"War is our love..."
It's an interesting choice to end the season on such a downbeat note. This is a Margaret episode and a desperately unhappy one, yes, in which she makes a thankfully unsuccessful suicide attempt, yes, but everything seems to be falling apart. The country seems to be at rock bottom, leading the Queen to question exactly what it is she's supposed to have achieved as she faces her Silver Jubilee. It appears, perhaps, as though there's no future, and England's dreaming.
With a bit of sleight of hand this episode covers three and a bit years, from Harold Wilson becoming PM again in the wake of the February 1974 election to the Jubilee itself. There's a lovely little valedictory scene as Wilson resigns, calmly teling the Queen of his Alzheimers diagnosis which, after sixty years of public duty, it now poised to rob him of his retirement like the bastard it is. It's lovely to see how close they've become over the years, in that very British way, with him confessing he's always seen her as a "leftie at heart" and her accepting an invitation to dine at Downing Street, an honour only previously given to Churchill.
But, for Margaret, there is true despair. Her marriage is failing, but worse than that. Tony is humiliating her, again and again, with affair after affair while simultaneously managing to charm everyone- the Queen Mum, Philip, even the Queen who shows him obvious affection- into forgiving his little dalliances. Yet when Margaret has her own little fling with an obliging toy boy she faces tabloid humiliation and appalling double standards as her own affair- just the one, after years of being cuckqueaned- faces consequences very different from those faced by her husband. At least Tony is now faced with having to potentially marry his latest fling.
It’s a fascinating way to end a superb season. Roll on Season Four in a couple of days...
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