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Monarchies and television shows; both should ideally have sound exit strategies in place before their time is up. Some of the greatest programmes in history have set fire to their reputations because of substandard final episodes. And for Netflix’s The Crown — like its subject, the last remaining survivor of a bygone era — the pressure to nail the landing is doubly difficult. Faced with glossier, more algorithmically savvy competition, the show’s popularity in recent years has dwindled like the monarchy itself.
Much of The Crown’s final season — or, to be precise, the six episode second part — is dedicated to the idea of clean exits. The Queen, played one last time by the under-appreciated Imelda Staunton, spends most of the final episode pondering her own death, and the episodes before that — at least the ones she’s in — wondering if the monarchy has become obsolete. She agrees to introduce some reforms at the advice of Prime Minister Tony Blair, who, in addition to representing the existential threat that it faces, also identifies the crown’s many extravagances. These frivolities, he suggests politely, might be contributing to the public’s growing alienation from the royals.
Blair is surprised to have discovered that there exists a royal hand washer, a minder of the swans, and a royal bargeman, even though there hasn’t been a royal barge in nearly two centuries. The Queen herself is taken aback to discover that for decades, it has been one man’s responsibility to fold all the napkins in the Buckingham Palace, and that this man likely hails from a long line of napkin folders before him. All of this is ridiculous, of course, and there is no need to humour such nonsense now. But trust series creator Peter Morgan to spin this pomp and pageantry into a heart-wrenching elegy about tradition.
The Crown has always been a rather self-serious show, despite its often soapy tone. And there’s at least an effort to rectify this in the final season. Roughly half of it is dedicated to William (Ed McVey), whom we first find deep in the throes of grief. But over the course of the final six episodes, he emerges from his sadness thanks to a blossoming romance with his fellow student at university, Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy). These scenes would’ve been sweet — and they mostly are — had the show not made the frankly wild suggestion that Kate was essentially brainwashed into honey-potting the naive William by her crazy mother. “It is our duty to make use of the assets god has given us,” she tells a teenage Kate in one scene, encouraging her to dress more skimpily around him.
For a while, it seems like The Crown is continuing its trend of going through a revolving door of new protagonists; anybody but the Queen herself. Diana ate every morsel in the last couple of seasons, and you’d assume that with her story having ended, the show would retrain its focus on its original heroine. The Crown was, after all, a wildly entertaining look at history through the lens of one woman. But the Queen is largely absent from the first three episodes of this final stretch — the first seven, if you also count the first half — as the show chooses instead to tag along with William, and then to waste an episode on the long-forgotten Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville).
William is given perhaps the most sympathetic portrayal of anybody, even Harry, whose outrageous antics are never properly contextualised. He rarely speaks about losing Diana, but William is basically projected as Harry Potter, the boy who lived. “He looks remarkably like his mother,” Camilla Parker-Bowles (Olivia Williams) says in an early scene, while William struggles to grapple with the goodwill that he has inherited from his mother. In one of their many confrontations, he accuses his father, Charles (Dominic West), of having developed a resentment towards him for being as naturally alluring as Diana. “He craves the crown,” William seethes to Harry later on, after having angrily pointed out their father’s fear of being upstaged.
Each of these characters would seamlessly blend into a Greek tragedy — they’re sad, lonely, and rather loveless. Some, like Margaret, never found happiness at all. And others, like Charles, suffered for decades, before realigning his goals, as it were, and redefining what happiness means to him. But the show hasn’t bothered to unpack the ugly side of this story for years; not since season three. Even though it often alludes to the many personal sacrifices that the Queen has made in her life, The Crown, in its final season, appears to believe that they were all worth it. What else could explain a climactic exchange with Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce) that resembles the post-credits scene from Pathaan more than anything else?
Read more – The Crown season 5 review: Netflix’s once-regal show loses all objectivity in worst season ever
When the Queen died in 2022, a man was sent to inform her bees of her passing. There’s no need to read that again; you got it right the first time. This man, the palace beekeeper — another position that probably would’ve made Blair tear his hair out — visited seven important beehives, and whispered, “The mistress is dead…” This is a part of a centuries’ long tradition called ‘telling the bees’, because bees were considered a bridge between our world and the spirit realm. In its final season, The Crown has unfortunately become the kind of show that neglects to mention the second part.
The Crown Season 6, Part 2
Creator – Peter Morgan
Cast – Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Jonathan Pryce, Lesley Manville, Olivia Williams, Ed McVey, Meg Bellamy
Rating – 2.5/5
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