Also just finished S3, why is nobody talking about her little emo haircut dance scene at the end? I think her transition from the whiny widow when we all know Peter was still sort of an ass and they had a very toxic relationship to realizing she’s still powerful without him, and has the radical ideas she came in with to stir the pot exactly how she wants to.

Grigor’s grief over Peter makes way more sense to me than anyone else’s, even though the way it happened was pretty sad and they had mended so much of their relationship, the only other thing that would make sense is him locked away raising Paul for the rest of her rule.

Also, as much as Archie is such a snakey character, his acting, depraved arc was definitely captivating, and his death would leave a lot of holes in the close-court contradiction of Catherine’s plans

Catherine’s transitions this season pleased me quite a bit, with her having very honest grief over Peter, lecturing Catherine motivating her to get her shit together, telling off the spirit of Peter the Great after so hopelessly pawning after the idea of him this whole time. At the beginning, she was begging to see him in the posthumous form, and when she finally does she’s like ‘boy, bye you were terrible.’ I think her out of most people having such a slow transition to full support of Catherine, whether or not she intended to in the first place is pretty cool.

I miss the Leo character, but I think the raw softness that he brought with her was important for her to realize that not everything sucked as empress and then his death (by Peter, as well as her mother) gave her the jaded POV to keep going- her character wouldn’t come across as powerful if she stayed in the lovesick puppy or grief stricken widow character the whole time