Palm Royale

It’s 1969 and fashion, status and money are in full flow in high society. For one ambitious woman, however, this is not that case, but she aspires to make it so. Maxine (Kristen Wiig) is prepared to do everything it takes to cross the line and join the community and secure her membership at the Palm Royale, America’s most exclusive, fashionable and two-faced club. The society itself is absolutely abhorrent and you have to ask why anyone would want to be a part of such a nauseating club, but for Maxine, it is all she has ever dreamed of. This leads to a number of adventures and escapades that take place in a Mad Men meets Desperate Housewives meets The White Lotus world.

The series packs a stellar cast of queens and divas including Carol Burnett (Norma), Leslie Bibb (Dinah) Laura Dern (Linda) and Allison Janney (Evelyn), all of whom bring their own amount of spice and charm to their characters, but the series truly belongs to Wiig. She is given a spa to bathe in as she delivers her best performance in years as the painfully desperate Maxine. Like a reincarnation of Annie Walker in Bridesmaids, this is a role she was made for, or the role was made for her. It is the interactions between these women that carry a majority of the narrative and overall story, albeit on a relatively small scale, but the casting overall could not have been better.

The style of the show is fabulous, leaving you speechless at times. The visionary design of the costumes, set and vibrant colour palette are second to none, as if someone opened and emptied a packet of Skittles over the screen. However, the overemphasis of and overreliance on these elements mean the series doesn’t deliver the enticing punch it deserves when it comes to the story. The plot lacks a meaty substance for the viewer to sink their teeth into, instead choosing to float meaninglessly around unimportant moments. The opportunity is there to embrace comedy with drama to make Palm Royale the next series on everyone’s lips, but it instead chooses to never fully commit to either and sit on the fence.

There is plenty to admire in this programme and it is certainly a fun entertainment experience, but through all the cash splashing and grasshopper cocktails, you yearn for a little more jeopardy and for the story to go somewhere. There is also an argument that the series may benefit from shorter, snappier episodes, with the duration of each currently sitting between 40-60 minutes, but with limited substance to each instalment they being to drag. The A-list cast does a brilliant job with what they can, but ultimately their potential is underused.

Guy Lambert

Palm Royale is released on Apple TV+ on 20^th March 2024.

Watch the trailer for Palm Royale here: