"There is no dignity in the wilderness..."
And so the season ends, with two parallel plots- the downfall of Thatcher and the collapsing marriage, that cannot be allowed to fail, of Charles and Di. There is, I suppose, a kind of thematic link that we're encouraged to find, in that both Thatcher and Diana find themselves manipulated by men in grey suits- but the script's attempt to find a parallel seems tenuous and awkward.
So the events of Thatcher's downfall pretty much echo the well-known events of reality, with highlights of Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech word for word (he, a senior Tory, expresses deep regret at the deep damage done to the national interest by fatuous loose-lipped Europhobes- imagine!) and Thatcher foolishly meeting her Cabinet one by one rather than the probably safer option of doing so in a group. But the scenes between Thatcher and the Queen resonate, as the Queen wisely refuses a dissolution of Parliament and as she awards the greengrocer's daughter the Order of Merit while trying desperately to find common ground.
The scenes between Charles- shown here as a total dick- and Diana- shown here as lovely, hugging a young lad with AIDS in an act which helps dissolve stigmas and make the world a better place- don't actually add much. We know the Royal Family wants them trapped in that marriage and sod their happiness if they want to "let the side down". We know also that their unhappiness is in a context of extreme privilege, albeit a privilege entirely without freedom. What's a little newer is Camilla's understanding that she and Charles cannot be together without her being humilated and cast as the villain.
I suspect this season has been just as good as its predecessors, and certainly so more prone to fictionalise history whatever certain commentators may say, but this Charles and Di stuff I find tiresome subject matter, bordering on the tabloidy- and we're getting well into living memory for me. I'm not finding The Crown in the 80s and 90s as fascinating as the 50s and 60s. I may or not watch and blog the next season. We shall see.
I was wondering, have you seen the last seasons? Do you like it?
ReplyDeleteNo, I never did get round to it, for the reasons I gave in the last paragraph. The early seasons, set before my time and in a world before my memories, fascinated me with its distance from today. Adultery and the like in the 1990s... it just doesn't have the same appeal as subject matter, evocative of tabloid front pages. Maybe one day!
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, season four WAS good. It's just that the subject matter was starting to disengage me.
Strangely enough, the stories that came out about Mohamed Al-Fayed in real life, after his death, don’t make the scenes with him any more surprising, given he already is played in a self centred way in the show anyway. Regardless, his son never deserved to die in such a horrible way. And I can still feel the slightest pity, if not outright sympathy when he grieves over his son’s body. Losing a child is something no one would wish on their own worst enemy.
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