The Crown: Season 4, Episode 9- Avalanche

 "Most marriages survive because most people aren't fantasists."

Meh. I'll admit that this episode is as well-written and well-made as ever, but I'm just not invested in the Wales' marital problems, which I recall as tabloid tittle-tattle. Yes, Josh O'Connor and Emma Corrin are superb. Yes, we have an interesting love triangle with Camilla as a nicely nuanced third side, although James Hewitt is not sufficiently developed to make a true love rectangle. It's interesting to see the problem in the marriage is not so much the age difference but the fact that he's an introvert and she's one of those curious extrovert people, more interested in musicals and chart pop than in books and ideas.

There's a real savng grace in Anne though, who is fast becoming a favourite character of mine, the Princess Margaret of her generation and delightfully witty and wise in her balanced and human cynicism. The two highlights here both consist of Anne delivering some home truths- first when she pithily tells the Queen the brutal truth about the Wales' marriage and secondly when she tells Charles, equally pithily, to stop with the self-pity and get on with it. As the Queen says, the marriage of the heit to the throne "simply cannot be allowed to fail". Charles may be a self-pitying spoiled brat, but no one should ever be trapped in a loveless marriage.

Sigh. This is good stuff, I know. Charles in particular is a fascinating, nuanced character. I cant say this isn't very good indeed. But The Crown, over this season, seems to have developed into something that's, well, not my thing. I'll see how the finale goes, but may possibly give the next series a miss.

The Crown: Season 4, Episode 8- 48:1

 "That was impressively c*nty..."

I must admit that, while this season maintains the high quality we've seen from The Crown since the beginning, and this episode for one is typically excellent although with a few , I'm afraid my interest is waning because of the subject matter. The '50s, '60s and '70s felt like history but this season, gradually focusing into my own remembered lifetime, feels more like tabloid celebrity tittle tattle- Charles and Di and, as here, Fergie and dodgy Andy. As a television drama it's still intelligent and excellent as ever, but the subject matter is grabbing me less.

This episode, however, addresses a serious constitutional question: what if a monarch truly comes to loathe a prime minister, and breaks the habit of a lifetime by subtly allowing this to be known- just this once? The matter is particularly acute as the key to the disagreement is the very clear moral need for sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Thatcher's stubbornness is not shown in a good light here. Still, while far from a Thatcherite myself, I must say that the script sets out to portray her in a bad light, heartless and arrogant. The Queen and Thatcher are paralleled throughout, with the Queen consistently shown in terms of her love of the Commonwealth and that speech in Cape Town on her 21st birthday (a nice touch, and lovely to get another scene with Claire Foy) dedicating herself to altruistic service, whereas Thatcher is made to say that she believes in encouraging people to look after number one, and only then to their neighbour. Still, she's right about the Commonwealth including several dictators with

One could argue that Thatcher is portrayed in a bad light here. One could also reasonably argue that her actual opinions don't seem to be misrepresented from what I know of the woman, and that those opinions were callous and ignorant. However, the episode tries to find a balance in the use of the character of Michael Shea who, having advised the Queen against making her views known, does so on her orders- and ends up as scapegoat having had his honourable behaviour highlighted by the script. This doesn't seem to reflect reality, and seems to be there to provide some sort of moral equivalence, although it's well done. But, while there are plenty of examples of royals being brutally unfair to their employees, in this case it appears to be entirely made up. I don't mind artistic licence, or facts being shaped to fit dramatic needs, provided the underlying truth is portrayed, or an attempt made to do so, and I've defended the programme before on such grounds. That doesn't seem to have happened here, however, which is a shame.

We also have some nice dialogue between the royal siblings on the occasion of Andy's wedding, as Charles arrogantly dismisses his siblings as "fringe" and earns the above splendid quote from Anne. His schadenfreude at his mother is, of course, a delight.

So, a well-structured episode with some nice character stuff, especially between the Queen and Thatcher, whose relationship has pretty much collapsed. But I don't like the use of events that didn't happen to provide balance.

The Crown: Season 4, Episode 6- Terra Nullius

 “Some countries are too important to send out the understudy...”

This is another clever episode, examining the serious fault lines in Charles and Di’s marriage, and making it clear how appallingly Diana was treated, against a series of breathtaking Australian locations. Yet it’s also the episode that makes it clear, I think, that while we can’t assume Peter Morgan is a republican it’s clear he is unsentimental about that peculiar institution. 

The press are, as I write, full of royalists moaning about The Crown making bits up, and this is an episode where such concerns will loom large.  I’ve addressed this before so let me simply make the point that this is drama, not documentary. That it is fictionalised is implicit in the format, and that should be obvious.

That facts, and memory, are unreliable is even lampshades early on as Elizabeth and Philip describe their 1954 tour of Australia in very different terms to what we saw on screen two seasons ago, claiming that it brought them together. But memory is not all that separates the generations. Elizabeth and Philip thought nothing of leaving their children in the UK for four months; Diana has quite sanely insisted on taking baby William. Yet she’s still expected to leave him alone for two weeks at the start of the tour, something that only she seems to realise would be utterly insane.

And that’s the thing; the royals are not just “tough”, as the Queen mentions at the family conference at the end just after her shocking failure to provide any support or understanding to a desperate Diana: they are a symptom of an elite culture that raises children to be emotionally stunted, damaged individuals. 

Charles, on one level, is the villain here- he shows no chemistry or real affection for his wife, yet he rings Camilla every day. Yet he himself is a victim of his upbringing, and did not meaningfully consent to the marriage any more than Diana.

We are left to ruminate on the irony of man-child Charles and arch-republican Bob Hawke connecting over the fact that both of them, for very different reasons, have their purposes thwarted by Diana. Yet all three of them can be seen as victims of what is, I think, very much presented as a toxic institution.

The Crown: Season 4, Episode 4- Favourites

 "Our children are lost..."

Hmm. There’s a lot to admire about this episode and much that is interesting- not least our first glimpses of how they’re going with the characterisation Princes Andrew and Edward. But I think, structurally and thematically, it’s a bit of a misfire and doesn’t really work overall, despite some impressive character scenes.

This series is, of course, drama and not documentary, and therefore entitled to balance factual accuracy with dramatic licence, as we’ve often discussed. It’s not unusual, in The Crown, for the chronology of events to be altered a bit so that events coincide where this was not the case in reality, generally as a way of making a character point. This is generally fine. But, in this episode, it’s so obviously done that you can see the joins.

There are three separate threads to this episode- the Queen realising she doesn’t know her four children as well as she probably should; the useless Mark Thatcher getting lost in the Sahara; and the early stages of the Falklands crisis.

Still, the relationship between Elizabeth and Philip is dealt with well, as is the weirdness of Charles, his self-centredness and Diana’s very worrying depression. There’s also Anne’s unhappy marriage and jealousy of Diana’s popularity, and we learn that Edward is an arrogant, entitled git and Andrew a charming pervert, at least the versions we see here.

Most interestingly, though, we see how blatantly Thatcher favouritises her son over her daughter out of probable preference fir the opposite sex, essentially because she worshipped her father and had issues with her mother. This is fascinating.

And yet, good though the character development is here, the structure is just too artificial to hang together. It’s a good execution of a flawed concept.

The Crown: Season 4, Episode 2- The Balmoral Test

 "Well, I think we failed that test..."

That was a fascinating episode, and my fears about potential cosiness from the last instalment are starting to seem unfounded. The metaphor here with the stag- it innocently wanders across a stream into the land of the Royals, is stalked and ultimately shot- is not exactly subtle, but it's clever how the metaphor can be taken in different ways for Diana- enticed into their clutches and captured, and Thatcher- humiliated, and hurries off to symbolically shoot her Cabinet.

Thatcher and Denis are roundly humiliated at Balmoral, with the royals in genetal- Margaret especially- being inconsiderate and rude. Yet there's nuance to their snobbery. Thatcher is unable to relax, have fun, or do anything but work. She's stuffy, resentful, over-serious. One suspects that, tests or not, someone like Harold Wilson, who was most certainly non-U, would have charmed the lot of them. Yes, the snobbery is real, and the way this episode depicts the Thatchers' treatment (the accuracy of this is much-disputed, I believe, but this is television drama, not documentary) is both uncomfortable and hilarious to watch. But it's more complicated than that. 

More broadly, we see clearly how the very non-U Thatcher resents the aristocratic "wets" in her Cabinet, but she isn't necessarily in the right here. The "wets" stand for a time when Conservatives were actually conservative, and more concerned with running things than breaking them. I'm on the Queen's side during their spiky meeting towards the end. But one has to admire the way the script avoids didacticism.

Diana is young, innocent, only eighteen to Charles' thirty-three. Christ. And she's being manipulated throughout, very uncomfortably, into an arranged marriage in which she imagines she could ever be happy. She may pass the "test" with flying colours, being both U and fun-loving, but she's prey. Even Camilla is in on the whole thing. Philip, and pretty much the whole firm, are keen to rush Charles into a marriage he isn't sure he wants with a girl he hardly knows. The scene towards the end, as Diana gets papped for the first time, makes us shudder at where the next seventeen years are leading.

The Crown: Season 4, Episode 1- Gold Stick

 "Two women running the show...?"

This is a real first- I'm blogging the first episode of a season on Netflix on the very day of it's release. That won't last, of course; I'll soon be back behind the curve, as usual.

This is a sumptouosly shot, perfectly well-executed season opener that introduces a new status quo (and new primer minister, a new love interest for Charles, a shocking (unless you're spoled by general knowledge) murder, and that does all the nuts and bolts of storytelling very well. It's very clever narratively, as The Crown always is.This is a splendid piece of telly. It's just that, the odd scene aside, this episode hasn't quite caught fire. It's very good, not great. But these are early days.

The opening scenes are our first bit of cleverness, with visuals of royal pomp and ceremony being overlaid with the voice of an IRA spokesman threatening destrucion to the British Crown- and, of course, foreshadowing Dickie's murder, alongside two young lads. For maximum drama, he does so shortly after an unusually harsh conversation with Charles, who is still having an adulterous affair with Camilla, and for good meaaure leaves Charles a parting letter expressing his disappointment with the now thirtysomething prince, whose amorous pleasure-seeking evokes Edward VIII- a comparison which we keep seeing in The Crown; are we perhaps to see a long arc where he begins to change his ways? And Dickie's death leads to an extraordinary scene, the finest in the episode as well as a superb performance from Tobias Menzies, where Philip expresses resentment at Dickie- his own father figure- transferring his fatherly affections to Charles, who already has a father. This is good stuff.

There's also Thatcher, and Gillian Anderson impresses as the tone deaf and arrogant premier, whose personal awkwardness with the Queen is awkwardly done. I love the concept of Elizabeth's Cabinet guessing game, but Thatcher famously had no real sense of fun. And her comment that "I have found women in general tend not to be suited to high office" in as extraordinary as Philip's snobbery not only about her grocer's daughter origins but about her being a chemistry graduate.

And, of course, there's Diana. Interesting, both we and Charles are first introduced to her as a playfully innocent faerie-type figure. That's an interesting choice. But she seems very innocent, and she's still a teenager, which is a bit icky.

I suppose the episode has a lot to do, and there are certainly excellent parts within it. But there's a certain complacent cosiness of style here too. Let's hope that isn't here to stay.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 9- Imbroglio

 "I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you..."

If one is, in time, to become a king, one must first become a pawn. This quietly devastating episode shows one again that to be royal is to spend life in prison- a luxurious prison, yes, but one with little hope of parole.

We begin with David's funeral, which clearly points to where things are going, as Wallis warns Charles never to abanon true love... and that his family cannot be trusted. We have already been made to see parallels between Charles and David, and this is where they play out.

Charles is in love with Camilla. And yet it was all supposed to be a bit of fun, arranged by the Queen Mum and Lord Mountbatten, so he can have a bit of fun and "sow hs oats" while undergoing naval training. Both of them are pawns and even Camilla, who is doing this because she was told to, and supposedly still "obsessed" with Andrew Parker-Bowles, is confused about her feelings. The Queen is not exactly pleased at the actions of her mother and Dickie, but there's only one thing for it- Camilla and Parker-Bowles are to marry. By royal fiat. Just like that. This is life in the British upper echelons, in the 1970s.

What's particularly clever here is how the events of the time are allowed to function as contrast and metaphor. Much of the B plot consists of the mutually stubborn battle over the coal strikes between Ted Heath and Arthur Scargill, both of whom are from very working class backgrounds which have shaped them very differently- we even get a flashback to Heath's childhood. But it's hard not to see the power cuts, the candles and the three day week, explicitlt referred to as heralding a potential collapse of law and order, as a parallel to and metaphor of how things are panning out for Charles. I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with a national crisis being used to illustrate the finer feelings of our betters, but it's all very impressively done. And it's niceto see how seamlessly we've moved to focus on the new generation.

Plus we get to see Princess Anne, ny new favourte character, singing along to David Bowie's "Starman". This is awesome.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 8- Dangling Man

 "One doesn't often get a chance to visit a former king. Former kings are usually dead."

An interesting episode here, one that simultaneously looks back to the legacy of the dying Edward VIII and forward to the expected reign of Charles, not less than fifty years in the future as this episode, alongside the new decade, begins. David will not see much of the 1970s.

It is an easy, yet valid criticism here that David's seemingly treasonous behaviour during the War is downplayed. But one cannot criticise the emotional beats, not the performance of Derek Jacobi which is outstanding as ever, as we chronicle the last couple of years of the self-indulgent old fool.

But David is not so much the focus of the episode as awarning of a possible future for Charles, who shows worrying signs of admiration for his great-uncle as well as similar tendencies to meddle, be opinionated, and fail to see the constitutional necessity of suppressing one's opinions- although we should again note that, should Charles not like the requirements of the job, he can always just not do it.

It's fascinating to see the, er, love square between Charles, Anne, and the recently split Camilla Shand and Andrew Parker-Bowles. Anne is delightful here in her chasing and, well, shagging of Parker-Bowles, wittily wrongfooting him into bed and adopting a traditionally male role in bedding a man she rather fancies. Charles, meanwhile, comes across as rather immature at this date with Camilla, at first appearing rather deep with his discussion of Saul Bellow and his line about the state of Prince of Wales being a "predicament" appearing to quote from Alan Bennett's not-yet-written The Madness of King George... only fr this all to be set up to a silly practical joke, That's clever writing, telling us a lot about the character. Josh O'Connor is excellent, and we are again left nervous about our future king.

Elsewhere, Ted Heath is now PM and he's determined to take us into the Eurpean Economic Community: happier times, times of hope, times when Britain looked outward with ambition rather than inwards with a smirk. Yet then, as now, the heir to the throne is a worry. This s good, thoughtful telly.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 7- Moondust

 "Do I need to show symptoms of despair? Should I sigh and moan dramatically?"

The Crown doesn't do bad, of even average episodes: this is a rather well-crafted (and, I admit, performed) character piece for Prince Philip as the Moon landing- the most sublime human achievement ever- acts as the catalyst for a full examination of his mid-life crisis, which everything in this episode points towards.

And yet, while admiring this, I'll admit I find the episode difficult to love. Perhaps its the strong Christian context for Philip's existential angst; he eloquently describes at the end, during his rather effective concluding soloiloquy, how terrible a thing it can be to have faith in God, and lose it. I sympathise and respect that- this atheist is no Richard Dawkins- but, for those of us who were brought up without religion, and have never had any faith to lose, it's all rather abstract. 

Similarly, I'm forty-three but, while I'll not deny life can be stressful working full time while looking after a five year old and caring for a chronically ill wife, there's no mid-life crisis in sight for me. I'll never walk on the moon, but I've worked hard to look after my family. That doesn't make me unusual, but it does mean that, while my achieements are ordinary, I feel unsatisfied with my life so far. It's tempting to see the mid-life ennui of a pampered royal (there's no evidence, of course, that Philip had any such thing) as a decadent indulgence. But, of course, mental health issues can affect anyone, and being privileged does not mean one does not suffer.

But it is, I think, at the end that we reach the underlying point. Philip has just lost his mother, a woman whose faith never wavers. He's an orphan. And that is not a pleasant thought to dwell on for a middle-aged man with parents in their seventies.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 6- Tywysog Cymru

 "Fancy being the heir?"

"Not if it means going to Wales..."

This is yet another outstanding episode, our first to focus on Charles as a young man rather than a child- Josh O'Connor plays him with aplomb, safely negotiating a path between acting and impersonation. But the script (with James Graham co-writing) is magnificent.

It's horrifying to see Charles at 20, clearly having been denied much of a childhood, being denied a youth too. It's awful so see him trying to reach out to a room of fellow students in Aberystwyth but have the door slammed on him by youths with hair and clothes appropriate for students in 1969, while he stands there in his ever-present suit. He can never belong, and even his family (though his rapport with Anne is lovely) are very cold fishes, as we shall see.

For much of the episode it seems as though the theme is going to be Welsh nationalism, Certainly we, through Charles, learn much of the Welsh viewpoint and it's interesting to see Charles relationship evolve with his republican, nationalist tutor Edward Millward (not a very Welsh name!) from insulting ignorance to true mutual respect as he slips some sympathetic sentiments into his speech which, well, may not have actually been said in his real investiture as Prince of Wales, but are a nice bit of artistic licence.

But all this is undermined at the end, after the warm parting with Millward and his "You did well". The Queen finally receives a translation of the speech and immediately sees through it... his sentiment about Wales being ignored, not listened to, are all about himself. He's exploited the Welsh no less than many of his forebears. And we end with an argument about how a monarch can never be seen to express an opinion lest the whole edifice collapse. At the same time, this is an impossible thing to expect of someone. I 'm sure this theme will recur.

The solution, of course, if one is not a republican (and I, remember, am St Augustine's republican- "Lord, grant me a republic, but not yet"), is that it's only right to allow senior royals to decline the succession and retire into private life if they find this an overly onerous requirement. The gilded cage of royalty must carry the hope of parole. The lack of this sensible reform will, I suspect, lead to much further angst in future episodes...

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 4- Bubbikins

 "Bubbikins...?"

 This is, again, a cleverly constructed episode, dealing with two seemingly separate- and thematically contrasting- threads, and drawing them together very neatly at the end. It's also the episode where Princess Anne appears for the first time as a more-or-less adult, and where I perhaps begin to warm a little to Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip. He's no Matt Smith though.

On the one hand, Prince Philip is whingeing about real terms cuts to the Civil List. He, husband to the richest woman in the world, may be forced to sell a palace or two or even give up polo. This is contrasted with his mother, Princess Alice, a humble nun in Athens, casually selling her priceless jewellery so she can continue her charity work. These themes interwtwine throughout. Philip tries to savage his public relations faux pas with a documentary on the royals so we can see how they're good value for money, and it goes so badly that the Queen orders it buried after a single broadcast. Meanwhile, the fascist coup of the colonels in Greece exiles Princess Alice to London... and Philip just avoids his mother, as an embarrassment and, worse, a mother who abandoned him.

The threads are drawn together where it is the publicity from Princess Alice, and her hard life of suffering and service, that gives the royals some positive publicity- and leads Philip finally to reconnect with his mother before it is too late.

Most importantly, perhaps, we are shown that Philip's mother didn't abandon him out of callousness, but of genuine and serious mental health issues, for which she suffered barbaric tortures and, just as bad, Freudian psychiatry. Mental health is an issue that can affect us all, eincluding royalty.

This doesn't, of course, stand comparison with its exceptional predecessor, but shows nevertheless the high watermark of this series. Good stuff.