Harry & Meghan Volume 2 review: Behind the whingeing is a prince with PTSD – and nobody can ignore that-Amanda Cable-Entertainment – Metro

After the first three episodes of Harry & Meghan proved to be a damp squib, Volume 2 is packed with explosive bombshells (Picture: Netflix)

Drama, tears and famous royal faces pushed to their emotional limits. No, not The Crown – but the latest instalment of Harry & Meghan, the Netflix extravaganza, which dropped its final three episodes today.

Perhaps most devastating of all the content was the revelation of the rift between William and Harry. According to Harry, his older brother has followed the ‘institution,’ leaving former soldier and Afghanistan veteran Harry terrified at a meeting in Sandringham where William shouted at him.

Old video footage showed the two princes growing up together, and one of the most touching flashbacks saw two little boys dressed up in helmets and matching blue coats playing on a fire engine as their mother, Princess Diana, proudly looked on.

Diana’s one consolation through divorce, isolation, the humiliation of Charles’ longtime affair with now Queen Consort Camilla and treachery from the BBC which led to her life-changing Panorama interview, was that her two boys would always be there for each other.

So how horrified Diana would have been to see Harry laying into the big brother he once adored. William may be shackled by duty – but that doesn’t make him a bad man. And let’s face it, who hasn’t been screamed at by an older sibling?

However, within 10 minutes of watching the joyous flashbacks to Meghan and Harry’s Windsor wedding, a new Harry starts to emerge, and it makes for compulsive viewing because it’s a portrait of a former soldier who appears to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Harry’s obvious exhaustion and confusion in the video blogs recording his flights from the UK (where he appears to not even know what day of the week it is), his visible attempts to control his emotion as he recalls the events that led to Megxit and  the flushing of his cheeks as he describes the deteriorating relationship with the royal family all look like classic symptoms of PTSD.

But I doubt Harry’s PTSD comes from either of his two tours of Afghanistan during his 10 years of service in the army. Instead, I think the trigger was witnessing the bitter break up of his parents’ marriage, their subsequent divorce, and long absences from his family while he was away at boarding school.

Add to that the greatest trauma of all – the fact that one morning during his school holidays in summer 1997 at Balmoral he was woken by his father and told that Diana, his beloved mother had died suddenly and tragically in a car crash – and it’s no surprise that he’s struggling with his mental health.

What other grieving child is then made to walk – on parade in front of millions – behind his mother’s coffin? Ironically, the only person alive who understands what Harry went through that day is William, the big brother from whom he is now estranged.

Whatever your thoughts on Harry and Meghan, it’s clear they are very much in love (Picture: Netflix)

Two siblings at war (Picture: NEWSPIX INTERNATIONAL)

Diana would have thought her boys would always look after each other but sadly, that’s no longer the case – and I doubt there will be Christmas greetings this year zooming between Montecito and Windsor. 

In this last half of Netflix’s documentary, I felt a far more vulnerable Harry was revealed than the angry and indignant man we saw in last week’s episodes.

Perhaps, in Meghan, he found someone who wasn’t simply prepared to accept the past, but who wanted to let him consider a totally different future – one that he had never dared to contemplate.

And could anyone who remembered a small red-faced 13-year-old following his mother’s coffin at her funeral – or who saw the card with Mummy written in childish scrawl – then condemn Harry for feeling such resentment?

True, neither he or Meghan do themselves many favours with accusations and complaints which are scatter-gunned throughout the three latest hour-long documentaries.

And Meghan’s coterie of melodramatic friends who all claim to have been at the epicentre of a storm don’t help either. ‘It was a really dark time and I didn’t know what to do,’ wails one. ‘She was just disappearing inside herself,’ says another. Or my personal favourite gush: ‘Their departure felt like the death of a dream.’

Diana’s one consolation was that her two boys would always be there for each other (Picture: PA)

If the main purpose of a friend is to calm you down and keep you going, this lot just added fuel to the flames. Indeed, none of them genuinely sounded like the independent, strong and successful friendship group Meghan boasted of during the documentary.

But I digress. The point is – decades after Diana suffered for so long in silence, mental health is no longer taboo. Watching Meghan recall suicidal thoughts, I can believe that as a new mother, new wife and a career girl who gave up her country and home to be by her dream prince and live in the ground of a magical castle, Meghan did face moments of great stress.

And an emotional Meghan tells the cameras here that she was unable to access help when she needed it the most.

Still, recollections may vary.

There are plenty of moments that this documentary will make you want to throw a brick at the TV. Self-pity rather than self-awareness awash. But there’s also genuinely sweet pictures and video clips that show both Harry and Meghan together and as a family with their adorable children Archie and Lili.

Perhaps more of Harry’s mental state is revealed here than in last week’s first three episodes. He locked horns with his father, the Queen, William and ‘the Institution.’ But watching this, the real battle began years ago, when a small boy watched his parent’s unhappy marriage deteriorate from behind public smiles – memories he alludes to here.

This is really worth a watch. Keep a blood pressure monitor nearby for the endless line-up of misty-eyed friends and talking heads but equally, have an open mind about… well, Harry’s mind.

I don’t think the way to heal a rift with William was to throw it open to millions, but maybe Harry has a point. Perhaps – for the future of his own children – something had to change.

Harry & Meghan is available to stream on Netflix now.

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