Summary
The Crown bows out with a renewed focus on the Queen, but it’s hamstrung by its own structure and remains a shell of its former self.
With the ghost of Princess Diana hanging over it both figuratively and literally, Part 1 of The Crown Season 6 was, in the most charitable sense, a mess. Viewers were divided. Critics were appalled. It seemed inarguable that one of Netflix’s IP crown jewels, pun very much intended, had jumped the shark and become a shell of its former self. Part 2 of Season 6 does little to reverse these ideas. Still languishing in Diana’s long shadow and shuffling towards the demise of Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton), around whom the show has revolved until the back half shifted focus to the Queen of Hearts, The Crown bows out lacking in direction, focus, ideas, sense, and drama, though the final six episodes are admittedly better than the first four.
The Crown Season 6 Part 2 review and plot summary
In many ways, Peter Morgan has written himself into a bit of a corner. It was easy back in the day. We’re now seeing depictions of events that most of us were alive to witness, so the drama feels less authentic and more invasive. Between Diana’s death and Elizabeth’s – the latter is not depicted on-screen, since the finale doesn’t quite catch up with the present day – not much of note happened within the Royal Family, at least not that you could build an engaging series around.
What we’re primarily concerned with is Princes William (Ed McVey) and Harry (Luther Ford) in the aftermath of Diana’s death, the former’s courtship of Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy), which you’ll recall as the less interesting of the two recent royal weddings since it wasn’t mired in scandal, and the death of Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville). This is plenty to be going on with, but it hardly seems like the richest dramatic material either. Capping off Morgan’s magnum opus with the nuptials of Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Olivia Williams) can’t help but feel like a bit of an anti-climax.
It must be said that the show’s structure doesn’t exactly help with any of this either. It’s easier to care about Charles and Camilla since they’ve at least been around for a while; William, Harry, and Kate barely get a chance to be characters, and they’re generally defined by how everyone else speaks about them rather than their actions. Six episodes is two more than the four of Part 1, but they’re covering considerably more ground; several years as opposed to a few weeks, which proves the point about how much less interesting the subjects are than anything involving Diana.
Not that the Diana stuff was great either – on the contrary, it felt overwhelming and crass in a way that, thankfully, this batch of episodes don’t. I’d even say that Part 2 feels in some respects like a quintessential version of The Crown, an examination of family dysfunction against the backdrop of royal obligation. It’s just not as coherent or interesting as it once was.
Watching a decade of the British monarchy play out on fast-forward renders key players down to their cliff’s notes versions. There’s little sense of a real brotherly connection between Harry and William; the cajoling circumstances of William and Kate’s union aren’t really explored; Philip’s softening is consigned to a flickering projector and terse game of chess. A more substantive exploration of anyone involved would have probably provided more insight into what plays out more as an anthology of half-remembered headlines, checked off a list for the sake of thoroughness without any unpacking of the ensuing scandals – a Prince of England cosplayed as a Nazi, for goodness sake – or the underlying motivations.
A shadow of its former self
But at least by repositioning the Queen herself as a primary focus, The Crown Season 6 manages to have some worthwhile conversations about the value of the monarchy and its function as a time capsule for tradition and pageantry. Anti-monarchists will be dismayed by all this, but one can hardly expect a show about the British crown to not ultimately come down in favor of it, even if it hasn’t, to be fair, been entirely charitable in its depiction over the years.
This is what I mean by Part 2 being quintessentially The Crown, or at least a softer idea of it. It is undeniably sincere and stoic in the face of its main opposition, which in this season is neoliberal Blairism, and the conflict gives The Queen a chance to really be the Queen, with all that entails. It is undoubtedly not as good as it was, and in many respects not good by any metric, but it does go out with more or less the same ideas it came in with, for better or for worse.
What did you think of The Crown Season 6 Part 2? Comment below.
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