NOW ENTERTAINMENT March 00 23 -- 00, 29, 2025 Month 2023
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Emilia Schüle (“Dreamfactory,” 2019) returns as the titular queen of France in Season 2 of “Marie Antoinette,” premiering Sunday, March 23, on PBS. Emilia Schüle stars in “Marie Antoinette”
Cover Story Back to bourgeoisie: ‘Marie Antoinette’ returns for a tumultuous second season By Dana Simpson Political history has intrigued the entertainment world since the dawn of moving pictures. For instance, while the first-ever reported film was a two-second clip of early motion picture camera inventor Louis Le Prince’s English garden in 1888, it wasn’t long before royalty entered the picture in 1895’s “The Execution of Mary Stuart,” an American production depicting the death of Mary, Queen of Scots. Today, one need not look far to find the descendants of such early materials. On the television front, one such series that captured the hearts and minds of TV audiences in recent years is the Canal+ co-production “Marie Antoinette,” which chronicles the rise and fall of the opulent, titular French queen and her well-meaning but “rather dull” husband, King Louis XVI. Back for a second season of fictionalized history on PBS, the story’s newest installment marks the beginning of the end for the pair and their reign ahead of the French Revolution.
Season 2 of “Marie Antoinette” premieres Sunday, March 23, on PBS. Check your local listings for timing. The series, created by Deborah Davis (“The Favourite,” 2018), stars Russian-born German actress Emilia Schüle (“Dreamfactory,” 2019) in the leading role, alongside U.K.-based actor Louis Cunningham (“Bridgerton”) as Louis XVI. Season 2 of “Marie Antoinette” also stars Freya Mavor (“The Emperor of Paris,” 2018), Jasmine Blackborow (“Shadow and Bone”), Jack Archer (“Call the Midwife”), Crystal Shepherd-Cross (“Chronicles of the Sun”), Oscar Lesage (“The Substance,” 2024), Roxane Duran (“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” 2022), Caroline Piette (“120 BPM,” 2017), Yoli Fuller (“The Widow”), Liah O’Prey (“Mary Queen of Scots,” 2018), Martijn Lakemeier (“Hollands hoop”), Guy Henry (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” 2016) and James Northcote (“Anna Karenina,” 2012).
Not unlike Sofia Coppola’s (“Lost in Translation,” 2003) 2006 film of the same name starring Kirsten Dunst (“Spider-Man,” 2002), “Marie Antoinette” begins the ruler’s story by tracing her trip from “Austria to marry the Dauphin of France,” the first season’s official synopsis reads. “With pressure to continue the Bourbon line and secure the Franco-Austrian alliance, she must follow the complex rules of the French court while attempting to charm her reluctant king-to-be, Louis XVI.” Now headed into its second season, the series picks up after the palace’s luxurious New Year’s celebrations, which came to a grim end when Louis announced his country’s support for the United States of America in its War of Independence against the English, thus positioning the French at odds with Britain. With that in mind, a recent PBS news release regarding Season 2 notes that, “Antoinette and Louis [are] facing unprecedented challenges at the height of their power.
“As financial crises loom across the nation and political rivalries intensify,” the release continues, “the royal couple must navigate an increasingly hostile court and a changing France. From Versailles to the [Palais-Royal], the seeds of a revolution began to take root, threatening the very foundations of France’s long-standing monarchy.” As for the series finally making its way to North American audiences in March 2023 following its premiere several months earlier in France (and later, the U.K.), fans of the series may be pleased to learn that the second season arrives worldwide on the same date. “We are so excited that PBS’s audience will get to see the anticipated second season of ‘Marie Antoinette’,” stated Maria Bruno Ruiz, vice president of program content strategy and scheduling at PBS. “The tension in Season 2 builds with each episode as we experience the beginning of the end for King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.”