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Warning: Major spoilers for season three of<\/em> The Great ahead\u2014proceed with caution.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cGrief is fucking weird.\u201d<\/p>\n Those words, uttered just moments after The Great<\/em> kills off one of its two main characters, are a harbinger of what\u2019s to come in the newly released third season. While Elle Fanning<\/strong>\u2019s Catherine the Great has dodged death threats and political coups since touching down in Russia, the queen is safe\u2014for now. Instead, it\u2019s her lovably obtuse and oddly tender husband, formerly known as Peter the Great (played by Nicholas Hoult<\/strong>), who meets his demise in the season\u2019s sixth episode.\u00a0<\/p>\n Circumstances around the actual king\u2019s death remain murky\u2014but it\u2019s been widely reported that Peter was assassinated by Alexei Orlov, younger brother to Catherine\u2019s then lover, Grigory Orlov, while jailed. The show takes a steep departure. Plagued by the fear that he be remembered only as a doting stay-at-home husband to his powerful wife (\u201cYeah, \u2019cause that\u2019s what history remembers\u2014good fathers,\u201d an adult-sized hallucination of his newborn son, Paul, taunts), Peter sets forth on an ill-fated invasion of Sweden. Catherine attempts to ease his worries and halt the mission, but Peter won\u2019t be deterred. He proceeds on horseback across a frozen lake\u2014stopping to turn to his wife with a faint, \u201cActually\u2014\u201d before promptly falling through the ice as Catherine watches in horror.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGosh, that whole day was filled with so much emotion,\u201d Fanning tells Vanity Fair<\/em>. \u201c[Series creator] Tony [McNamara]<\/strong>, Nick, and I, we went into the woods secretly before the last shot we had together. We took a little vodka shot and did a cheers. That was a very special moment.\u201d Once the last huzzah had been uttered, Fanning was left to lead the show without her other half and\u2014eventually\u2014make the loss worth laughing about.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was most scared of the episode after<\/em> his death,\u201d she says, \u201cwhich is when Catherine\u2019s in her manic grief and extreme denial. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to portray that in a certain way\u2026. It was like, wow, well, Nick\u2019s gone. [It\u2019s] such a hole in the show\u2026. I didn\u2019t want it to go downhill\u2026. But also now a big death has happened, and we don\u2019t want the show to get sad because we\u2019re a comedy. It\u2019s this tightrope of battling the tragedy and the comedy and the absurdist.\u201d<\/p>\n Fresh off her appearance at the Met Gala<\/a> (Billie Eilish<\/strong> and Finneas O\u2019Connell<\/strong> were two of her tablemates), Fanning spoke to VF<\/em> about mourning her royal partner and how that musical ending brought her real-life catharsis:\u00a0\u201cI started [the show] when I was 20, now I\u2019m 25. So a lot of these experiences have molded me.\u201d<\/p>\n Vanity Fair:<\/strong><\/em> Before we get into this season\u2019s major event, I want to ask about the state of Peter and Catherine\u2019s marriage in season three. They\u2019ve decided to move on from some sizable hurdles, but they\u2019re still sleeping with knives underneath their pillows. What is it that keeps them so invested in each other?<\/strong><\/p>\n Elle Fanning:<\/em> Obviously, it\u2019s complicated, but I do believe that it\u2019s a matured love in season three. In season two, Catherine\u2014at the end, when she stabbed Pugachev<\/a> thinking it was Peter, her guttural reaction to that made her realize, oh wow, I can\u2019t lose this person. Because in a lot of ways, he\u2019s the only one who understands her fully at court, which is really fascinating. He\u2019s ruled the country. Whether you think he did it badly or not, he does know the pressures of that unlike anyone else. So Catherine realizes that he does truly see her for who she is and she doesn\u2019t want to lose that companionship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n