The Crown: Season 3, Episode 5- Coup

 "I am protecting the Prime Minister. I am protecting the Constitution. I am protecting Democracy."

We have another fine episode here, again mixing excellent character stuff with thought-provoking constitutional issues. I suspect, due to the largely political subject matter, this episode won't be quite as popular as others this season, but to devote space to the supposed coup against Wilson is probably the right thing to do.

It is, of course, not necessarily a hard fact that any such coup was planned, despite decades of rumours. Sources (Hugh Cudlipp, the highly questionable Peter Wright) give some indication that Lord Mountbatten was approached, but it's not widely believed that things went any further. Dramatic licence aside, however, the events are well dramatised here, with Mountbatten's presentation to Cecil King and co on the practicalities of a coup are like something out of a Frederick Forsyth novel. Charles Dance, recast as a necessarily harder-edged Mountbatten, is outstanding as the charismatic old military leader looking for purpose in retirement. His speech to the Burma veterans, including the full recital of Kipling's "Road to Mandalay", is dripping with charisma. Mountbatten comes across as complex here, and not unsympathetic, quite an achievement,

Cecil King is odd, though. Proprietor of the Daily Mirror, friend of Hugh Cudlipp, yet fomenting a right-wing coup against a fairly standard Labour government?

Regardless, the Queen gives all this short shrift here. If she did, in reality, do this, she deserves much praise for doing the most important job of a modern constitutional monarch in defending democracy, for being Juan Carlos in 1981 rather than Vittorio Emmanuele in 1922. Interestingly, this episode contrasts this by showing the Queen spending weeks on end travelling to pursue her horse racing hobby, at the expense of her job. One can hardly begrudge her a holiday, however; Trump and his golf this ain't. And there's a superbly written moment between her and old friend Porchey as she discusses how she would have much preferred the life of a racing horse owner to that of a monarch. These few weeks are a poignant glimpse into the life she could have had, if her Uncle David hadn't forced her, and her reluctant monarch, into the life she now leads.

We end on a note of hope, as the duly chastened Mountbatten reconnects with his sister Princess Alice, reminding us of the complexities of the family trees of the royal houses of Europe. "We Battenbergs have no country" says the old and relaxed Alice to her patriotic brother, both scions of a universal monarchical class floating over the various nations of Europe which at some point borrowed some German princeling to be their king.

We alo have a nice scene with Elizabeth and Philip at the end. The personal stuff, the characterisation, is always perfectly written and performed, and seems to mesh seamlessly with the more phiosophical stuff. This is bloody good telly.