Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Me You Can’t See’ On Apple TV+, Where Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry And Others Talk About Their Mental Health Struggles

When Oprah Winfrey did her bombshell-dropping interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in March, she revealed that she and Harry were working on a docuseries about mental health for Apple. Over the weekend, that five-part series debuted on Apple TV+, and it’s full of revelations by Harry, Oprah and other stars about the struggles they’ve had with their mental health over the years. But there are interviews with less well-known people, too; will their message be able to be heard above the gossipy noise?

THE ME YOU CAN’T SEE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Closeup scenes of Prince Harry and others. An expert says in voice over, “We are very much in the early stages of understanding this thing that we call mental health.”

The Gist: In this five-part docuseries, Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry discuss the stigmas that keep people from revealing their mental health issues, and what needs to be done — by society as well as individuals — so people suffering from mental health issues get the help the help they need.

In the first episode, “Say It Out Loud”, the pair discuss Harry’s struggles in the years before he met his current wife, Meghan Markle. The violent death of his mother, Princess Diana, in 1997 is something he never really processed through his 20s and even into his early 30s. Instead of saying that he needed help, he’d just say he was “fine” in that British stiff-upper-lip way. Since entering therapy four years ago and being able to talk about his struggles in public, he has become an advocate for people to be open about their issues and to know they’re not alone.

Harry admits that royal life has never been for him, and he’d have panic attacks when going out doing public appearances. Much of it is due to the memories of his mother frantically driving from paparazzi while he and his brother William were in the car with her.

Other people are also profiled: Lady Gaga, who is identified by her real first name, Stefani, talks about how she was in the middle of a psychotic break during the time she won her Oscar for A Star Is Born in 2019. She also discusses how she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by someone in the music industry when she was 19, and was dropped off at the hospital while pregnant.

Chef Rashad Armstead talks about how, even though he has a persuasive outward presence that often looks happy, inside he was “broken” and depressed. When he won Chopped three years ago, he was so down that he was about to close his restaurants and essentially close off that chapter in his life.

Champion boxer Ginny Fuchs, an Olympic hopeful for Tokyo this year, lives with crippling OCD, mainly revolving around germs and cleanliness. We see her obsessively cleaning her shoes after a training session, then go through her mind-crushing routine when a part of the shoe that touched the ground touches her on the wrist.

Even Oprah isn’t immune; her mom ignored her as a child, and she got most of her inspiration via her teachers. An older cousin raped her repeatedly when she was between the ages of 9 and 12. And when she set up her girls’ school in South Africa, she was shocked at how much the trauma the students had prevented them from learning in a calm environment.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Me You Can’t See has the glossy feel of Oprah’s other Apple shows, like The Oprah Conversation or Oprah’s Book Club, but the subject matter is much more raw than either of those series.

Our Take: What Oprah and Harry are trying to do in The Me You Can’t See, directed for the most part by Asif Kapadia and Dawn Porter, is take the veil off mental health issues and show that it doesn’t matter where you live, how much money you have, or whether or not you’re famous; mental health problems are more universal than people realize.

Judging by the first episode, that message is apparent, but we wonder if it’s going to be obscured by the bomb drops revealed by Harry and some of the other big stars interviewed. During the five-part docuseries, Harry will be revealing tidbits of his mental health journey, from when his mother was ripped from him when he was 12 — and how being a part of the royal family likely contributed to that — to his struggles with drinking and drug use, to his sheer panic at having to do his royal duties. This is a man who said he was more comfortable in a war zone in Afghanistan than in a suit during a public appearance.

It feels like every tidbit like that will be dug up and splashed across every celebrity gossip site (it likely already has), obscuring the message the series is trying to impart. The same goes with Gaga’s revelations, which are already making their way around the gossip sites.

It’s a legitimate concern because the series’ real power isn’t in hearing about Harry’s or Oprah’s or Gaga’s struggles — though it can’t do anything but help — but it’s hearing about the struggles of more everyday people, how they’ve sought help, and how there’s no quick fix. It was heartbreaking to see Fuchs repeatedly putting soap on her wrist because it didn’t land the right way, and it was heartening to see Armstead struggling with the fact that most of his friends have had addiction issues, mental health issues or both. “When I look at them, I see me,” he says through tears. Considering the African-American community’s resistance to therapy, seeing Armstead go to his first session was one of more powerful moments in the episode.

It’s those small moments that we’re afraid will get lost in the Harry stuff. And, don’t get us wrong: Harry’s testimony is powerful in the sense that just because you have what people perceive to be “everything” doesn’t mean you don’t struggle. But we’re just concerned that what’s going to attract people to this docuseries will blunt the message it’s trying to deliver, especially to people who may need help but haven’t sought it out to this point.

Parting Shot: As we see Meghan and Harry’s adorable son Archie run from his mom to his dad on the beach, Harry says, “If you’ve been through something, that doesn’t mean that your kids or everybody else has to go through the same thing you do. I know it’s my responsibility and my duty to break that cycle.”

Sleeper Star: Weirdly, it’s actually Oprah. She takes second chair to Harry here, but when she reveals some of what she went through as a child — stuff she’s talked about before — we see some raw emotion coming from her that we rarely see. Even when she talks about the sexual assault story one of her students recounted, she came to tears. It’s refreshing to see her crying in public over this stuff, because it makes her more relatable.

Most Pilot-y Line: None.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you don’t go in looking for bombshells from Harry or other superstars, The Me You Can’t See is a revealing look at mental illness and how our awareness of how pervasive it is in its many forms is just starting to develop.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Me You Can't See On Apple TV+