24 thoughts on “SNARK WEEK RECAP: The Empress (2022), Ep. 1

  1. Hated it. Actors are not right. Prefer the other recent Sisi actors and costumes (alothough not quite right, evokes Sisi’s style and the period better) and THE ROMY SCHNEIDER one.

  2. OMG, I actually own that “Vera Wang for Kohl’s statement necklace” that Elisabeth’s mom is wearing. I got it in a ModCloth Secret Surprise like eight years ago. It’s incredibly heavy and awkward and pokey, and basically is only good for wacky costumes. So…fitting, I guess?

    1. That description made me guffaw. I’ve seen similar things elsewhere.. I always like them in theory but not so much in practice.

  3. Ah, yes, the classic mother of the bride wrap top dress look for Elisabeth’s mother. Sure, that makes sense. Also hadn’t ever given a thought to alien queen hair but once you identified it I realized that’s exactly what it is. OMG.

    Seems like this is just.. meh and cliche. Oh she’s so unique and headstrong… she lays on the floor in palaces and writes poetry. Sure.

  4. If I remember correctly, the Dowager Empress is spying on the lady-in-waiting whom she lusts after. But I haven’t seen the first few episodes since they were released, and didn’t finish the show, so I don’t know if that goes anywhere.

  5. Everything they do here is just so weird they have to have MEANT it to be anti-historical. As in ‘OMG, we’ve accidentally given Sisi a half-ways-credible Zouave jacket! Quick, take this big saggy tote bag and sling it across her body so she looks as though she were going to the beach.”

  6. What the fucking fuckery was that!? When I saw the dude with the crazy hair-tail-thingy I was out.
    I watched the other TV version Sisi recently and thought the costumes were meh, BUT they were nowhere as shitty as this and the actors are very well! Omg can‘t wait for the rest of the recaps, maybe there is a plot twist that the Dowager Empress is a time traveller or something!

    1. Also! Also: Sisi, the woman known for her corseted waist goes to see someone in just a chemise and petticoat?? Never ever!! To the trash with this free-spirited, connected-to-nature-and-therefore-not-dressing-as-a-sane-person nonsense!!!

  7. As a side note about this show getting things wrong, wasn’t Helene actually the older sister? I may be wrong in that but I could swear that was the case

    1. Yes, Helene was the elder sister. Elisabeth was only sixteen and suitors weren’t exactly lining up for any of the sisters – yet. They became very desirable matches only after becoming sisters in law to the Emperor. Left to herself Elisabeth might never have married at all, she may have been asexual if not aromantic. She didn’t like sex but she did love Franz Joseph as much as she was capable of loving anybody.
      Helene would have been a much better wife and empress, it’s really a pity that Elisabeth was there to mess up the arrangements. Helene survived being passed over and was the only one of the Bavarian sisters to have happy marriage, though alas cut short by her husband’s early death.

    2. Yes, you are right. Helene was two years older and had just been presented at the Bavarian court in Münich, and was getting her first suitors. Helene would be allowed several years to select a suitor in 19th century German-speaking aristocratic circles.

      Sisi still had a governess and needed to work on her languages before coming out, this became a problem when she suddenly became Empress. IRL, Ludovika probably brought Sisi along to distract and amuse Franz Joseph’s sickly child brother Karl, who appears to not exist at all in this series.

    1. Oh dearie, dearie me… what were they thinking? Just when you think you’ve seen it all, productions like this just pop up out of the woodwork. I actually felt sympathy for the poor female cast – then I saw the behind the scenes shot of the two Mums together, obviously having a high old time… perhaps they were just plain hysterical at being dressed in their ill-conceived mish-mash. It is a period when style was pretty dour and dire but they seem to have managed to make everything so much worse – quite an achievement! What on earth is going on with Franz’s Mum’s bizarrely huge sash? What is Franz’s Mum wearing in general? Cruella Deville meets bride of Frankenstein. What is going on with the hair and headwear? Every outfit seems to consist of various decades piled on top of the other and I just find my head sizzling in complete confusion. Please can designers do proper research, get the aesthetic and silhouette of the defined period in their heads and just STICK TO IT! If your going balls out wtf, then just commit to it and go wild: if not then don’t try and play with hideous and anachronistic colour combinations and fabrics, cut and fit, whilst still attempting to convince us that this is historical and how they actually dressed – it would make everything a lot less confusing for all involved… and breath lol.

  8. Oh my god, thank you for doing this post because i had ALL of these thoughts when watching the show! I can’t get over how bizarre it is to watch because SOME costumes are like, perfect spot on for the period…and then Archduchess Alien Queen Sophie walks on and my brain explodes.

    (speaking of which, just WAIT until you get to the giant houndstooth print monstrosity she wears in a later episode!)

  9. I started watching this and immediately had to find someone to talk to about how horrible the costumes are. Why oh WHY do they always have to ‘modernize’ them???? People who like these types of shows LIKE the period costuming. Quit trying to pander to a viewer who wouldn’t want to watch a period movie anyways, you are just going to lose your target audience. I understand changing some of the hair and hats/headpieces because yes, some of the period styles are just plain ugly and unflattering, but this is just crazy!

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