"The Crown," Year Four

I always end up bingeing "The Crown."  Netflix makes it too easy for me, releasing all the season's episodes in one batch, and "The Crown" at its heart is really a soap opera.  It's a lavishly produced, high minded, and often admirably thoughtful show, but still a soap opera about an endlessly dysfunctional family.  After a fairly glum third season, the fourth moves into the tumultuous '80s that offers all kinds of juicy material for writer Peter Morgan to dig into.  Chiefly, this season is about the two women who would define the decade for the UK - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson), and Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin), who would become Princess of Wales.

Of the two performances, Corrin's is more likely to stick because she presents such an appealing version of Diana as a little girl lost, a sweet and naive young woman who fits the part of fairy-tale princess perfectly in public, but whose private life quickly becomes a shambles.  Her terrible marriage with Charles is one of the main throughlines of the season, and "The Crown" is far more sympathetic to her than it is to Charles, who is doggedly still in love with Camilla Parker-Bowles, and takes his frustrations out on his wife.  The series doesn't try to sugarcoat the situation, and please note that several of the episodes spotlighting Diana come with pre-show warnings about the graphic depiction of eating disorders.

The show is far more diplomatic about its portrayal of the Prime Minister, who presided over the era of the Troubles, the Falklands War, sweeping economic reforms, and a punishing recession.  "The Crown" dutifully ticks the boxes and acknowledges each of these events, but they're mostly kept in the background as the show is more interested in examining the people in power.  Anderson's take on Thatcher is a little overly caricatured at first, especially her style of speech, but this settles over time.  More importantly, she brings a humanity and vulnerability to Thatcher that makes it easier to feel some sympathy for her, whether or not you agree with her confrontational politics.  

I expect that some viewers will be unhappy with the lack of attention that is paid to specific moments in history this time around.  The Troubles, in particular, get elided over pretty quickly.  I'm a little too young to remember this era and I'm not from the UK, so I benefit from having some distance from the subject matter.  Peter Morgan and company have taken the approach of not getting too involved in the actual political situation, but instead show the social and psychological effects of the policies that were implemented.  The fifth episode of the season is devoted to Michael Fagan (Tom Brooke), the unemployed house decorator who broke into Buckingham Palace and had a chat with the Queen in her bedroom in 1982.  The series reimagines him as a downtrodden everyman suffering during the recession, who seeks out the Queen as a last resort.    

And speaking of the Queen, Olivia Colman's Queen Elizabeth often feels like a secondary character this year, outside of her clashes with Thatcher.  Though she provides plenty of insight and good counsel to other characters, there are only about two episodes where she really drives the action.  And yet, I find that I appreciate Colman's performance more than ever, as the Queen remains a figure of calm and continuity in often chaotic circumstances.  Likewise, Prince Philip and Princess Margaret are firmly supporting players now, though I appreciate that they do get a few good scenes and speeches here and there in the margins. Elizabeth and Phillip discussing favored children is a high point.    

"The Crown" is a great deal more fun this year, being more eventful, more topical, and making better use of its sterling ensemble.  As usual it looks gorgeous, with trips to Australia, New York, and an excellent episode set at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.  I also appreciate the little '80s touches in the fashions and music, and the episodes where we get to see the economically depressed UK in stark contrast to the world of the royals.  Alas, it feels like the series was too short this time out. I'm already anticipating next year's batch of episodes.  

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