Suits, season finale

After months of anticipation, Meghan Markle was walking down the aisle. Her husband-to-be was a charming chap, with a playful smile and a wry, ruffled manner. The decor was sumptuous, the attendees splendiferously attired. Markle wore a frock fit for a postmodern princess.

This wasn’t the Royal wedding – yet to fans of Suits it was an event nearly as seismic, as Markle and her character, Rachel Zane, bowed out after seven tumultuous years.

Rachel was tying the knot with suave-yet-principled lawyer Mike Ross (Patrick J Adams), and they were quitting New York for a new life in Seattle.

Suits is over-the-top at the best of times but, amid the ceiling-to-floor overacting in this Netflix two-parter, Windsor-in-waiting Markle stood out as that rare cast member who seemed familiar with understatement. There was real, albeit restrained, emotion on her face as she said her farewells.

The wedding scene was over surprisingly quickly and bunged on at the end of the two hours. It was also, of course, howlingly maudlin.

Markle will be back presently for another televised wedding – but for the Suits devotees it was her exit here that rated as the right royal tear-jerker.