The Crown (season 5)

The problem with the new season of The Crown is that series creator Peter Morgan remains beholden to the basic tide of history. The first two seasons of his Netflix flagship - which featured an impeccable Claire Foy as the fledging Queen Elizabeth - were cultivated from tremendously fertile soil. Foy’s was an Elizabeth forced to learn on-the-job not only what it means to be Queen, but also precisely how intransigent her duties to the Crown truly are… and when you can build scenes, episodes, even entire narrative arcs around her formative relationship with Winston Churchill (two of the most significant British figures of the 20th century - one at the dawn of her service to England, the other at his twilight), it could almost be considered a dereliction not to produce narrative gold on-screen. The first season in particular set the bar incredibly high; a triumphant apex the show has often struggled to match.   

One could hardly have asked for a better successor to Foy than Oscar-winner Olivia Colman at the start of the third season… but her iteration of Elizabeth was framed as a resolutely cold fish, thematically moored in middle-aged rut. It was a disappointing tenure (through no fault of Colman’s own), but Morgan found rich veins to mine in other subplots… mostly involving the splendid Josh O’Connor as the young Charles (learning Welsh and embarking on his vastly misguided courtship of young Diana Spencer), as well as the colorful dramatics of the Margaret Thatcher era (embodied by a loopy - albeit Emmy-winning - Gillian Anderson performance that could best be described as “nuanced caricature”).    

Season five ushers in further cast turnover, and the results are mixed. Imelda Staunton brings a welcome touch of grandmotherly twinkle to Elizabeth, but hardens just as easily into a posture of indomitable steel when challenged… not unlike a porcupine raising its quills. Yet it’s telling how rarely she feels like the show’s actual focal point (likewise Jonathan Pryce lends suitable gravitas to the role of Philip, but his usage rate fades badly)… instead the season is inevitably dominated by the tabloid disintegration of Charles and Diana’s marriage - exhaustively traveled terrain that’s frankly a drag more than anything. As the Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Debicki - with her octopus-like limbs that seem to go on forever - adeptly captures both Diana’s doe-eyed poshness and the stress fractures simmering beneath the surface of her porcelain facade (no explanation given for how she seemingly sprouted a full foot over Emma Corrin between seasons)… but she isn’t given anything fresh to play here, no uncharted corners of Diana’s complicated persona. It’s a greatest hits medley.   

So much of the season sees Morgan straining to make thematic connections that feel beneath his talent. The impending decommission of the royal yacht Britannia is likened to the Queen’s own stagnating and out-of-touch Monarchy - a rather leaden allegory that drives both the premiere and the finale (it doesn’t help that the season opens with Foy christening the ship in 1953 - how terribly the show misses her presence!). Philip’s speech to Diana about the Royal Family being less a family in the traditional sense and more of a meticulously regimented “system” would be more impactful if Morgan hadn’t been writing variations of it for the past five years. The subject of Margaret’s doomed romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend is litigated yet again, for the sole purpose of juxtaposing it against the messy marital missteps of Elizabeth’s own children (the Timothy Dalton guest spot a welcome highlight otherwise). By the time Charles and Diana’s impending divorce is contrasted with the irreconcilable differences of “ordinary” British citizens, the cringe levels are trending uncomfortably high (but only because the series has achieved so much better). ​

Morgan is still capable of crafting a great stand-alone episode - as evidenced by the season’s obvious highlight, which chronicles the rise of self-made Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed and his determination to integrate himself into British high society (by earning a face-to-face audience with the Queen that never quite materializes). Morgan's always been at his best when he’s able to compress his focus onto these lesser-known pockets of history. And certain scenes manage to stand out, such as when Charles and Diana assess their failed marriage over scrambled eggs in the kitchen of Kensington Palace - the tone of rueful conviviality quickly giving way to jabs of still-raw acrimony (or when Diana peevishly calls in to a televised poll concerning whether the Monarchy still has a purpose in British society to repeatedly vote “no”). But the season on the balance feels oddly shapeless and anticlimactic, the connective tissue all rather tenuous. It’s hard to feel particularly bullish about the show moving forward… unless it’s building towards an eventual meta wrinkle in which Claire Foy rejoins the cast as herself, having just been hired to play the lead in a new Netflix series about the Royal Family called The Crown, much to the Queen’s obvious consternation.