Duty and Independence Clash in Season Two of "Young Royals"

In the relatively unoriginal, exposition-heavy first season, the rebellious prince adjusts to a new life at boarding school, where he is bombarded with superficial attention from his classmates and ushered into a cadre of elites by his cousin August (Malte Gårdinger). Wilhelm’s life is turned upside down when he discovers unfamiliar feelings for his friend Simon (Omar Rudberg, pictured top right), a middle-class commuter student from the nearby town who understands him like nobody else, but their forbidden relationship gains new significance when a family tragedy unexpectedly places Wilhelm next in line for the throne. While the first season dwelled on glitzy boarding school parties and secret crushes and did not go much further than establishing the central premise (“what if the prince of Sweden was queer?”), the second season delivers an emotional, intimate portrait of a small group of intertwined teens -- all ready to explode -- with the weight of a nation on their shoulders and in their hearts.

Edvin Ryding gives a remarkable performance as the troubled young prince, filled with an unimaginable amount of teen angst as he yearns for Simon in lingering glances, fragile conversations, and breakfast sandwiches made in secret. Fighting for revenge against his self-obsessed cousin, Wilhelm is quickly lost in a sea of secrets and ill-devised conspiracies, and he spirals out of control as the queen threatens to demote him if he doesn’t prove himself to be capable of sitting on the throne. Wilhelm’s story is gut-wrenching to watch; every attempt that he makes to reconcile with Simon just makes things worse, and as Simon develops new feelings for a less complicated boy, it becomes difficult to look away until Wilhelm has found some relief.

Despite the stakes (the crown, the fate of the nation, etc.), Wilhelm’s problems feel remarkably normal -- heightened, of course, but no different than the stuff that plagues an average teen wracked with anxiety, responsibility and first love. Much like the ever-present team of personal bodyguards, the centuries of royal obligation and tradition and expectation are in the background just as much as they are in the foreground. Young Royals is about the weight of the nation on one young boy, but it is also about the weight of any responsibility -- of growing up, of falling in love, of finding oneself. As Wilhelm tries therapy for the first time on his mother’s command, it becomes clear that, at heart, he is just a teen trying to make his own path in the world. In this way, “Young Royals” encapsulates what it means to grow up: to decide for ourselves -- and not for others -- who we will be.

Wilhelm’s journey of inner turmoil is paralleled by a similar spotlight on his cousin August, a volatile social leader whose villain arc is complicated by a developing friendship with Simon’s sister Sara (Frida Argento), who has Asperger syndrome. More successfully than in the first season, season two of Young Royals gives every character a chance to tell their side of the story, and by the end of these six episodes, what is right and what is wrong become much more complicated than black and white. Simon, too, asserts new ambitions and new feelings as he establishes an identity independent from Wilhelm, and the prince faces uncertain ground with every step.

While season two of Young Royals is difficult to watch (in many ways a foil to Heartstopper, Netflix’s hit gay teen romance from earlier this year based on Alice Oseman’s comics of the same name, which was lauded for its sunny, accepting account of queer teenhood), it is clear that it is one of the most engrossing, most meaningful examples of its genre. Wilhelm’s fraught personal negotiation of familial duty and independence traces a universal path of choosing how to define oneself in relation to those who have come before, and while he faces extraordinary pressures, the fact that he doesn’t give up could be a lesson that maybe -- just maybe -- everything will someday be alright.

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