Where We Left Everyone at the End of 'Victoria' Season 2

Victoria returns to Masterpiece this weekend on most PBS stations as Season 3 begins. Let's quickly recap where things stand with everyone.

Lord Melbourne: "I feel quite certain you can manage without me now, Ma'am."

The first season of Victoria was a show trying to find its legs and its voice in the cultural landscape. Due to the timeslot it landed, it was inevitably billed as "Downton Abbey, but royalty," while the timing of the show's premiere brought unavoidable comparisons to Netflix's The Crown. But Victoria has turned out to be neither of these things. Though it did try for an "upstairs/downstairs ensemble" feel in Season 1 to imitate Downton, by last year it had settled into "Upstairs, with a running single Downstairs subplot." The servants just aren't where the show's heart lies.

As for historical accuracy, once again, by Season 2 the show had dropped all pretense of an attempted march through the highlights and lowlights of the Queen's reign in some semblance of order, which Netflix's more modern queen-themed series (mostly) adheres to. This is a show far more interested in a good romantic yarn than when the Irish famine peaked relative to who was Prime Minister, or how far along Victoria was in the birth of her nine children at any given point in the series. After all, a show that accurately showed how many kids the Queen had in such a short period of time would have to spend at least two seasons with her never leaving the nursery, and no one, not even Masterpiece's most hardcore fans, would stand for it.