Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Young Royals’ Season 3 On Netflix, Where Wilhelm And Simon Go Public Just As Their Boarding School Cracks Down On Leaks

Sometimes a show runs its course after only two or three seasons; it has a specific story to tell, and the show’s creators know how many episodes they’ll need to tell it. Netflix’s Swedish hit Young Royals is one of those shows; it’s coming to a close after its third season, and the confidence in its storytelling is rooted in the fact that the story was never open-ended.

YOUNG ROYALS SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Crown Prince Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding) walks into a busy conference room; a staffer tells him where he can sit.

The Gist: In this meeting, Willie and his lawyers are negotiating a deal with his cousin August (Malte Gårdinger), who leaked the video of Willie and Simon (Omar Rudberg) kissing. When Simon and his mother Linda (Carmen Gloria Pérez) arrive at the palace for the meeting, she’s indignant that the royal family wants to pay out a settlement rather than bring this leak to trial. But August has his own dirt on both Simon and Willie, which leads to the settlement being accepted, along with August getting assurances that he’ll be second in line to the crown after Willie. His feeling is that “you’re going to fuck it up,” giving him a good chance at the throne.

Willie, about to turn 17, became next in line after his brother Erik (Ivar Forsling) died; at this point, his mother, Queen Kristina (Pernilla August), just wants the scandals to stop. One thing Willie is sure about, though, is that he does not want to keep his relationship with Simon a secret any longer.

Back at the Hillerska school, the juniors are involved in the traditional point hunt, but the guys at Manor House can sense the tension between August and Willie whenever they’re in the room together. In the meantime, on the girls’ side, Felice (Nikita Uggla) is depressed over her friendship with Simon’s sister Sara (Frida Argento) falling apart, and her friends want to do something to lift her spirits. At the very least, Felice is happy that Willie is coming back.

Willie tells Simon that he wants to “be both the Crown Prince and your boyfriend”; they have to lay low for a bit, but at least they don’t have to sneak around the school anymore. One problem: Simon’s mother has grounded him after hearing about some of the things he has been up to on campus. But they agree that Willie can sleep over Simon’s house.

After a hazing scandal is made public, though, Hillerska brings in a new acting principal, who cuts all extracurricular activities and puts in a restrictive curfew, which puts a major crimp in both the points hunt and Willie and Simon’s plans to be toghether.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Elite and Euphoria, with a hint of Heartstopper mixed in.

Our Take: This is the final season of Young Royals, which makes sense; if the purpose of the show’s creators, Lisa Ambjörn and Lars Beckung, was to examine the arc of Willie and Simon’s relationship in the face of all the pressures in Willie’s life, it seems like three seasons is about the right length of that story. At this point, Willie and Simon are pretty solid as a couple, but now there are external forces that might keep them apart, at least temporarily.

It was a smart idea to keep the stories attached to the show’s core relationships and not introduce a ton of extra characters as the show aged. There’s the constant struggle between Willie and his dickish cousin August, whose ambition to ascend to the throne have cost him a relationship with his family. There’s still the notion of Simon and Sara, who are now on the outs with each other since the settlement, mainly due to Sara’s relationship with August, being outsiders. And, given that Sara no longer has Felice to lean on, where is she going to turn?

Because of this relatively small ensemble of main characters and the three-season limit the creators imposed on themselves, they can now tell a tight story with a beginning middle and an end. That’s something that’s still rare on TV, and is especially rare when Netflix and other streamers are suddenly cancelling shows after one or two seasons, even if they’re popular. And, because the story is largely concentrating on Willie and Simon solidifying their relationship in public, Young Royals transcends the usual “privileged teens gone wild” trope and becomes something deeper, even if it’s not quite as sweet and sensitive as the aforementioned Heartstopper is.

Sex and Skin: Nothing more than kissing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: The acting principal tells the students that if Hillerska is shown to be an unsafe environment, it’ll be shut down immediately.

Sleeper Star: We’d like to see Nikita Uggla’s Felice and Frida Argento’s Sara in more scenes together, but their friendship might be irreparably damaged.

Most Pilot-y Line: When August tells his lawyer that people look at him like he’s some kind of “shitty person,” the lawyer replies, “Yes, you are a shitty person. It can feel good to accept that sometimes.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Young Royals works in its final season because it knows that it’s coming to an end and its relatively tightly-crafted story can be brought to a natural conclusion.

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.