16 Times Victoria Made Us Wish History Didn’t Happen

Photo: ITV

Liquor Tells the Truth

One of the best things about Victoria is the show’s dedication to telling the story of the queen as a young girl. That means that she’s not the stodgy, unamused old lady dressed all in black that we know from history books. Here, she’s just eighteen. Technically, that’s still a teenager. And that means she’s often reckless, and petulant, and flighty. This Victoria can be silly and selfish and distinctly less than regal. And that’s kind of awesome. One of the best things about this is that we discover that the young queen loves herself some champagne. And that she’s also a pretty sloppy drunk.

That this combination leads to what should probably be a completely unsurprising moment in which a fairly inebriated Victoria gets overly familiar with Melbourne. She gets kind of handsy, tells him she wants to dance with him forever, and then has to drunk stumble her way off to bed. It’s kind of embarrassing, but also kind of adorable. And more than a little relatable. Because girl, we have all been there. The thing is, though? Victoria hasn’t. She had a very sheltered upbringing, kept a virtual prisoner by her mother and John Conroy. Melbourne was literally the second man she was ever alone with. (Wild, right?) Of course her feelings for him are complicated and confusing. And exactly the kind of story we all want to see more of, but can’t. Siiiiiighh.

Melbourne, of course, is a complete gentleman and doesn’t take advantage of (or even acknowledge) the queen’s drunk, over-the-top behavior. After all, he knows a little something about how fragile reputations are after his wife’s affair with Lord Byron. And even though it is incredibly obvious that he’d probably like to dance forever with her too, he tells her to go to bed, instead.