The second season of Hulu’s Emmy-nominated “anti-historical” comedy The Great commences soon enough. As a little treat, the streamer has shared a first look at Gillian Anderson in the forthcoming season, where she will play Catherine’s mother, Joanna. The dress details, the perfectly curled wig, and the stern look? She may not rule all of Russia, but she looks like a queen.
After usurping the crown in the first season, Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning) now sets her sight on “liberating” a country that doesn’t want to be liberated. After engaging in a battle of wits with her husband Peter (Nicholas Hoult) last season, she now has to battle her court, her team, and even her own mother in a bid to bring the Age of Enlightenment to Russia.
Meanwhile, her wretched Peter slowly transitions from much-hated husband, to prisoner? Ally? Lover? Who knows. Catherine sure doesn’t. According to Hulu, Catherine will ultimately “learn that to change a country, you must let it change you, that there is a fine line between idealism and delusion, and that becoming ‘Great’ will ask more of her than she could have imagined.”
Phoebe Fox, Adam Godley, Gwilym Lee, Charity Wakefield, Douglas Hodge, Sacha Dhawan, Bayo Gbadamosi, and Belinda Bromilow all return for the second season, with creator Tony McNamara (The Favourite) on as the writer and executive producer.
In addition to continuing to craft The Great, McNamara has penned the script for another historically inaccurate tale with director Yorgos Lanthimos, titled Poor Things. The Frankenstein-esque Victorian-set feature stars Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe.
It’s a big win for fans of McNamara’s now signature brash and hysterical way of presenting characters from bygone eras, which he does so eloquently in The Great.
All ten episodes of The Great’s second season arrive on Hulu November 19.