"There was a young lady from Dallas, who used a dynamite stick as a phallus. They found her vagina in North Carolina, and her arsehole in Buckingham Palace."
It’s surprising, I suppose, that The Crown has focused so relatively heavily on Margaret. And yet it can’t be denied that they keep finding new and interesting angles to take on Bertie’s second born. This episode manages to be fascinating as a study not only of Margaret but of the contrast and rivalry between the two sisters.
Importantly, the episode begins and ends with a coda, a flashback in 1943, where Tommy Lascelles starts to prepare young Elizabeth for a role for which the more outgoing Margaret would seem to be more suited. Yet Elizabeth is very firmly told, in spite of the fact that both sisters are happy for Margaret to be queen, that that’s not how it works.
In the present day, we are introduced to a fun little turn from an excellent Clancy Brown, who may not resemble LBJ but manages to be damned convincing as the old Texan arm-twister. And the whole episode centres on the UK being in the desperate position of needing an economic ball out from the USA-but we are not LBJ’s favourite country because Wilson won’t touch Vietnam, quite rightly, with a bargepole.
Enter Margaret, to save the day with charm, emotional intelligence, bawdiness and limericks. Helena Bonham Carter is superb here, as Margaret achieves things the Queen could never achieve, in an episode constantly seething with sibling rivalry.
We also see the cracks in Margaret’s marriage getting deeper, and Elizabeth getting fonder of Wilson. But it all ends, nicely, with Philip channelling a theory of Lascelles from when they got drunk together last season- there are the dull Windsor’s and the dazzling ones, and they always come in pairs. For every Bertie there’s a David, for every Elizabeth, a Margaret.
It’s a masterfully crafted and paced piece of telly. I’m not sure it’s particularly deep but the craftsmanship is superb.
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