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All The Thoughts We Had While Watching The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again

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All The Thoughts We Had While Watching The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again

Welcome back to Belgravia. Two years have passed in the world of The Princess Switch. Baker Stacy has married Prince Edward – yay! – but, alas, Hot Kevin and Lady Margaret have broken up – oh no! – after Margaret was unexpectedly forced into imminent queen-hood after the death of the king of Montenaro.

Now, here’re our thoughts as we settled into The Princess Switch: Switched Again…

Kevin was reason enough to watch The Princess Switch and nothing has changed on that score

Since the break-up, Hot Kevin has gone from preppy adorbs to scruffy chic, in an unkempt beard, sweatpants to work, adopting multiple cats kind of way. And yet…still hawt. Those warm crinkly eyes, those dimples, that deep, drawling voice. He really is enough of a reason to glom this series, all on his lonesome.

Happy ever after?

Two years in, and the honeymoon seems to be well and truly over between Stacy and her prince. Our Stacy is more focussed on her friends’ break-up than her dashing royal husband. Even when he’s putting on the moves. Paraphrasing: Edward croons, ‘Let’s light a fire, open a bottle of wine, and…’ Stacy interjects, ‘We must make Kevin go to Margaret’s coronation!’ My romantical foundations were left feeling a little shaky at this point – is a (pretend) royal happily ever after not all it’s cracked up to be?

Apparently it’s now a requirement in every good romance movie for the hero to take his shirt off

Mr Darcy walking out of the lake all wet and scrumptious, may have been the height of ‘PG sex-appeal’, with his soaking shirt plastered to his chest, but Hot Kevin in the first Princess Switch flick upped the ante going full topless! (Here’s a quick recap from the first flick; you know, for posterity’s sake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-nDSZRuZHc)

Not to be outdone by Hot Kevin’s Most Memorable Scene, this time around Prince Edward gets his shirt off! Though it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, and he slides a T-shirt on pretty quick, I give him a B for effort.

PG sparks can still be smoking

While Stacy and Edward seem to have fallen into post-marital comfort mode, on the flipside the sparks between Lady Margaret and Hot Kevin are still fan-your-face smoking. (In an adorable, PG manner of course.) As they smile and their cheeks flush and they shoot warm glances across the palace while hanging the royal tinsel, when they end up in a flour fight in the kitchen it’s clear that they will never be ‘just good friends’.

Dun dun duuuuuuuuunnnn!

We have a new bad guy, peeps. Count Antonio Rossi, Margaret’s chief of staff and desirer of the good lady’s affection. The dude oozes ick the moment he enters the room with his smarm, Ken doll hair, big teeth, mansplaining, sloppy hand-kissing (*shudder*) and patent lack of understanding of the nuances and schmexiness of a good flour fight.

But they’ve been friends since school, and her dear departed dad liked the guy, so Margaret is conflicted. Oh dear!

When he finally does make a play for the lovely Lady Margaret, he does so with bling. Come on, man! The woman is about to be queen, which comes with rooms filled with diamonds. We’re not rooting for you, by any means, but a word of advice: read the room.

Wintry Christmas really are the best

Especially when set in fake fairy-tale European principalities. Even Clark Griswold would have a hard time outdoing our happy crew as they deck the halls of the Belgravian palace. The lush greenery! The elegant tinsel! The big glowing baubles! As for the fairy lights? Keep your sunnies close. Add an adorbs scene of  snowman building and I’m all in.

Even a future queen can’t resist some serious Chicago swag

Hot Kevin isn’t going down without a fight. While Antonio – aka Terrible Tony – is pulling out all the sloppy hand-kissing (*shudder*) and ‘you are the most beautiful in the whole entire world’ stops (*shudder again*) at a palace party, Hot Kevin sweeps in with his dimpled smile, and a request to dance. The moment Margaret lifts her hand out of Tony’s grip and takes Kevin’s hand instead we know who floats her boat for real. Le sigh…

Vanessa Hudgens is a truly top-notch character actress

Just when we think Terrible Tony and his sloppy hand kissing is the height of the PG Netflix bad guy, enter Margaret’s cousin – seedy socialite, heiress and thief, Fiona Pembroke.

And guess what? Fiona IS YET ANOTHER DOPPELGANGER WHO LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE STACY AND MARGARET!!! (At least this time she’s family, unlike Stacy whose twin-ness has never been adequately explained.)

So, naturally, given the NAME OF THE MOVIE, they naturally all decide to pretend to be one another in a grand, twisty, pay-attention-or-you-won’t-keep-up switcheroo. And daaaamn, if Vanessa Hudgens doesn’t pull it off with absolute aplomb!

PSA: Kombis are the Montenaron ‘white van’

In the most twisty part of the switcheroo, Fiona, having spent her zillions, decides the only way out is to have her doofus minions to kidnap her cousin, so that she might impersonate Lady Margaret for a bit, in order to steal some dosh. I’d not have thought a rather nicely refurbished Kombi van is the height of inconspicuousness when it comes to getaway vehicles, but, hey, it worked.

Bad guys have big feelings too

So, if Fiona is the BIG BAD, what does that make Antonio? Did we judge him too soon? Is Hot Kevin really up to the task of marrying a soon-to-be queen? Would Margaret be better off with cheap bling and sloppy hand kisses, if her man has other skills? I mean, if Princess Stacy is a hard name to swallow, try Prince Kevin…

But no! Antonio is the baddest of them all! (My favourite line in the film? Margaret commanding ‘Arrest him, and take him to the dungeon!’ You go girl!)

Much like Frozen’s Hans of the Southern Isles, turns out his smarminess and sloppy hand-kissing are due to being born the spare, and therefore lacking parental love. Poor pet. But then Fiona too claims a lack of love has led her down the path of bad-guyness. Hmm. A thought. Our well-adjusted good guys are swimming in the love. Proof, right there, that love is the best, and romance novels are tomes of great import!

Did we just reach peak Netflix Christmas PG romance?

Yeah, we did! With an eleventh-hour royal wedding, in an airport, after a mad dash airport chase, and then a Christmas Day Royal Coronation, we can’t help but be swept up in all the pomp and romance and glitter.

And yes, Hot Kevin does win the girl. (Yay!) While Prince Edward and Baker Stacy sort out their marital yips and it looks like things are going to be happy ever after, after all. (Phew!) Add in the beeeeeautiful coronation of Lady Margaret as she is crowned Queen of Montenaro and I’m not crying, you’re crying.

What’s better than a happy ending? Multiple happy endings!

The only thing that could possibly be better than that? The Princess Switch 3: The One in Which Vanessa Hudgens Plays Every Character.

Hey, Netflix? What do ya reckon?

https://twitter.com/jaarlos/status/1329620966570414087

Watch this space.

Love Christmas romance? Check out some of our holiday faves!

By Ally Blake & Sarana Behan

Ally Blake

Ally is a hopeless romantic. She was born into a family of romance reading women and remembers bag loads of books being passed on at family gatherings from her mother, her cousins, her aunt and even her grandmother. Now as a grown up she gets to sit at the laptop, with a title, a couple of beautiful characters in mind and wait for the fairies to take flight. Constant coffee and bowls full of M&Ms make her job that much more pleasurable! Come visit her at www.allyblake.com

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