Netflix‘s Harry & Meghan is generating a lot of royal headlines, from bombshells about Meghan Markle‘s extended family to Prince Harry‘s acceptance of his mother’s infamous Panorama interview. But the docuseries is more than a scathing takedown of a toxic relationship between the press and the royals. It’s also an intimate look at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s private life. For the first time ever, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are sharing personal photos from their courtship and footage of their family life in Montecito, California. While the couple has been reluctant to trot out their young children Archie and Lilibet for the paparazzi, they are happy to share these carefully curated images of their kiddos with the world. And, boy, are Harry and Meghan’s kids cute!
In the first episode of Harry & Meghan, Prince Harry talks about the trauma of growing up in the public eye. We see harrowing footage of the young prince attempting to avoid the paparazzi and a sanctioned photocall in Switzerland that goes awry. (Watching an extremely young Princess Eugenie stumble in the snow, get mocked, and then be forced to grin for photogs is a compelling argument against forcing young children to work as “working royals.”) Both Harry and Meghan talk about threading the needle between making sure they protect their children from these exploitive experiences and respecting the fact that there is public interest in the kids thanks to their historic family.
Harry & Meghan seems to be succeeding with this. Most of the footage of Archie and Lilibet, known as Lili, is shot in a way that doesn’t shove the camera in the kids’ faces. In fact, a lot of the images only show the children from behind, preserving a semblance of privacy, and everything Prince Harry and Meghan Markle do share is the kind of sweet, candid content you’d expect to see curated on your friends’ locked Instgram accounts for their newborns. Picking and choosing what pictures of your kids you share with the world is normal, healthy behavior. And Harry & Meghan gives us a bunch of sweet never-before-seen photos of the kids we’ve never seen before.
But my personal favorite Archie and Lili moments in Harry & Meghan were the scenes that shared the kids’ burgeoning personalities with the world. Archie gets the lion’s share of screen time, but both of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s kids pop in the Netflix series.
Here are seven of our favorite cute Archie and Lilibet moments in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan…
1
Archie is a Nature Lover!
If there’s one takeaway about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s lives in Harry & Meghan, it’s that they basically live in an idyllic paradise. We see gorgeous sunsets, tons of live animals, and a whole lot of pastoral luxury. Someone who seems to really love this lifestyle? Son Archie. The first thing we hear the little boy say in the show is his description of aforementioned sunset. “It’s all done beautiful,” he pipes. We also get numerous shots like the one above of Archie ambling towards goat pens and up verdant hills.
Maybe Archie and sister Lili aren’t growing up in a palace, but life on their southern California estate sure looks nice.
2
Lilibet Comes With Mom to Feed the Chickens
Since there’s not a ton of Lilibet content in the first three episodes of Harry & Meghan — we’re guessing because she’s still, you know, a baby and probably doesn’t have a lot to say — we have to celebrate what we’ve got. We learn that Meghan hitches Lili to herself in a carrier while on chicken-feeding duties. We don’t hear any crying or fussing, so we have to assume this is something baby Lili loves to do.
3
"Grandma Diana" Watches Over Them
Princess Diana’s legacy looms over Prince Harry in Harry & Meghan, inspiring him to leave the Royal Family behind to ensure history didn’t repeat itself with his wife and children. We get to see just how Harry and Meghan are imparting knowledge about the icon to their kids. There is a beautiful framed portrait of Princess Diana that they show baby Archie, telling him that’s it’s “Grandma Diana.” We might know her as the People’s Princess, but these kids will grow up knowing her as their gran.
4
Archie's Not A Great Birdwatcher (Yet)
One of the cutest private moments Harry & Meghan shares with us has to do with hummingbirds fluttering around a feeder. Prince Harry whispers to little Archie that they might never get so close to hummingbirds again. He explains to the curious toddler that hummingbirds are usually afraid of humans. The kid is…not impressed. In fact, he bobs out of view to complain about his…dirty foot.
He complains to Meghan, or “Mama”, that his foot is dirty because he was spending time with her. Meghan quietly laughs at the absurdity of her little boy fretting over dirt between his toes while “Papa” is freaking out about hummingbirds.
Not only is this just a sweet scene of domestic bliss, but we learn that Meghan decided to split the difference between the UK’s Mum and the US’s Mom to go by Mama. And Harry is Papa. And an avid birdwatcher?? Did we know this?? (Someone is going to comment that, yes, we did.)
5
Lilibet's Baby Steps
As we said before, there’s far more footage of Archie than Lili in Harry & Meghan, but the couple shares a major update on the littlest member of their family in the show’s opening credits sequence. Tucked in between footage of the royals and photos of young Harry and Meghan, we have a shot of the couple helping tiny Lili walk. It seems that while Lilibet is camera shy, she’s hitting major early developmental milestones offscreen.
6
Archie is an Elton Fan
Most parents of small children have to suffer through Disney soundtracks and Baby Beluga on repeat, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s kids have far more high brow taste in music. At least Archie does. When Meghan asks H to be “DJ,” the Duke of Sussex cues up Sir Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets.” We soon learn that the reason that’s a go-to track for the couple is it’s Archie’s favorite song. Meghan gushes about how funny it is to listen to a toddler belt, “Bennie!” Knowing how close Sir Elton and Princess Diana are, we have to wonder…are there Zoom sing-alongs with the rock titan?
7
Storytime With Papa: A Family Event
In a clever bit of editing, Harry & Meghan director Liz Garbus sneaks in one of the sweetest tableaus in the whole docuseries: Prince Harry reading a story book to both Archie and Lili. If you missed this moment, it’s from a sequence where the camera focuses on the celeb couple’s two pooches are sleeping on their couch. If you zoom in past the pups, you’ll see that Archie is sitting next to his father while Lilibet is in his lap. The family that reads together, rules together.
Part 2 of Harry & Meghan premieres on Netflix on Thursday, December 15.
