Mary & George tells the true story of Mary Villiers, Countess of Buckingham, who schemed to make her son George the most powerful man in the court of King James I by exploiting the king’s well-known attraction to beautiful young men. Julianne Moore plays Mary as a woman of ferocious intelligence operating in a system designed to exclude her from power, using the only tool available: her son’s face and body. Nicholas Galitzine plays George Villiers, who transforms from a naive pawn in his mother’s game into a political operator in his own right. The show is based on Benjamin Woolley’s book “The King’s Assassin” and aired on Starz in 2024.
The response has been divided along predictable lines. Viewers who enjoy anachronistic historical drama in the vein of The Great or The Favourite found Mary & George a stylish, entertaining ride. Those looking for more rigorous period drama found the modern music cues, contemporary dialogue, and tonal shifts jarring. The consensus tends to settle on: fun and well-acted, with reservations about depth.
Julianne Moore’s Magnificent Scheming
Moore’s performance is the show’s engine and its primary pleasure. She plays Mary Villiers as a woman who has spent decades being underestimated and has refined her fury into strategic brilliance. Her schemes unfold with clockwork precision, and Moore delivers each manipulation with a mix of calculation and genuine maternal investment that keeps Mary from being a one-note villain. She loves George. She also sees him as her ticket to everything she’s been denied. The show is smart enough to present both of these things as simultaneously true.
Nicholas Galitzine handles George’s transformation convincingly. He begins as a somewhat vacant pretty face, seemingly content to follow his mother’s instructions, and gradually reveals a capacity for independent thought and ambition that surprises everyone, including Mary. His relationship with King James, played by Tony Curran with a wonderful blend of menace and neediness, develops from transactional to something more complicated. Curran’s James is a lonely, paranoid ruler who wants to be loved and settles for being desired, and his scenes with Galitzine carry genuine emotional weight beneath the political maneuvering.
The production is visually striking throughout. The show uses candlelight, shadow, and rich fabrics to create a world that feels both historically evocative and theatrically heightened. The court of King James is presented as a place of beauty and danger in equal measure, where a wrong word or a lost favor can mean prison or worse. The show’s visual palette darkens as the political stakes escalate, tracking the shift from social climbing to genuinely dangerous territory.
The supporting cast fills the court with memorable figures. Mark O’Brien as Robert Carr, the king’s previous favorite, brings a wounded arrogance to a man watching himself be replaced. Samuel Barnett and other court figures provide the texture of political life where every conversation is a negotiation and every alliance is temporary.
When Style Outpaces Substance
The show’s anachronistic approach is its most divisive element. Modern music drops, contemporary language patterns, and certain directorial choices are designed to make the Jacobean court feel immediate rather than dusty. When this works, it energizes scenes that could otherwise feel like period drama obligation. When it doesn’t, it creates tonal whiplash that pulls you out of the narrative. A scene of genuine political danger undercut by a pop needle-drop loses some of its stakes, and the show makes this trade-off too frequently.
The seven-episode run should feel tight, but the middle section sags. George’s integration into court life involves repetitive scenes of social navigation that establish his growing competence without adding much complexity beyond what the first few episodes already demonstrated. The show is most alive during its power plays and confrontations, and it sometimes fills time between them with material that feels like padding.
Mary’s absence from significant portions of the later episodes is a structural problem. The show is called Mary & George, but there are stretches where Mary’s scheming happens offscreen while the show follows George’s court life. Given that Moore’s performance is the show’s strongest element, sidelining her to develop George’s independent storyline feels like a miscalculation. George is interesting, but he’s more interesting in relationship to his mother than on his own.
The historical liberties are extensive, and while the show isn’t obligated to strict accuracy, some of the inventions feel arbitrary rather than purposeful. Events are compressed, characters are composited, and timelines are rearranged in ways that occasionally sacrifice historical insight for dramatic convenience. The show treats history as raw material to be reshaped rather than a story to be told, and your tolerance for this approach will determine how much the liberties bother you.
Power Through the Only Available Door
Mary & George’s most compelling idea is its unflinching examination of how people denied legitimate access to power find alternative routes. Mary cannot hold political office, cannot own property independently, cannot sit on any council. So she builds power through the only channel available to her: controlling access to the king’s affections through her son. The show presents this without judgment, neither celebrating Mary’s ruthlessness nor condemning it, but simply showing the logical response to a system that offers women no legitimate options. George, in turn, discovers that being a tool of power and wielding power are different experiences, and his growing agency complicates his mother’s plans in ways neither of them anticipated.
Should You Watch Mary & George?
If you enjoy historical dramas that prioritize entertainment and performance over strict accuracy, and if Julianne Moore scheming her way through Jacobean England sounds appealing, this delivers on those terms. It’s a show that values personality and verve over subtlety, and when it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s genuinely entertaining.
Skip it if anachronistic historical drama irritates you, or if you need your period pieces to maintain consistent tone. The show’s willingness to sacrifice historical texture for modern appeal will be a feature for some viewers and a flaw for others.
The Verdict on Mary & George
Mary & George is a stylish, uneven historical drama carried by Julianne Moore’s commanding performance and a fascinating true story of political manipulation through seduction. It doesn’t fully develop its dual-protagonist structure, and its anachronistic choices don’t always enhance the material. But it’s entertaining, provocative, and occasionally sharp in its observations about power, gender, and the lengths people will go to when legitimate paths are closed. Moore alone makes it worth the seven-episode commitment.