When will The Great season 3 be released? Hulu finally announced a release date for the upcoming season, more than a year after The Great received a renewal. Season 3 will be available exclusively on Hulu on May 12. Hulu also shared an image of the first look at the new season, featuring Catherine (Elle Fanning), and Peter (Nicholas Hoult).

The Great, which is described as “an occasional true story” and later “an almost completely untrue story”, is a historical drama that follows Catherine, a young lady who marries Russian Emperor Peter. In Season 2, Catherine attempts and ultimately succeeds in taking over Russia from Peter – with the help of army general Velementov (Douglas Hodge), bureaucrat Orlo (Sacha Dhawan), and noble-turned-maid-turned-noble Marial (Phoebe Fox). Catherine settled into her new role of empress through the season. However, she was met with resistance by nearly everyone, particularly the group of nobles loyal to Peter. She also realized how little she knew about Russia. It didn’t stop her from learning Russian and trying to help them see a better future. She had a baby, too!

The Great Before Season 3

Before we tell you what to expect in season 3, here’s a quick recap of Season 2:

Catherine succeeds in her coup, but she doesn’t kill Peter. Instead, she keeps him under house arrest while she tries to legitimize her reign and bring new ideas to Russia. She also gives birth to Peter’s son Paul. As the season progresses, Catherine and Peter’s relationship becomes more complicated. They share parental duties and develop honest-to-goodness feelings. Many of Catherine’s closest advisors want Peter to die, and Peter’s friends plot to overthrow Catherine. Catherine throws Peter’s friends, and Marial, into prison in her final act.

The Great Season 2 Finale Explained

The Great season 2 was almost a peaceful ending, but the last scenes offer a twist. These are the final scenes of The Great.

The finale of The Great season 2 appears to offer a peaceful resolution. However, the last minutes add a complex twist to the end that requires explanation. The abrupt twist in The Great season 2’s finale is not surprising in retrospect. It follows the same pattern as the closing of The Great season 1. While season 2 was primarily about Catherine the Great consolidating her power, the finale makes it clear that she still has a lot of struggles ahead of her. Hulu has confirmed The Great season 3.

The Great season 2 begins four months after the events in the first season. It concludes Catherine (Elle Fanning’s) coup against Peter (Nicholas Hoult), who attempts to take over the Russian throne and force him to sign papers of abdication. Over several months, Catherine tries to maintain her grip on the throne while Peter tries to get Elizabeth (Belinda Bromilow) to fall in love. The plan gets complicated when Peter accidentally kills Joanna Anderson (Catherine’s mother) and ends up sleeping with her.

In The Great season 2 finale, Catherine seems to forgive Peter for his actions and defuse the potentially bloody battle among the nobles before kissing Peter before putting Paul to bed. In the end, almost no lines are spoken. Velementov (Douglas Hodge) moves to arrest Russian nobles who are loyal to Peter–presumably under Catherine’s orders. Season 2 ends with Catherine trying to stab Peter but accidentally attacking Peter’s second, Pugachev. This raises many questions after the peaceful reconciliation. This is The Great season 2’s conclusion.

What Peter and Catherine’s Visions Are Explained

In The Great season 2 episode 10 “The Wedding”, Catherine’s confrontation against Peter is thwarted by the need to meet the Ottomans, and the fact that Paul is still in his hand. The Great gives both characters their visions of each other as they remain apart for a while. Although these visions can be a bit esoteric, they help to explain how and why each character makes their final decisions. While most of the story is told through Catherine’s eyes, Peter’s vision allows The Great to offer a different interpretation of the character.

Catherine’s vision of Peter eating a whale helps her to see the parallels between several of the key elements of her final decision. She knows that Peter is susceptible to negative impulses, and this is part of his personality. However, she criticizes him for following these impulses and says that his actions should have consequences. She has pictured Peter in her mind. It is clear that she reacts to dangerous impulses in a similar manner, but they are different types of impulses. This suggests that she may not be able to throw stones. Finally, she sees Peter kissing her, and she tells him that it is not enough. But she knows that she can make the choice to not kill him.

Peter’s vision does the same crucial work. He says he wouldn’t kill her because he loves them. Most importantly, Catherine acknowledged that Peter is the only one who knows her. The audience then sees Catherine as a beautiful, but bloody, and ruthless person. This ruthlessness is part of why he loves her and is able to forgive her.

Why Marial was Arrested (And George wasn’t)

The Great Season 2 ends with Velementov leading troops to detain several Russian nobles who plotted to kill Catherine (Gwilym Lee), Arkady (Bayo Gbadamosi) and Tatyana (Florence Keith-Roach). There are two odd things that happened here. Marial was taken along with the others while George, Grigor’s husband was told she was not being arrested. Marial was Catherine’s first friend in Russia, when she was appointed as Catherine’s maid. George was a long-time supporter of Peter.

Catherine made the decisions about who to arrest after Archie (Adam Godley) informed her that Peter had learned about her mother’s passing. Marial was a long-standing friend of Catherine. However, she betrayed them at the final season 1 and informed Peter about Catherine’s planned coup. Although she claimed it was part of a plan for Catherine’s safety, Catherine clearly doubts her loyalties and has her taken into custody to ensure her safety. George, on the contrary, asked to be exiled from France with false claims that she had seen the light in Catherine’s efforts to help Russia. Catherine seems to have accepted this, so Peter doesn’t have to arrest her. This will leave Peter’s followers without an ally in prison in The Great season 3.

Why Catherine Tries to Kill Peter

After an emotional speech, a public argument and gentle reconciliation with Peter at Marial’s wedding during Season 2’s end, Catherine enters Pugachev’s apartment and attempts to kill him. The attack appears to have come from nowhere, with little or no speech. It appears that Catherine intentionally staged a false reconciliation between Peter and herself to calm the court situation and put them on the back foot. After Paul has fallen asleep, she tells Peter that her plan is to meet her in his apartment. This is a calculated move which demonstrates Catherine’s ruthlessness as well as her new battle savvy. She is able, through the use of the staged emotional reconciliation, to get Peter to kill himself without putting her child at risk or having to deal with the possibility of him being killed by his supporters.

After trying to kill him, Catherine hugs Peter

After allegedly stabbing Pugachev to death, while thinking it was Peter, Peter enters the room and she runs after him to hug him. Over The Great season 2, Catherine fell in love with Peter. To protect her face from the man she loves, she turns her back on Pugachev when she attacks him. Catherine starts to cry when the execution is complete. She didn’t want him to die, but she couldn’t see any other option. She is relieved to have another chance and embraces Peter when she sees the consequences of what she did. This will cause problems for Russia season 3. However, Catherine’s expressions indicate that Catherine is conscious of the complicated awkwardness of the situation. Peter’s belief that Catherine is both ruthless but fundamentally loved him has been confirmed.

The Story of Catherine’s Attack: How Pugachev Survived

The most important question that The Great season 2 has left is how Pugachev was able to survive Catherine’s attack. He falls to the ground after she stabbed him repeatedly and violently in the back. Pugachev, however, stomps on Peter and Catherine as they embrace, and he falls to the floor. Although people can and have survived surprising injuries to their torsos in the past, it seems unlikely that The Great is simply saying that luck or chance might have saved him.

There are many possible explanations as to why Pugachev (Peter’s doppelganger) survived Catherine’s attack. Both were played by the X-Men franchise’s Beast Nicholas Hoult. Peter believed that Catherine would still want to kill him, as Pugachev was seen with his back turned. Pugachev might have used padding to save his life, as he had witnessed multiple doubles dying during The Great season 2. He would still be stabbed, but the wounds weren’t severe enough to kill him.

This could also be a way to introduce a new version of the Pugachev Rebellion into The Great season 3. It could also have been intended as a joke to break the tension at season’s end. This is based on the notion that Pugachev, Peter’s best double, had survived multiple deaths.

What to Expect in The Great Season 3

Hulu has confirmed The Great season 3. This means that Catherine and Peter can continue their story after the chaos season 2 finale. This is The Great‘s plan, since season 1’s finale left everything in limbo. Although The Great season 3 story details have not been released yet, it is reasonable to assume that the tensions will pick up again, although perhaps with a short jump. While Peter (and Pugachev) survived Catherine’s attack there is much more to uncover, especially if Catherine and Peter are still hopeful of reviving their relationship. It remains to be seen how Catherine will punish the nobles she has arrested. These tensions will likely be the main focus of The Great season 3, when the series returns. The Great season 2, with its wild ending, leaves much to be pondered.

The Great Season 3 Release Date

The Great Season 3 will be available on May 12, 2023. Paramount Global Distribution Group produces the series.

Like the two previous seasons, the upcoming season could also include 10 episodes. More details will be announced soon.

The Great Season 3 plot

“Season 3 of The Great sees Peter and Catherine attempt to make their marriage work despite seemingly impossible obstacles. Peter witnessed Catherine attempt to murder him and also put all his friends in prison. Peter, who is now First Husband to Catherine, has no control over his affairs and is busy with hunting, fathering, and other culinary endeavors. They are not enough to satisfy him as he is haunted by the memories of his father, Peter the Great.

“Catherine The Great begins to make a name for herself beyond her borders. Inspired by a visit of the US ambassador, she organizes a conference in which peasants and nobles can share their ideas on the development of a new Russia. She discovers that even the most powerful political leaders can sometimes have to compromise in order to move forward.”

The Great Season 3 Cast

Headlining The Great are Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, who play Catherine and Peter.

Fanning has been acting since childhood. Her most memorable credits include Somewhere, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Super 8, Maleficent as well as 20th Century Women, The Girl From Plainville, and Super 8. For her role in The Great, she was previously nominated at the Emmys as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Hoult was also a child star. He first made people notice in About a Boy, and then starred in Skins and Warm Bodies, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Favourite. An Emmy nomination was also given to him for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series for The Great.

Other members of The Great cast who are expected to return for season 3 include Phoebe Fox playing Marial, Sacha Dawan as Orlo and Gwilym Lee as Grigor. Adam Godley is the Archbishop. Douglas Hodge plays Velementov.

Review Before You Watch The Great Season 2

The Great is a show that is constantly on the edge of disaster. However, it does a remarkable job at concealing how difficult it works to maintain its balance. Hulu’s “occasionally truthful” drama about Russia’s monarch is even more contained than the first season. Most of the action takes place inside the palace where Catherine (Elle Fanning) has taken power from Peter (Nicholas Hoult). It doesn’t feel stretched across a vast map and is also free from timeline hopping which is currently the most annoying trend in streaming drama. The second season is as lush as the original. The wigs are tall and the only areas that aren’t covered in silk or fur are the bosoms. They heave frequently. It’s amazing that something so overwrought and flowery could feel so fragile.

This is The Great‘s magic, a show which jokes, fucks, and lops off people’s heads incessantly, while simultaneously performing painstaking and subtle emotional calculus. It can sometimes lose its way, especially at the margins. It can be difficult for secondary characters to match the wild, monstrous and often heartbreaking portrayal of the central couple. This means that sometimes someone like Count Orlo or Velementov (Douglas Hodge) has to become palpably mechanical. They can be angry or have hidden motives that cause the plot to veer off course. It would be hard to find something like this on a different TV show. It’s because Catherine and Peter are so intricately drawn. Everybody else will look a lot less developed than they do.

The show’s mood is influenced in part by the sense that there are arms working frantically to prevent them from falling off an edge. Season 2, which premieres in its entirety on November 19, is a strange liminal moment. Catherine believes that Peter is a violent, immoral, and evil person, and that she can take power from him. She also failed to kill Peter. She’s also pregnant. All of Catherine’s power, whether it is provisional or ill-defined or based upon facts that are changing or built on a foundation which could collapse in an instant, is therefore ill-defined or provisional. Peter threatens and needles Catherine, but is just as shocked by the possibility that she may not love him. Is it possible that he wants to win her affection because it is a form of power over her? Is he really in love with her? It’s hard to say. (Certainly not Peter and Catherine, who may be ill-matched in certain ways but are twins at solipsism.)

Catherine spends a lot of time pregnant. It’s one of the most unique and tonally successful TV pregnancies of recent memory. The Great is food obsessed: Every scene is filled with elaborate spreads and you could count every line of dialogue Peter uses in the show. Catherine, who is pregnant and encouraged to follow her whims still eats metal and dirt. Her friends encouraged her to indulge in frequent orgasms to control her bodily humors. She was also given frogs to eat by her advisers. Pregnancy and all its associated absurdities offer an excellent opportunity for The Great to tap into her favorite things: open depictions of bodies and sex, as well as a growing awareness that something is about to happen and it could be disastrous. Catherine walks around the palace carrying a large belly, which is threatening her doom. While the show is often distracted by Catherine’s improvement projects and Peter’s attempts at wooing her, as well as the shifting allegiances among all the courtesans, advisers, and courtesans, Catherine knows that Peter could kill her once the baby is born. Or she might die in childbirth. The baby could be dead. Catherine is a human bomb.

This feeling of imminent doom is handled so well. It’s present, but not too overwhelming, and it’s always tempered by the show’s wickedly dark sense of humor. Even more remarkable is the way season 2 transforms the doom into something touching and delicate at the end. The Great‘s default mode resembles nihilism. Violence and despair go hand in hand. Catherine’s wild sincerity and true optimism that things can get better is often used as a joke. The Great somehow manages to pull its characters into a world of unbelievable but convincing humanity. It’s hard to imagine any of them taking seriously at the start of the season. It’s truly devastating to think that one might betray another by the end of the season.

It is not clear if viewers are entertained or frustrated by The Great‘s playful semi-historical style, or if they ignore it. In particular, season two of The Great has seen the show diverge more from historical records. Sometimes, viewers feel itchy fingers and reach for the Wikipedia page to verify. It’s become more confident in its diversions and Peter and Catherine are more like themselves as they stray further from historical precedents.

How to Watch The Great

The Great is an original Hulu series. US subscribers can only view it if they have a Hulu subscription. You can sign up for Hulu in multiple ways, including standalone or as part of the Disney Bundle, or by pairing it with live TV with Hulu and Live TV.

After signing up, you will be able to watch the first two seasons of The Great online before season 3 premieres in May.

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The Great Season 3 Trailer

The trailer for The Great Season 3 has yet to be released. You can view the Season 2 trailer below.