The Great Showrunner Needed 'Dumb Luck' To Kill Peter So Catherine Could Be 'Reborn'

Although "The Great" tells a story centered around Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning) and Peter III (Nicholas Hoult), it doesn't focus on historical accuracy — and that's what makes it great (pun intended). In a shocking twist, the series killed off one of its leads, Peter III, midway through Season 3. While it didn't follow the historical figure's real-life death, "The Great" never promised it would, and showrunner Tony McNamara wanted to subvert expectations to keep the audience on their toes. 

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, McNamara revealed that he and long-time friend and collaborator Fiona Seres, who also writes on "The Great," theorized how Peter III should go out, knowing that it would come in Season 3. Everyone was expecting Catherine or someone else to kill him, so they decided to go an unpredictable route, with Peter III drowning after falling into an icy river. 

"I thought, you know what? Life's so f***ing stupid and random that of course it's much more likely something dumb would kill him," McNamara told EW, saying that he wanted Peter's death to be an accident but ultimately his own fault. "His character brings him into the situation of his ultimate demise, but his demise isn't caused by anyone other than dumb f***ing luck."

While the real-life Peter III died shortly after Catherine the Great took the throne, Elle Fanning's version of the empress has always had her husband by her side. That's not the case anymore, and while "The Great" still waits for a Season 4 renewal, future episodes will explore a new side of Catherine.

"For me, it's not an ending, it's a rebirth in a way for her as a character," Tony McNamara told Entertainment Weekly. "She hasn't ruled by herself yet and been without his ... everything, even the grief of him colored everything she did. So I guess for me, it's like now she's free of him and she's deeply damaged, what happens now? She's kind of cut loose in the way that [the real] Catherine the Great was once she was free of all that — she ruled in a quite crazy way."

While Catherine more or less went off the deep end after watching Peter die, Season 3 ends with her not only coming to terms with what happened but becoming a new version of herself, with an appropriate haircut symbolizing that. Fanning told TV Line that it's a new Catherine in the final scene of Season 3, agreeing with McNamara that, in a way, she's been reborn, becoming a different and much more experienced leader.