The Great Episode 1 recap: 5 things we loved in the series premiere

4. Everything about Marial and Catherine’s budding friendship.

Marial instantly proves herself to be one of the few sane people running around the court and one of the few real friends Catherine has in her new home. We learn early in the episode that Marial was formerly part of the aristocracy but her family got on Peter’s bad side.

To humiliate them, Peter demoted them all to servants, making Marial a lady-in-waiting. It ends up being to Catherine’s benefit since Marial is intelligent and astute. It is Marial that stops Catherine from committing suicide at the end of the episode by advising she alter her love story.

Maybe the bear with a heart engulfed in flame wasn’t about Catherine’s love for Peter, but her love for Russia. She also slips Catherine’s valuable intel about the Russian hierarchy. If Peter dies and has no heir, then Catherine will take over, as Russia does not follow the rules of blood lineage.

3. The ladies of the court.

Catherine soon learns the women she’s surrounded by do not read, at all. They instead spend their days rolling balls across the lawn and trying to keep up with the latest hats from Paris, which are actually just ill-fitted wigs.

They gossip and sit around chattering about who’s cheating on who and the like. Catherine quickly realizes that she can hardly bear spending a moment with them without feeling all of her brain cells die. It’s torturous for poor Catherine but hilarious to the audience. The hat-wigs is one of my favorite gags of the episode.