Steven McIntosh
Entertainment Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

It's Christmas time at Kensington Palace as we continue with episode four.

"Very shortly before the party, it became two parties," says James Holt from the couple's Archewell foundation.

The implication is that Harry and Meghan were starting to part ways with William and Kate.

The media coverage of Harry and Meghan was getting worse, the couple's friends claim. Some of them are interviewed for profile stories in an effort to turn the tide.

A baby shower for Meghan follows, but the press are critical for its indulgence. "Why are you taking such a beautiful moment and trying to ruin it?" Meghan asks.

The pressure the couple felt and their desire not to raise their child under the media spotlight ultimately led to them accepting the Queen's offer to move into the more secluded Frogmore Cottage.

In Episode 5, Harry claims the Queen had invited him to tea on his return to the UK, but was later told his grandmother was now busy.

Back to episode six, where we've moved onto the couple's interview with Oprah Winfrey last year.

They say they expected most of the reaction to revolve about Meghan's mental health struggles - but Meghan says that was "entirely eclipsed by the conversation about race".

Meghan is filmed on her laptop the following day when she says she receives a text message from none other than Beyonce. "I still can’t believe she knows who I am," Meghan says.

She recounts the message to Harry: "She wants me to feel safe and protected, she admires and respects my bravery and vulnerability, and she thinks I was selected to break generational curses that need to be healed."

"That's well said," Harry replies.

Image source, Harry & Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Towards the end of episode six, having talked about so much upset in their lives, Meghan moves on to discuss how she tries to rebalance.

"It’s like my word has to be ‘peace’," she says.

"And it was right around that time that I was like, 'I just want peace'.

"And part of that, for me, is reclaiming, you know, when you’ve lost a huge part of yourself - getting that back includes getting back those relationships and those friendships and things that anchor you to who you are."

Image source, Harry & Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Episode six features some family footage of a visit by Princess Eugenie to California, where she and Harry ride bikes and play with Archie in the sea.

Harry says of Archie's upbringing in North America: "This is the world that he knows. He spent his first five months in Windsor, that’s it.

"This is home to him, this is home to Lili and this is our home.

"I get to do things with our kids I would never get to do in the UK."

Image source, Harry & Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Image source, Harry & Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Ashitha Nagesh
BBC News Community Affairs Correspondent

Image source, AFP

"I started cooking at the age of seven," says Munira Mahmud in episode four. On 14 June, 2017, an inferno destroyed her home - Grenfell Tower - and killed 72 people. Munira, her family, and other survivors were sent to a hotel and given fast food vouchers.

"We stayed in the hotel for 19 months, eating takeaway day and night. So I walked into the local mosque and asked if I could use their kitchen to cook."

That was the birth of the Hubb Community Kitchen - a group of survivors who cooked together. Meghan met the women a few months later, and released a cookbook with them in 2018.

"The first speech I made as a member of the Royal Family was launching this cookbook," Meghan says.

In Volume I, Harry and Meghan set their story against the backdrop of racism in the UK - from centuries of British slavery to the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

This segment on Grenfell suggests this will continue in Volume II.

Most of the victims of the fire were people of colour. In 2020, the barrister representing survivors told the inquiry into the disaster that it was "inextricably linked with race". The long-running inquiry heard closing arguments last month.

Harry speaks in episode six about the death of Prince Philip, who died aged 99 in April 2021.

"I was actually really happy for my Grandfather. He went quietly. He went peacefully...he went happily," Harry says.

But he goes on to talk about what it felt like going back to the UK, from his home in LA, to attend the funeral.

"It was hard - especially spending a time having chats with my brother and my father, who were just very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation.

"None of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s funeral but we did."

He says he did not get what he wanted from some of their conversations.

"I had to make peace with the fact we were never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology…my wife and I were moving on and focused on what’s coming next."

Steven McIntosh
Entertainment Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

The narrative turns in episode four to the media stories that were written about Meghan, and how they compare with Kate, now Princess of Wales.

"When some people in the institution around the family started to see that this new couple could destabilise the power dynamics, whether actively talked about or not, the aim was to put them in a box, or make them irrelevant," claims James Holt, who happens to work for the couple's Archewell foundation.

"All of a sudden these tabloid stories started to appear, criticising Meghan for every little thing."

What follows is essentially a TV adaptation of this famous Buzzfeed article, external, where side-by-side comparisons are made of media headlines about Kate and Meghan.

The headlines that are selected show the media being generally supportive when Kate does something, and generally critical when Meghan does something similar.

This may be a legitimate complaint, and indeed has been debated at great length in recent years, although it's just worth noting that Meghan did also get plenty of positive coverage, which has been used earlier in the docuseries.

• Did sexism play a role in Meghan coverage? Listen here for an exploration of the "duelling duchesses" narrative

Helen Bushby
Entertainment reporter

Harry reflects, as families often do, on similarities between his children and other family members.

In episode six, we see images of his and Meghan's daughter Lilibet, who is now aged one. Their son Archie is now aged three.

"I see a lot of my wife in Archie," he says.

"I see a lot of my Mum in Lili."

Image source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Image source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Image source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Image source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

Steven McIntosh
Entertainment Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

As episode four continues, Harry is speaking candidly about his popularity as a royal.

He says: "When someone who should be a supporting act is stealing the job or doing the job better than someone who's born to do this, that upsets people, or shifts the balance."

He's presumably referring to his father, who was heir to the throne at the time, and his brother Prince William, who was next in the line of succession.

We move to a remembrance event which was attended by every member of the royal family, including the Queen.

But the next day, as we are shown via a series of newspaper clippings, it was Harry and particularly Meghan who dominated the coverage.

"Meghan was like, 'But it's not my fault', and I'd say 'I know, and my mum felt the same way'," Harry says.

This is illustrated with a clip of his mother, the late Princess Diana, taken from her famous but since discredited interview with Martin Bashir.

The BBC's director-general Tim Davie had asked for footage from this interview never to be shown again, after an inquiry found the interview had been set up using deceitful methods. Prince William has also said the interview should never be aired again.

Netflix (and Harry) clearly aren't too concerned about that, as they use a clip of Diana from the 1995 interview saying: "With the media attention came a lot of jealousy, a great deal of complicated situations arose because of that."

Harry talks in episode six about what life felt like for them after they left the UK, initially settling in Canada.

He says: "We thought that was the beginning of our year of transition, which turns out it was anything but a transition.

"It was just a beating. That’s why everything that happens to us was always going to happen to us, because if you speak truth to power that’s how they respond."

According to Dictionary.com, external, speaking truth to power is to "stand up for what’s right, and tell people in charge what’s what... an expression for courageously confronting an authority, calling out injustices on their watch, and demanding change."

Harry goes on: "I can’t think what my Mum went through all those years ago by herself.

"To see this institutional gaslighting that happens is extraordinary. That’s why everything that’s happened to us was always going to happen to us.

"Because if you speak truth to power that’s how they respond."

Gaslighting is a word which appears regularly online according to Merriam-Webster, America's oldest dictionary publisher. It is the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one's own advantage.

Sean Coughlan
Royal correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

This is getting personal now.

Prince Harry and Meghan present their decision to leave the UK almost like it was an ambush.

Harry describes how their own plan for a half-in, half-out royal life was rejected during a family summit in Sandringham.

“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true,” says Prince Harry.

The couple had been thinking for a couple of years about starting a new life, the series suggests, perhaps giving up their titles and moving to New Zealand or South Africa.

But in an atmosphere of distrust, with allegations of plans being leaked, the series paints a picture where compromise was unlikely.

Prince Harry talks of a wedge being placed between himself and his brother, and the institution of the monarchy being put above the needs of individual members.

Even a joint statement put out in the brothers’ names wasn’t really something he had signed up to, claims Prince Harry.

“So there was no other option at this point. I said ‘We need to get out of here’,” Harry says.

So far there has been no response from royal sources about such claims or anything else in the series.

Image source, Harry & Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

More from episode six, and Harry and Meghan's location in California has been exposed by Mail Online and the couple are discussing Meghan's privacy battle with the paper over its publication of a letter she sent to her father.

She eventually won, and was awarded a nominal sum of £1.

Meghan says during the case as part of the disclosure process, the publisher, Associated Newspapers, demanded access to her emails and messages using the search terms: "I love you", "Archie", "Kate", "William" and "Africa".

Harry tells the documentary makers: "They will use a privacy litigation to further invade your privacy.

"My mum always said if they’re writing crap about you in the tabloids you’re probably doing the right thing. So I felt this was a fight worth fighting."

Harry is talking about his wife's miscarriage in episode six.

He has already spoken about the impact of the media on their lives, but here he says: "I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail [on Sunday] did.

"I watched the whole thing. Now do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? Of course we don’t.

"But bearing in mind the stress that that caused, the lack of sleep and the timing of the pregnancy, how many weeks in she was, I can say from what I saw that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her."

The Mail on Sunday is yet to comment.

Image source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

In what might be described as a more intimate moment during epiode five, the couple are filmed meditating together.

They sit on a sofa listening to the recorded voice of a guided meditating instructor.

The recording, of an American woman's voice, says: “You’re taking the bait.

"You’re feeding the beast.

"It is an illusion.

"Your work is not to prove your goodness.”

Harry says in episode five he was shocked after being blocked from seeing the Queen when returning from Vancouver.

He claims the Queen had invited him to tea on his return to the UK, but after landing in Britain he was told his grandmother was now busy.

He says: "Once we were back in the UK I rang her and said 'I'm now told that you're busy'."

"She goes 'yes I didn't know I was busy'. I was like 'wow'!"

Megan adds: "I mean, my gosh this is when a family and family business are in direct conflict.

"Because they're blocking you from seeing the Queen, but really what they're doing is blocking a grandson from seeing a grandmother."

Although the couple do not clarify who is doing the blocking. The couple previously mentioned this incident in their interview with Oprah.

Steven McIntosh
Entertainment Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Episode four continues with various friends of Meghan and Harry saying how popular they were as a couple and how well they were doing with their tour in Australia.

"Australia was a real turning point, because they were so popular, so popular with the public, the internals at the Palace were incredibly threatened by that," says Lucy Fraser.

Little evidence is presented for this but we do get our first appearance from broadcaster Piers Morgan, who left ITV's Good Morning Britain last March after an on-air row about Meghan's Oprah interview.

"She's becoming a royal rock star," he is heard saying in an archive clip. "Bigger, as a couple, I would argue, than William and Kate. That's probably not a good thing in the long term."

One thing we certainly weren't expecting was for Piers Morgan, a regular critic of Harry and Meghan, to be used to support a point Harry and Meghan are making. But that's what's happening here - his quote implies unhappiness at the palace with Meghan and Harry's popularity.

Image source, Getty Images

More from Prince Harry on his relationship with his brother, and with the royal press officers.

In episode five, he speaks of a "wedge" driven between them following his decision to step down as a senior royal, and words appearing in his name which he said he hadn't agreed to.

He explains: "A story came out saying part of the reason Meghan and I were leaving was because William had bullied us out.

"Once I got in the car after the meeting [at Sandringham with other royals], I was told about a joint statement that had been put out in my name and my brother's name, squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family.

"I couldn't believe it. No one had asked me. No one had asked me permission to put out a statement like that."

He goes on to criticise the royal press machine, saying a line that was previewed in the trailers.

"Within four hours they were happy to lie to protect my brother and yet for three years they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us."

A reminder that the Prince and Princess of Wales, like other members of the Royal Family, are yet comment on this series and allegations made.

More on this story: Where do royal journalists get their information from and how does coverage of the palace actually work? Listen to the Harry, Meghan and the Media podcast on BBC Sounds.