Summary
Almost an hour of Prince William sulking, “Willsmania” is a thin portrait of grief that builds to an obvious — if slightly affecting, given the talent involved — conclusion.
Princess Diana loomed over Part 1 of The Crown Season 6, often in the most ridiculous ways possible. The preposterous fourth episode was defined by the presence of her literal specter, an impressively bad creative decision that divided and perplexed fans. Episode 5, “Willsmania”, doesn’t seem to have entirely moved on. Yes, the focus shifts to Diana’s son, William, but in the very specific context of his grief over Diana’s untimely passing. Even without her ghost cutting around the place, this remains, for now, The Diana Show.
It should come as little surprise that Part 2 kicks off how Part 1 ended, which is to say rather embarrassingly. It’s a protracted hour of a teenage boy sulking, which one supposes is understandable, but it becomes oddly comedic by repositioning Camilla Parker Bowles, of all people, as the audience POV character, trying to coach Charles — now King, but then Prince — through fundamentals of parenting.
The Crown Season 6 Episode 5 Recap
Charles is relatably clueless about how to handle a despondent “Wills”, who returns to Hogwarts — sorry, Eton — to piles of sympathetic missives from fellow Etonians and a wide range of adoring teenage girls. Some relate to his struggle, having lost their own parents. Others think now would be a good time to date him. One girl in particular volunteers to send him her teddy, which is “soft and cuddly” like her. This is a bit confusing. She’s old enough to want the prince in bed with her, but still has a stuffed animal? Perhaps she thought she was writing to Prince Andrew.
A Lesson in Parenting
Nevertheless, William returns to public engagements, suspicious of the kindness everyone seems to be showing him and startled by having suddenly morphed into something close to a pop star. Everywhere he goes, crowds of whooping and hollering teenage girls are assembled. Charles worries for him; he has Diana’s good looks but none of her comfort with attention. Camilla has to remind him that, as their father, he should probably be there for his sons in the absence of their mother, which presumably hadn’t occurred to him before.
Charles’s efforts to do so are abysmal. He visits William at Eton and proposes that, as a family, they visit Diana’s grave and then go on a skiing trip to Canada. It’s like watching two slot machines trying to ring cherries. Camilla, stuck in isolation since it would seem uncouth in the eyes of the public for her to be cavorting with Charles while Diana’s body is still warm, is quick to remind him that he has no idea what he’s doing but a responsibility to do it nonetheless.
Recreating “Willsmania”
“Willsmania” is the term the Canadian media uses to describe the furor around the Prince’s arrival in Canada, where he’s met by mobs of teenage girls, some of whom are holding signs reading things like, “Diana loved you!”, which is extraordinary when you think about it. This prompts the first bit of moaning from Prince Harry, also in attendance, who laments the fact that no girl in history has ever screamed for someone with red hair (this no doubt formed the basis of an entire chapter in Spare.)
For what it’s worth, Harry, aged 13 at the time, is hilarious in this. He’s being played by an actor clearly in his twenties and breezes in and out of scenes like some kind of fixer, sneaking champagne around in china teacups and fetching William beers. By all accounts — including his own — Harry has never been as happy in his life as he seems to be here, but it’s an ahistorical narrative device. He’s supposed to be a counterpoint to William; the brother who “gets it”, in terms of both grief and the royals’ obligation to the press and the public. Nobody is buying any of this for even a second.
How does The Crown Season 6 Episode 5 end?
You know Charles is running out of ideas since he enlists Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to try and bring William around (there’s a whole sequence of Philip watching home videos on a projector and reading old letters to convince us that he’s ideally suited to the task.) Naturally, they both back out of a planned meeting with William, leaving him and Charles to hash things out alone. And they do, in their way. William blames Charles for driving Diana into the arms of the Fayeds. Charles resents the accusation. It takes Philip himself visiting William at Eton — the best scene of the episode, easily — and telling him outright that he’s directing his grief and anger at the wrong people to finally get William to consider any perspective other than his own.
The episode ends with William finally hugging his father while Philip watches sagely on, the flickering home videos unfurling in his mind. William lays flowers in his mother’s memory, finally ready to move on.
What did you think of The Crown Season 6 Episode 5? Let us know in the comments.
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