Is As ever all over? Starting to feel like it.

[AtIusvue]

It’s been 14 hours since the launch of the 2024 Rose. Nothing has sold out. This is despite it being designed again as a scarcity drop, so it can’t be argued she’s finally got her stock levels right.

• As ever stated the wine launch going ‘live’ at on the 5th August. Language designed to get you to rush and buy. Just like all this SM shopping you get now.
• Meghan put out a message many hours ago, stating that they have so much more stock (sad clapback to stuff not shifting) but hurry and be quick because it’s selling fast!!! (It’s clearly not)
• This launch however, has attracted very little press compared to previous drops

The scarcity gimmick is already tired and because she’s been absent from SM for 2 months…save for a few stock images/videos- she’s lost any momentum she had. She’s putting in bare minimum and her customer base feel it. She’s checked out.

There’s been talk of another series of WLM 3 and Meg getting a new NF contract, but I think that is just to fill the void until she can get WLM2 out. At which point, we will find out if there is any truth in any further deals.

The reason why I doubt WLM3, is that for continuity, you would need the same venue. But the home is now being used to to host weddings etc, it’s no longer a private rental but one open to the public to rent. There’s no way Meg would film in that location now. In addition she would need to have gotten the go ahead already for WLM3 and be filming right now to be able to stick to a schedule. The fact that it isn’t already confirmed, it’s giving the signal that WLM is over (in addition to knowing NF deal is done)

Now if WLM is over, I don’t think she has the draw to pull people to As ever. She doesn’t engage with her fan base enough, she does the bare minimum of SM posts, which she hasn’t even achieved the last few months. The Shopmy page is dead too. This is why the new wine launch has barely registered and hasn’t sold out 14 hours later. Yes, there will be more stock but it’s been designed for a sell out so there won’t be huge numbers.

As ever I think will be slowly wound down. There will be WLM2, with maybe another 18 months of drops. Then like everything else, it will be dropped quietly. Everyone is starting to get a bit bored by the half hearted, very beige effort she’s put into her ‘business’ and have tuned out.

She will have to launch yet another version of herself very soon. We’ve had actress, feminist, activist, producer, philanthropist….now female founder. God knows what’s next!

Yes - the morally superior drive by scolding 😂

With love Meghan season 2….so you don’t have to!

Main takeaways:

• I didn’t see WLM2 on the NF homepage, I had to look for it. I had to type in the full name too, before it actually came up. Strange.
• They have definitely taken on board the criticisms of the first series and made much better editing decisions. It’s much more watchable.
• Less of Meghan on her own. When she is, we see less of the producer asking her questions and prompting her, which made the first show feel amateur. They’ve edited out the producers questions…:so looks more polished.
• Shes not teaching her friends to cook, like she did the first series. Which was stupid as she has such basic skills. Now the guest will come over, cook something with her helping or Meg cooking with them helping. It’s less teacher mode.
• She isn’t as awkward with her guests. The first series was so bad, but the guests she has on, she clearly feels more comfortable me with. Although one episode I think it’s down to the alcohol she’s consuming
• Meg clearly drinks a lot. Even when guests don’t drink, like Tan France- she’s drinking. Bit concerning to be honest.
• Chef Jose seems like a lovely guy and his episode was good to watch. Tan France episode started awkward because Meg doesn’t know what to do with his energy but she warms to him. But he asks good questions and Meg is forced to act human.
• While the show is much more palatable, the awful music ruins it. Think Sunday morning feel good crappy musak. We find out that her fav music station in the UK is Magic….explains a lot.
• Her clothing choices are better.
• Some continuity issues. One episode she says she would feel intimidated cooking for a large number of guests….then the episode wirh chef Jose, she says what they have in common is the love for feeding large groups of people……eh?She also has the same hair do over ‘5days’ when she’s feeding the starter dough.
• Show still based upon her guests telling her how amazing she is, but it’s less frequent than in series 1. She also can’t help but insert herself into everything. In a flower arrangement session she’s doing with friends, one guest turns to another and says his creation looks like Ikebana. He then says, Samurai used to train in flower arranging and calligraphy for their dexterity….Meg has to jump in and say that’s just like her! 😂
• She has less mental moments but there are a couple. One episode she tells us how to pack a weekend bag…capsule wardrobe? Never heard of that, thanks Meg! She then shows us, this really special leather hold-all, relaying the heritage of the item……she’s had it ten years. I’ve got bras older than that!. She also makes a in-flight amenity kit for Claire Smyth, with socks and an eye mask. As if Claire wouldn’t be flying business or first class to LA and would have been given a far more luxurious kit!
• She’s still in competition with guests. When she’s flower arranging with friends, they are having fun and she’s too busy looking at her own creation and making hers perfect. There’s no knowledge passed on, it’s just about Meghan using $$$s worth of flowers to make an arrangement and have her guests tell her hers is the best. She even admits to going back out and tweaking it. The arrangement is a mess in my opinion, I don’t know why she’s thinks it’s her thing.
• We see pics from her wedding reception. It’s just a marquee. It’s fine, nothing inspirational. A sea of beige as you might expect.
• She knew that she loved Harry by her third date! Love bombing anyone?
• The decor has changed, so we see pumpkins, evenings with candles and twinkly lights and orange flowers. I think they have already filmed the Xmas episode.

Not really anything else to write. This first series was hilarious at how out of touch and awkward she was, but this series is much better. Still completely unrealistic recipes…no one is going to make homemade s’mores! But certainly isn’t awful like the first one.

Thanks @AtIusvue you took one for the team there.

Well done Atlas. I’ve seen a few snippets on Twitter. The awful tie dying of silk squares had my eyes rolling back in my head. She is insufferable.

It’s obviously still an advert for As ever….so will see what products she brings out today and how that relates to what she had on the show.

I think the raspberry jam will be back as she does the thumb print cookies. The cookie mixture…again. Flower sprinkles ….again.

Think there might be chai tea and another hot beverage.

Maybe crostinis or crostini packet mix.

Maybe a spice mix

There also might be more booze. We saw A LOT of it on the show.

Thanks for the @AtIusvue !!

Sounds like an improvement.

What is think is interesting though is how little interest there is. Maybe because it's not terrible. Her just being a mediocre tv host means nobody cares.

She has to do something quite outrageous to keep people watching and commenting. Bland non embarrassing tv will just result in her being ignored.

The Daily mail don't seem to be commenting at all. And it even feels like us gossipy royal watchers on here have lost a lot of interest.

Admittedly if/when they do something embarrassing or outrageous again I'll be here for it 🤣

Although making your personality quirks based around loving flower sprinkles or having a bag for 10 years is still embarrassing 😁

I’m just picking up this

Meghan clearly drinks a lot. Even when guests don’t drink, like Tan France- she’s drinking. Bit concerning to be honest

Ive long thought alcohol was mentioned so often in the snippets we hear about their life that my granny would have said ‘she seems fell fond oh a drink.

And yes, I did and still do find it concerning.

That reminds me…..she makes liking a lot of chilli heat in her food a personality trait too in this series. Her guests manage to be both dumbfounded and impressed by it…..it’s so fucking weird.

It’s mentioned at least twice in these episodes by the guests.

I think she’s trying to tell us she’s hot. Hot for her fox.

The Guardian’s review is in — 2/5, with the subheading: “so painfully contrived that it’s genuinely fascinating.”

In a twist, the critic declared the real highlight wasn’t Meghan but Chrissy Teigen, even confessing they might “voluntarily watch a lifestyle show she presented.”

So while Meghan and her team may have brushed aside Teigen’s controversies in hopes of buzz, the move accidentally backfired. Chrissy walked away with the praise, leaving Meghan — awkwardly — as the least compelling presence on her own show. Oh dear.

The Guardian

My favourite quote

"She’s still sprinkling flowers over everything, by the way. I don’t know if it’s a choice or a compulsion, but if you stand still long enough in (not) Meghan’s kitchen, the chances are you will be covered in violets and served alongside a mug of grey foam to a nano-celebrity who is beginning to realise he has not been paid enough."

They also called it "boring, contrived and effortfully
whimsical"

Ouch.

I like the quote mostly because the flowers on everything is the thing I find strangest.

• Meg takes the interviewer to the Godmothers bookstore. Interviewer asks her what kind of books she’s into…she answers she hasn’t gotten into a book in a really long time. Ffs
• Drinking before noon…..again
• They the talk about how bookstores are a safe space for meghan and Meg says you can find your story there. How does that makes sense when she just admitted she doesn’t read!
• Interviewer asked her about the mixed reaction to WLM - that it was mocked. Megs says her fans love the show and all the haters go home and make her spaghetti recipe. She also says if it pays the bills and they are comfortable writing negative things at someone else’s detriment, she’s ok with that. Yeh sounds like it Meg! No one could possibly be correct that it was an awful show.
• Meg pretends to be shocked at the accusation that she’s promoting trad wife life and that she hadn’t heard that!!!!!!!
• Interviewer says she won’t share As ever sales figures
• Meg says her second drop of As ever products was 10 times the first lot.
• She says they have now made a purchase order for a million lids and jars. Yip a MILLION!
• Meg says her celebrity brand is better than other brands because she’s authentic.
• Megs side of the business is creative side. NF does the rest
• Meg wants to get As ever in shops
• interviewer tries in vein to get her to share her activist opinion on the ICE raids, Trump…. But she forgets she now talking to Trad wife Meg who doesn’t say anything other than banalities. So the interviewer asks her if she unable to feel she can speak out (because she been suspiciously quiet on political issues recently)- Meg smugly says ‘No, I just make a choice.’ But funny how she found it difficult to do that in the UK. Meg said if she had something to say she would say it but that’s not where she’s at right now. The show shows her in 2016 talking about trump, highlighting her complete abandonment of her former activist self. She obviously has nothing to say on immigration raids, Trump, role back of DEI etc. it’s actually embarrassing.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7CtBsylelBo&pp=ygUMVGhlIGNpcmN1aXQg

I was expecting to come back to a new thread and a hundred replies.
But no one cares.

Remember there is only one thing worse than being talked about...

The Telegraph’s review: 2/5 - More tone-deafness from the Montecito Marie Antoinette

Some of favourite observations:

• And you wonder if the reason for his absence is that Harry, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, might step into this carefully temperature-controlled environment and start saying the wrong thing. Such as: whose house is this?
• She admits that “our friend” France is someone she has never actually met before. She has researched his home life, though.
• In episode one, she launches into some competitive flower arranging and her effort is judged to be the best, like a child who insists on winning the party games at her own birthday
• At one point, she opens a kitchen drawer and panics. “Oh, that’s not pretty. That’s not in the shot,” she warns the director, and quickly slams it shut. What’s in there – a mess? A voodoo doll of the Princess of Wales? We will never know
• We will never know. The closing credits play out to the lyrics “don’t let it be the last time”. Please, let it be the last time.

www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/with-love-meghan-netflix-season-2-review/

Whoops, it’s pay to read

Here you go

archive.ph/xvsdy

The Times

‘they ram home what the themes of this season are evidently going to be: compulsory fun with strangers, the importance of learning new things and being pushed out of our comfort zones with dear friends we’ve just met, personal betterment, considerable enrichment, and the joy to be found living a sun-kissed life in California.’

https://archive.ph/NLSae

The Independent - 1/5 - Watching this is like being gaslit by a multimillionaire

😬

I haven't watched any of their output (not the six parter, not WLM, not the podcasts, not even the engagement interview), because they're excruciating. I've known women like her, I spotted her as one of them back in 2017, and nothing since has proven me wrong.

I've just read today's reviews and some online chatter, and my conclusion - now that they've settled into their new life and she's had the space and freedom and money to do what she really wants to do - is that she's boring.

She has nothing interesting to say, and she wraps that nothing in impenetrable waffle that's even less meaningful than the nothing she's talking about. Worse, she delivers all that nothing with the body language and invented gravitas of a person who's seen horrors of deprivation, wars and famine, danger and threat, imprisonment or torture (perhaps this is what her 2 minutes in the RF felt like to her?), now healed enough to humbly share her wisdom and experience with whoever is listening to her - except she's talking about nude pantyhose and not having used her voice in the UK and really not much else. She talks in riddles and circles and non-sequiturs because that's all she has: she has nothing else to say.

It's fine, she doesn't need to be interesting. Most people on the planet aren't. But I suspect she will experience quite a disconnect now that she's on a first-look deal with Netflix and has to beat off competition with her output. Boring isn't going to cut it, and further complaints about her time in the UK won't either.

In her interview with Emily Chang on Bloomberg's YouTube channel, she says in response to her angel investing and how she chooses who to invest in, that "I want to be able to bring really sound investors to their cap table. I want to be able to open up their network for them. I want to be able to be a soundboard and just a place for advice and to help them grow." Setting aside the totally cringeworthy MBAs for Dummies lingo (which actually doesn't make much sense in this context), it's quite remarkable that she thinks that American Riviera Orchard-cum-As Ever gives her any standing to be a soundboard for advice, or that name-recognition is enough to draw "sound investors". That's really not how these things work, and if she were the things she wants people to believe she is, she'd know that.

So she's boring AND she is deluded about the value of her offering. She's just a very mediocre person who wouldn't earn airtime off her own bat/sans Harry. She's right when she says she's always been the same person. She's just got more money now. Only she will know whether her shattered reputation (and all the rest of it) has been worth it.

I watched the first episode and part of the second.... I did have to search for it on Netflix.

I think it would be hilarious to watch this and have a drink every time the word 'friends' is said! For someone who claims to be authentic it all comes across as really false.

I'm amazed Daniel is still there....I think even he is wondering why he is there.

I thought it was odd that CT wasn't sure of her son's birthday...she even had her children's birth dates tattooed on her arm and still wasn't sure..odd.

Actually, I think she does have something interesting and unique that she can talk about: what it's like to go through media hell, how to keep picking yourself up when you know you're going to get hammered online, how to keep your marriage stable when reports of your imminent divorce are constantly swirling, how you protect your children from fame etc. That really does have to be an almost-uniquely difficult thing to live through. Difficult to monetize that, though, especially when it's plain as plain can be that fame and global recognition is what you always wanted in the first place.

"And with that we are off into season two of With Love, Meghan, a series in search of a meaning, fronted by a woman in need of some cash."

It's anyone writing a nice review? It seems like most reviewers are done with the artifice, the hyperbole and amateurism.

I had to search for it too. I thought maybe because of the timing…because it’s out in the UK first…that they wanted to wait to properly promote once the US was awake and tuning in?

Maybe not. Alarming if theyre not promoting it. This is their business too

The kindest review I’ve seen basically says it’s slightly less terrible than the first series — which, naturally, isn’t much of a compliment.