A SIMPLE BUT POWERFUL reminder that two things can be true at the same time comes in the form of the new reality series With Love, Meghan.

Meghan Markle is a perfectly regular human woman who stumbled into a romance with a prince and then found herself at the center of a tornado of bullshit fueled by predatory British tabloids; a centuries-old monarchical tradition shaped by imperialism and snobbery; and basic, ugly racism. All of it was cruel and surreal—no one could ever deserve the treatment she received—and Harry and Meghan's decision to leave the royal family is courageous. This is one sincere and complicated facet of Meghan Markle's public persona.

The other truth is that With Love, Meghan is an utterly deranged, bizarro voyage into the center of nothing, a fantastical monument to the captivating power of watching one woman decorate a cake while communicating solely through throw-pillow adages about joy and hospitality. It is painfully defensive. Meghan comes across as constantly worried about what people will think, so the show can neither flaunt her unusual life nor embrace legitimate ordinariness. Its reality is at once wildly unattainable, like when she describes the joys of sourcing beeswax from your local beekeeper, and mind-bogglingly basic, like a segment dedicated to arranging fruit in rainbow order. And it is quite, quite sad—a document created by a woman condemned to a life in which even the safest, blandest, emptiest statements boomerang toward cuckooland.