Furoshiki-style fabric wrapping demonstration was fascinating, and its recipient, “Queer Eye” fashion expert Tan France, was genuinely impressed and moved.

Otherwise, if you liked her serene, ASMR presentation of California livin’ back then, there’s nothing in these new episodes that you won’t also enjoy.

Conversely, if your hatred for the show burns hotter than your oven’s broiler, there’s a brisk business in finding creative new ways to heap verbal compost on the titular host and all her endeavors. Meghan might even consider this a badge of honor, since it means she joins the ranks of Rachael Ray, Giada De Laurentiis, Sandra Lee and Martha Stewart in the gallery of despised lifestyle mavens.

Surely some people will recoil at my likening Meghan’s efforts to those of Queen Martha, doyenne of gracious living and doing everything yourself. As I previously observed, “With Love, Meghan” isn’t doing anything that Stewart and a slew of other lifestyle experts haven’t done before.

But it’s the fact that she’s doing it at all that drives her detractors crazy. British royalists view Meghan’s efforts to fulfill the terms of the reported $100 million multiyear deal the Sussexes struck with Netflix in 2020 as somehow beneath the reputation of a royal’s wife. Since she’s also a Black American divorcee and a former actor, they can take their pick of other reasons to look down their noses, or select the “all of the above” option. As many have noted disparagingly, Netflix’s recent extension of the Sussexes’ deal is still a multi-year affair, but now only gives Netflix a first-look option on future Archewell productions.

(Jake Rosenberg/Netflix) Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Chrissy Teigen in “With Love, Meghan”

Americans aren’t much gentler in their estimations of Meghan, but the type of disdain on our side of the Atlantic is more closely related to the common view of lifestyle programming as both massively popular and contrived, equally inspirational and unrealistic. Content for stay-at-home moms who are either doing the Lord’s work or deemed inessential, depending on what type of misogynist is weighing in on a woman’s worth.

When such a show revolves around a person who is essentially a hobbyist with a massive platform, the animosity is especially biting.

Meghan is a wealthy American woman living a royal dream, if you ignore the geyser of British tabloid bile constantly burbling in the background of her life. She gardens, cooks, is an impeccable calligrapher and shares her love of crafting with her equally famous guests.

And like Lee, Ray and Stewart, Meghan’s lifestyle brand is built on a type of expertise they developed themselves. (De Laurentiis trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris; people can’t stand her for different reasons.) Stewart spun her success with catering into a claim to hosting expertise through her blockbuster book “Entertaining,” which eventually turned into the Martha Stewart Living empire. But she developed a reputation for being a demanding perfectionist and mean, contradicting that pleasant imagery associated with her brand.

Stewart also preached the value of everything from scratch, which made her revered and resented. In comparison, the culinary world pooh-poohed Lee’s “Semi-Homemade Cooking” methods and dissed Ray’s propensity to toss together quick, cheap meals instead of quality ones. Those two weren’t speaking to foodies with their shows, however. Their targets were harried parents stretching their limited funds. In contrast, Meghan is selling a sun-soaked lifestyle where jars of dried rose blossoms nestle on pantry shelves, and backyards are abundant in fresh herbs, salad greens and passionfruit vines.

The more that “With Love, Meghan” reveals about its host, the closer we are to understanding how much closer her upbringing is to Lee and Ray – and Stewart, who also came from modest means – than that of De Laurentiis, the granddaughter of blockbuster movie producer Dino De Laurentiis. If she doesn’t get knocked for supposedly being a nepo baby, De Laurentiis catches flak for the way she dresses, or her attractiveness, or her insistence on pronouncing words like spaghetti in a way that seems contrived.

But most of the criticisms lobbed at Meghan have less to do with originality than authenticity. Stewart said as much in a recent interview: “I hope she knows what she’s talking about,” she said to Yahoo News Australia. “Authenticity, to me, is everything, and to be authentic and knowledgeable about your subject matter is extremely important.”

There’s also an unspoken sentiment that one’s celebrity culinary status must somehow be earned, and that’s not necessarily unreasonable. Professional chefs learn techniques honed in the heat of restaurant kitchens that most home cooks wouldn’t naturally pick up.

Neither is it out of bounds to point out that “With Love, Meghan” and its host’s expanding culinary brand, As Ever, would not exist if the former Meghan Markle never met and married Prince Harry. She did, and that level of global notoriety, positive and negative, earned her the ability to market herself as just another nice, extremely rich girl with designer backyard chickens that lay tiny, delicious eggs.

(Netflix) Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and José Andrés in “With Love, Meghan”

Having said that, although you will lose count of the times Meghan professes to be making things for the first time on a highly produced show where every dish and craft turns out flawlessly, the woman obviously knows how to cook. She’s also invested enough in making a high quality lifestyle program to know when to let the images speak for themselves. Season 2 throws in a few field trips that make the most of Michael Steed’s sensual directing, including a visit to Ojai Olive Oil that affords a gaze at the process of transforming the fruit into grassy liquid treasure.

In these scenes, Meghan confirms that her real talent lies in facilitating instructive experiences with experts, including master chefs like José Andrés, David Chang and Samin Nosrat. That said, if you asked me to recreate what Chang and his fellow star chef Christina Tosi (of Milk Bar fame) made with Meghan and Martin, I couldn’t. But I can (and did!) make a fried egg with a perfectly crisped edge and beautifully runny sunny-side up yolk, thanks to a simple hack Chang shared while Meghan prepared several to accompany her onion tarts.

In another episode, she makes a homemade version of Cheez-It style crackers she prepares with Chrissy Teigen while Teigen’s husband John Legend waits in the other room. I might be able to do that. She also demonstrates how to make apple hand pies, inspired by her affection for the McDonald’s hot desserts she used to treat herself to after auditioning for a role.

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And yes, she still says nice things about how nice it is to be nice and sprinkles edible flowers on everything. Now, instead of Mindy Kaling cooing over her petal addiction, we have France deadpanning, “That is the gayest s**t I’ve seen in a long time.” And it is, if what he means is that her signature habit is both ridiculous, extra and fabulous.

Meghan comes across as more sensible when she advises people to always have a box of puff pastry in their freezer, which is not what a “real” chef would do. (Unless it’s Ina Garten, who gets a pass on the whole store-bought noise.) But that also affirms her as a real person as opposed to a flattened personality, one who is inoffensive, a little twee and unbothered about being an amateur with A-list chefs on speed dial.

Some of her enthusiasm might rub off on you. Some, or all, may rub you the wrong way. But if you embrace lifestyle programming as a soothing agent, you may be just as content to put the haters on mute and flop on the couch like a collapsed meringue as these four-plus new hours float on by.

Season 2 of “With Love, Meghan” is streaming on Netflix.

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