The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Crown' Season 1-4 Recap

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

In anticipation of the fifth season of 'The Crown', Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin sit down to take a look back at the first four seasons of the prestige Netflix show and what it can bring to the new season and cast for Season 5. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. Back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me today.

Surrounded by a sea of corgis. It's my usual house of our co-host, but we are not on the ringverse. We're here on Prestige TV podcast feed to cover the crown. It's the queen of dragons herself. Mallory Rubin. Hi, Molly. Oh, Joe, what a thrill it is to be here with you. We are quite used to talking about messy royal families.

having talked about it at length the last few months in covering House of the Dragon over the ring of our speed. But we are here to talk about the Windsors and the Crown season five, which is about to drop on Netflix this week. Mallory and I are here with like a quick little preview podcast, a little like catch you up in case unlike Mallory Rubin herself, you didn't just binge four seasons of the crown over the last week and a half. And so maybe you're like, hey, what's how?

happening on this show. What can I, what can I remember? How are you feeling after your, after your whirlwind binge of the crown? I'm feeling great. It's an extraordinary amount of television to consume in a very small period of time, but I love the crown and I had never rewatched the earlier seasons. So once I knew I was going to be here pod and with you, I thought, if not now, when for a rewatch? Fair point. And honestly, others, No, like I, I thought I was an expert binger, and then I met, I met you. And I just, I realized that I had, I had so much to learn from your commitment to the cause. So we're in me just catching you up on what happened in previous seasons, talking about

overall our thoughts about the crown and our excitement level for season five, some mild controversies that are swirling around it, et cetera. Before we get into that, I just want to mention that here in the Prestiast TV podcast feed, there is a lot going on. There is the White Lotus coverage. The Bill and I are doing every Sunday. There is, you know, you want to go back and listen to Van and Charles cover this season of Atlanta. Incredible stuff that just wrapped up.

Charles and I, Charles Holmes and I did a season long one episode, look at interview with a vampire, my current obsession. That also, that dropped in the feed. So, you know, there's a lot going on. And Mallory and I will be here with this preview episode. and then three more episodes to come, breaking down season five of The Crown, we'll be talking about episodes one through three, and then we'll talk about episodes four through six,

and then seven through ten, I believe that's how we've decided to break down. We'll let you know at the top of every episode, sort of which episodes we'll be covering, so you can do a little mini-binge, and then listen to us, talk about our feelings about Charles and Dominic West specifically, and then go back and watch a little bit more,

and then come back and listen to us. So that's my recommended viewing plan. Anything else we should say, Mal, about the feed or how we plan to tackle this? I don't think so. I would just say, you know, if you're interested in what Joe meant when she said we talk a lot about divided ruling families, come check out everything over on House of R and the Ringerverse as well, you know, catch up on our many hours of programming on House of the Dragon, Rings of Power. We're covering Andor now.

so you can find us. You can find us on many, many feeds covering many, many shows. It's so true. So true. So you already mentioned that you love the crown. You did this rewatch binge-a-thon. You wouldn't have done that if you weren't a crown fan overall. But like anything else you want to say about your larger crown feelings,

why you decided to commit yourself to this when Bill and I were like, hey, Mallory, want to come talk about the crown with your? How do you feel? When the royal family calls. I am here to perform my duty. I love the crown. I, since the moment that season one dropped on Netflix, many moons ago now, I have found this show to be one of the most certainly well-acted and magnetic binge experiences on TV.

this is even though it's 10 episodes and every episode pretty much is like a true true full hour this is usually like a one day watch for me not with it dropping in the middle of the week now but this will be like you know a Saturday just a new season comes out carve out the weekend a day or two and I love the soapy history that blend of glimpse and that'll obviously be something that we talk about a lot with season five, the presentation of real-world facts that are then skewed and altered for a fictional streaming universe. And the show is, while not always perfect, I think certainly through the first four seasons, one of the best shows on TV over those first four seasons, and especially with the time-jumping,

the ensemble cast, the recasting after one and two to three and four, and now the recasting again for season five, just so many opportunities for things to go terribly wrong there when you're incorporating so many new performers and covering such a wide swath at time. And the sustained excellence of the first four seasons is, I think, one of the really genuinely great TV achievements of the last decade. What are your feelings on the crown? Yeah, I mean, so before I came to work here, I worked at a place called Vanity Fair, which loves the Royals. And so, like, you have to know about the Royals if you work at Vanity Fair. I am not a huge, like, by osmosis, I know. so much more about the royals than I did before I started working there. But I am not by nature

a huge, like, royalty lover, royal. Me neither, to be clear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm an anglophile, but I would not say I'm a royal obsessive. Yeah. I will admit that when I was a 16-year-old, of course. Um, my friend Hillary and I once threw a birthday party for Prince William, but that was just like a joke mostly. We grew up during peak wills is a teen heart throb. Yes, it was a time to be alive. So that is something I did. But in general, to quote the great Emma Darcy, I'm not a monarchist. Same.

But yeah, the crown, I mean, how can it not be interesting to watch such messy, powerful people and the messiness specifically of those people as they bump up against the rigidity and quote-unquote, nobility and stature of the power of the British monarchy has had over, you know, that last century that, you know, this show has been covering. So, yeah, I find the crown fascinating. And I think that that time jump that you talked about, you know, the crown was often cited. When we were covering House of the Dragon over in Ringervorverse, the crown was often cited as an example of how do you do a time jump and a full recast and still feel connected to the characters. And so I think, you know, you and I have a little bit more fondness for season three than I think generally there was for season three.

But season three is the first jump from Claire Foy as Elizabeth and Matt Smith as Philip to we get Olivia Coleman and our guy, like King of Our Hearts, Tobias Menzies as Philip. So this idea of reorienting yourself, I think there's. was just like a little bit of people trying to figure out, does it still feel like the same show to me? And then season four comes along and that's a Diana season. And all of a sudden there's like a lot of star wattage and even broader interest, I would say, that comes roaring back with Diana. And then you've got Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and that brings with itself its own sort of curiosity. So I feel like one, one and two people really liked. Three was like a little bit of a dip.

Again, though, Mallory and I are outliers to be like a lot more of three than I think generally people do. And then four people are like, I mean, swept up at the Emmys as a huge huge deal. And then this is of course another Diana season as we're barreling forward in the

crown timeline. Anything else you want to say in defense of season three, Mallory or anything else? Two things. One just, you know, you mentioned you're not a monarchist and I felt compelled to say me neither. And I actually think that that's that's just worth noting. And I think like it just even anecdotally talking to colleagues, talking to friends, family

members over the last few years watching the first four seasons. That's one of the things that's so interesting to me about consumption, obviously statesides, specifically. I'm sure it's very different in the UK. But I think any number of people in our lives that we would talk to about the crown would feel compelled to say the same. I'm not a monarchist. I find this to be an outmooted and bizarre system.

And I am confounded by X, Y, and Z on a near daily basis when I consume the news. But that dissonance of finding something like intellectually, objectively, objectively strange in modern life is actually part of what makes watching this so riveting. And I think that even though Peter Morgan has spoken many times over the years about how the crown is a love letter to Queen Elizabeth and not intended to be mean-spirited toward the monarchy. I do think the show takes an interest consistently in interrogating the evolving role of the monarchy in society. And that's one of the essential ingredients to making it work. If it didn't do that,

it would just be, it wouldn't work at all. I mean, this is clearly a lifelong fascination for Peter Morgan who has written plays about Queen Elizabeth, who made the Queen, the Queen, the Helen Mirren film about Queen Elizabeth. Like, this is something that he is fascinated by both Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth specifically as she bumps up against this rotating door of prime ministers. Like that's a huge, that's the fascination for him theatrically often. And so I think this idea of a consistent through line that is the monarchy as it traverses the fluctuations in a government, a governmental system that, you know, flips parties every few years. And I think that it's especially interesting. We want to talk about sort of the context of this season.

of the crown because, of course, Queen Elizabeth recently died. She died while they were filming the final season, which is yet to be released. That will be released next year, probably. And so then it changes from, the crown then fundamentally changes from this study of this, like, bizarrely eternal figure that is Queen Elizabeth, who, I mean, it is astonishing that she has been, I don't know, Milage may vary on her level of power, but this figurehead of the British monarchy of the system, a fixture, you know, from the 50s where we meet her in the crowd, you know, to now, I mean, it is, it is wild to consider that it's the same person consistently

in this role for so long. And so to now, now the show is something different and it's not just like, isn't it wild this sort of like almost vampiric presence that like traverses the decades, versus like this thing that happened and was and is over now. Did you feel that difference at all yourself watching this season of the Crown? Season five? Even though the role that Elizabeth specifically and the royal family more broadly plays in British society changes episode to episode, not beyond even just season to season, I think that's been there even from the very beginning, the relationship between Elizabeth and Churchill in the earliest episodes,

this tension between the symbolism and idealized nature of what the royal family is supposed to represent inside of this constitutional monarchy, and then the increasingly complex, often very fraught realities of modern life. And so the tension, I think it's been there from the beginning, but always builds episode after episode, season after season. and it's something that the characters, of course it's something we're thinking about as viewers, but the characters have to increasingly wrestle with themselves.

I think the thing in this most recent season that feels really different is how self-aware it all is because it's taking place in a more heightened media-savvy time where everything in real time was interrogated publicly. Though again, I think even that, and that's something that, you know, I know you're interested in chatting about as like the role of the media and the show across the seasons.

I think even that has been present there from the very beginning. So that's one of the things that I really liked about doing the rewatch is like you track these seeds. It's a luxury you have making the show in the late 2010s and into the 2020s. You know where you're ending or at least what you're working toward and could focus in early on some of those seeds that tell us what is going to crumble, where the crack. the peeling wallpaper and Buckingham Palace that we always hear about are going to turn into fissures that might threaten the institution at large. The only other thing that I wanted to say in a big picture sense here is that you absolutely shocked me when you told me season three was not broadly loved. I have to be honest, I was not aware of that. And consider season

three to be certainly my favorite season. And I would say the best season. I think it has a handful of the best episodes, certainly the best stretch. And, uh, I'm blown away. Though I think your point about adjusting to the new cast is certainly something that is always true. People struggle with change.

I think people miss Claire Foy. Olivia Coleman, a legend and obviously wonderful in the role, but I think people latch on to Claire Foy, miss Clare Foy. It isn't interesting, like, and I think we're in talk about

Josh O'Connor as Charles. I think Josh O'Connor is one of the best performances in the show, full stop. Full stop. But Charles, before Diana is such a

thing that people aren't aware of, that's a silly sentence. But anyway, like, Charles before Diana is not as interesting to people as Charles was in the context of Diana, do you know? I think that's why I liked it so much. It was like, oh, what an interesting thing

to see. And I mean, to your point, we're in a different era. So the Crown season 5, which we have watched, but we're not going to, like, spoil as much as you can't spoil history, right?

We're going to take it chunk by chunk, as I said. but like the Crown season five, which we have watched, spans 1991 to 1997, right? So that's a time frame we're in. That is a time frame as, you know, as Mallory already mentioned, we grew up in like Peacot Wills. Like this is the, this is it. We're bordering on that era, right?

So this is an era that we are personally familiar with in terms of what's going on with Charles and Diana. It's very public, messy divorce. And so like certainly not everyone watching the Crown was like alive and tuned in during during that time, but a lot more people are than we're allowed and tuned in when Churchill was prime minister, you know? And so we're watching a different show, a period piece set in the 50s versus a period piece set in a time that we were actively engaging in a very public, messy celebrity story. So it's just by its nature a different engagement with the story. And, you know,

I don't want to dwell too much on controversy because a lot has been. already made of it, maybe too much. But, like, figures like Dame Judy Dunch has come out sort of vehemently against the Crown season five existing. You know, she says, she categorizes wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series, basically that this will do damage to an institution, the monarchy, which is in a state of fragile flux as King Charles starts his reign. again, Mallory and I aren't monarchists, so we're not all that precious about, you know, how the royal family feels about this.

And then also, you know, John Major, who is the prime minister of this era, played by Johnny Lee Miller in season five, John Major has come out and said, like, you know, wild fabrications, etc., of things that have happened. So, you know, I think there's been a little bit more vocal celebrity pushback on this season of the crown than there have been in seasons past. Is there anything you want to say about that? I mean, we should say the Crown's not a documentary, which is, you know. I have like a couple competing thoughts on this, I guess. There's like the part of my brain when I hear this stuff that just says, like, do people think the Crown is a documentary? Like, who thinks the Crown is a documentary? I think this is, I would assume that most people coming to the Crown understand that this is a

not only fictionalized version of history. but inherently, thusly, a sensationalized version of history and that the crown has always been highly soapy

and interested in, yes, the religious and spiritual, divine, as they like to say, on the ground, aspects of the royal family's role in society and history,

but has spent a good deal of its time on relationships, affairs, drama, infighting, many conversations that take place definitionally behind closed doors

in a way that no one but the participants could understand what happened during. And like they've always been presented to us. So I think that that has always been inherent to the crown. We are seeing things that the people making the crown could not know took place. And I don't think that the crown

has set out to give us a note for note, perfect journalistic version of history. And in fact, I think Peter Morgan has gone out of his way to say, I'm going to like stop making this before I get to the point where that would be anybody's expectation that I would be doing his 20-year rule, right? He doesn't want to cover anything, you know, more recent than 20 years ago.

Right. Give you that, like, distance where you can get, in essence, an impression. And then your impression becomes a vibe and your vibe becomes a show. Now, all that said, I'm not surprised at all that there's been this heightened pushback against the new season for a lot of the reasons we've already talked about. This is an intense time in the UK. On the heels of Queen Elizabeth's death, we are nearing King Charles's coronation. It's happening. Charles is king.

Political turmoil and strife every day. But also, what you just said a few minutes ago about the 90s is a time period. How much of this is something that people, who are being depicted in it now are around to talk about or people who are close to the family, right? So like, when it's Churchill and

Snowden and Eden and all these people, like, it doesn't mean it's impossible that you're going to get conflicting accounts. I think that there have always, there's always been a rich online industry of historical differences in episode X of the crown breakdowns, right? That's always been a part of covering the crown.

And I think that's one of the things that's interesting about it. watching it and you see something and then you want to learn more about it, you want to learn what really happened. But yeah, more of the people who season five covers or in some way influences or touches are not only alive, but active online, talking into a microphone or to someone who has a microphone. And so I don't think it's surprising at all that there's a much more active pushback. I don't know. Do you think that, do you think that a lot of people watching the crown believe it to be like a note for note historical document.

I think there are plenty of people who watch any period piece and don't think about the way in which biopics or period pieces are shaped to create thrilling drama, you know what I mean, versus being a faithful note by note avatation. I think the true story of articles that show up on, you know, websites like theringer.com or my old, you know, hon davidavadicfair.com. Like that's part of the, as you say, part of the thrill. of watching. I love, I love reading all of those out of the crown especially. Yeah, so fun. Like so juicy. And genuinely interesting. And usually the real story is even

wilder and the people are worse and stuff like that. So it's not like Peter Morgan is like sensationalizing to the point of picking the worst version of a story that he could find. He's like, he's not mushroom from fire and blood, right? He is picking like something in the middle, the middle lane. And as you said earlier, this show constantly fluctuates. between being highly critical of the monarchy and highly questioning, do we really need this thing at all? In a modern society, what the hell is this thing? And then also occasionally being like, what a wonder, what a marvel, what an interesting thing this thing is. And in less deft hands, that would just feel wildly inconsistent. But in Peter Borgon's hand, who again has made

this his life study, I think it is just a genuinely honest, artistic, intellectual deconstruction of how do I feel about this thing, this wild thing that is the British monarchy. So yes, though I will say, I don't know if it was in direct response to the open letter that Judy Tendstrom, but there was a disclaimer that was add to the season five trailer saying that this is a fictionalized dramatization of real-life events. So just in case people thought they were watching a documentary. In case people thought that Dominic West was actually Prince.

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Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste would be a money-making machine? Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Deepop, where taste recognizes taste. All right, well, we're just going to do, again, this is like a little short preview episode, And we're going to, you know, dive into each of the episodes as they roll out. But we just wanted to do like a whirlwind tour through our main characters. So our afternoon tea, Joe, before our banquet.

Elevencies. Second breakfast. We wanted to just do a quick tour through the characters just to like, you know, talk about where we left off with them really quickly just so in case you didn't pull a Mallory Rubin, you know where we are. So let's start with the queen herself, Elizabeth, who will be played, who has been played, by Claire Foy, Olivia Coleman, and now we played by Amelda Staunton. Incredible, incredible actress, Mallory, do you want to talk about Harry Potter for a second?

It's, it is difficult not to anticipate hearing some horrific umbrage attack come out of Amelda Stanton's mouth. And in some of these moments where Queen Elizabeth is not only very sure, sweet but quiet, docile, reflective. I'm like, okay, so you're not about to make somebody carve, I will not tell

lies into their own hand, with a torture quill. I will say, there is a, there is a, so Meldice, I mean, you know, as Melton I both know, Meldaston has done much more than Harry Potter, some great Shakespeare, all sorts of stuff, a star of the stage, etc. But there is a moment in season 5 where she puts on this lavender ensemble that, like, if it were pink, is just like a pure Dolores-Urige, get up, 100%.

I was just thinking it's interesting. Meldistan herself in an interview with Vanity Fairhead was talking about how this is Elizabeth's sort of entering her grandmother era. And so I think if you break it down between Claire Foy, Olivia Coleman and Meldistan, you've got sort of this like main mother-crone evolution, not that, you know, you know, Elizabeth is a crown on this, but just sort of archetypally. Like, you've got this portrait of a woman at three separate phases in her life as like, you know, obviously monarch is her job throughout, but then also as a new wife, as a mother, as a grandmother, what does this mean for this woman? And how does that sort of bump up against her job? And I would say as a wife and a sister and a daughter, wife's sister daughter is sort of like

the first two-season sort of dynamics. Dog enthusiast? Dog enthusiast eternally. but loves a horse. That's right. Shout out Porchy. Love Porchie. Anything else you want to say about Elizabeth

as we head into this season? We're going to talk about a little bit more when we check in with Charles and Diana, but anything else? Claire Foy and Olivia Coleman as Elizabeth, two of the great performances in television history. So it's a proud tradition

of really like awing us with what we're seeing inside of each of these episodes. And I'm excited for Amel d'Aston to continue our Elizabethan journey. I, you know, I think that Elizabeth is like of a piece in some ways with other central figures and shows, which is a very weird thing to say about, again, a real person. Just to be clear, whatever I'm talking about, any of these people in the crown, I'm talking about the characters in the crown, not the real people. Often the sidekicks, right? The people around the protagonist are more gripping, more compelling. They make us laugh. They make us weep. And I think that that is also true inside of the crown where we are, speaking for myself,

but I think this is probably like a shared experience, just going to be more gripped by our time with Philip or Margaret, right? That's the nature of it. And that is something that Elizabeth is always grappling with herself. Her role as the figure who needs to remain silent. this is something that she's talking about all the time and then interrogating what that means given her stature in society. So I think that the show has always done a really remarkable job

of, again, balancing this reverence and adoration for the queen and the crown with these moments of not only like supreme vulnerability and humanity, but failure, coming up short, wrestling with what that means and how to fix it

whether she can. And it's a very interior performance. And I think the nature of the character of Elizabeth, I would say of all the characters that have changed hands, especially changed hands three times, the characterization of Elizabeth is the one that is the most consistent across the three actresses. We're going to get to like some that I think are a little bit more wildly varied.

And I think that's the point of Elizabeth is that she's constant and unchanging. And in some of the other, like, let's go to Philip, right? So Philip, Matt Smith, Tobias Menzies, now Jonathan Price, three Game of Thrones actors, love to see it. But I would say that Philip, when you look at Matt Smith's Philip versus Jonathan Price's Philip, which we will talk about, you know, in future episodes as we get into the specifics, those are just, you could not pick two different men, honestly. And again, I think that speaks to constantly something that the Crown is interested in is like, you know, what happens to a very inventive or vivacious or intelligent person as they are incorporated into something that they call the system in season five of the Crown? What happens grist for the mill? And sometimes it's like it breaks the person, you know, and we'll talk about Diana, obviously. Margaret is also sort of in that bucket.

what happens. And then Philip, you know, if you think about Matt Smith's Philip, who was so frustrated and resistant to the role that he was, you know, never supposed to, it was never supposed to be really Elizabeth, and it was never supposed to be Philip, really, you know, certainly not as young as it was for them. And so compare that to Tobias Menzies characterization as a father and then Jonathan Price entering the like-daughtering Philip Syllipsism era of this, of the, of the king consort. What do you want to say about Philip here? Easily my favorite character and it's not like particularly close.

Wild! What an interesting take. Tell me why. I think a lot of it is the performers. As you know, Joe, Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies are two of my all-time faves. I also really love Jonathan Price. So this has been, though I agree that the, the, the, change in evolution of Philip over the years.

Like, if you remove the Tobias Menzies era link in the middle, then one in three don't make sense together. But when you look at them as a progression, I think it's like one of the really interesting evolutions to track over the show. And Philip, you know, provides, gets to like, has a lot of the witty rejoinders and just gets to like drop a lot of zingers and provide a lot of the pizzazz in the show and poke fun and interrogate the institution from inside of it. And, you know, the role of outsiders in the story is like such a throughline and central preoccupation. And Philip is in, he's not unique to this.

I think this is a type of, this is an archetype that the show is really fascinated by, has like a hybrid role as like a prototypical outsider and a prototypical insider, somebody who constantly talks about how he's an outsider and has never really been welcomed, but is a a royal prince no matter where in his timeline you start, right? And I love, I love Phillips' journey and evolution inside of the show in isolation, but I think it's particularly compelling inside of their marriage because, like, everything we just said about Elizabeth, that constancy, the constancy that she herself would say is like a central pursuit and a victory to be able to provide.

She is evolving constantly as well, but like quietly and in that, in that introspective internal way, as you noted. And Philip is looking for ways to do that loudly and impactfully. And the moments where he matures almost like in spite of his desire to constantly rebel. and the way that they sort of move toward, even though it's never easy, stability and support and become one of the real buttresses, not only of the show,

but of this institution, when early on there was so much disruption and turmoil, I think it's one of the things that I've just really enjoyed watching over the seasons. And again, just like the performances for Elizabeth and Philip are just so great season over season. And, you know, Matt Smith and Devise Mendsz, I just have loved watching them as Philip over the years.

Just great. Philip ends the last season with this conversation, thereabouts with this conversation with Diana, where he's sort of talking to her throughout. You mentioned outsiders. Like there's this affinity between Philip and Diana. And he's talking to her about, you know, she's trying to figure out how she can go forward, given how horrible her marriage is, and given how horrible her marriage is, And given that Elizabeth has said, no, there will not be, like, we're not going to do a divorce between Charles and Diana.

And Phillips says, you know, to her, she, you know, Diana wonders, like, if she had an affair of her own, found love in her own way outside the marriage. And he says, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Let's just say, I can't see it ending well for you. Omnish shit from Prince Philip there at the end of season four, which brings us to Charles and Diana, right? Big, big, important roles in all of this. Emma Corne and Josh O'Connor just like really crushed Charles and Diana in season four. And we've got Elizabeth Debicki and your favorite philanderer, Dominic West. Mallory's a real affairhead, if you didn't know that about her.

McNulty, sure, the wire, but the affair is really what matters to Mallory Rubin here. So Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki are taking on Charles and Diana. I have a lot to say about Dominic West as Charlesville, but I'm going to save it for when we're actually talking about the episode. But the end of season four ends with this like knock down, blowout argument between Charles and Diana that is so powerful. It has become improbably viral TikTok audio. So Steve, will you play us the TikTok audio version of this fight between Charles and Diana? Camilla is who I want. That is where my loyalties lie.

That is who my priority is. Not the mother of your children. Don't bring the boys into this. All right. Not the woman you are. marriage. I refuse to be blamed any longer for this grotesqueous alliance. Amazing. Amazing. These two performances absolutely crush it. So there's a lot for Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki to live up to. The season four just ended with them like having the worst Christmas ever

at Balmoral as they were just realizing how stuck they are inside of this marriage that is impossible for them. What do you want to say about Charles and Diana as we head into the 90s? So despite everything I just said about how Philip is my favorite character on the show, and in particular, I think the thing I love watching with Philip is like that pursuit of purpose inside of his restlessness. Yeah. I think one of the great achievements of the crown overall in its entire run is the Josh O'Connor Charles of seasons three and four. It is a astounding, like, jaw-dropping performance. and I'll save some of my thoughts on the whales episode from season three for when we get to our like quick wrap up rewards because spoiler that's coming up again. But the ability to not only elicit empathy from us for Charles, but like I think genuine warmth in those early years and to feel a sense of like pity for basically a person who has everything.

but then shows us how he thinks and feels that he has nothing is like a pretty singular achievement inside of the show. And then you take that coming out of season three and give us the thing that we were expecting to see the whole time, which is this turmoil and strife inside of this relationship. And it hits even harder because we had allowed ourselves to be brought into Charles's personal pursuit of individuality and a sense of self and happiness. And of course, it's not just Charles,

right? When Charles is saying, I want to be with Camilla, why won't you let me? Well, we've already gone through everything with Margaret and Peter Townsend and learned about the abdication and seen everything inside of this family and all the times that people haven't been allowed to be with the person they want and what that's led to. So an episode like the Australia tour in season Season 4, Season 4 episode 6, is I think a perfect encapsulation of how really, like, sublime the performances from Emma Corrin and Joshua Connor are and how essential season is as a link heading into this new season and what, you know, the story beats, as you noted, that people are more familiar with the divorce, etc. inside of that episode, we see like the quiet moment on the blanket, the farm with William, and they finally just have a conversation with each other and say like, I just need like some validation.

I just need you to tell me I'm great to each other. And like that there's a possibility of love and real happiness, the dancing. And then you watch how quickly that melts away again. And it's just like heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. In part because we know where it's all heading. In the crown, no one is a, no one is a monster, right? Everyone is a fully formed human.

And I think Josh O'Connor, that vulnerability, that like, nirminess, I don't know, like how to, like, and it's almost like in the posture. Because Josh O'Connor is like a very handsome, like, conventionally handsome, charismatic person. And so just the way that he holds himself. And I'm according to, like, we've seen so many actresses try to do capture Diana. And there's impression because Diana with her own posture, with her own, the way she speaks, the way she looks up from under her eyelashes all the time, like all of that sort of stuff,

is I think easy enough to imitate, but how do you take that those, like those beats and then underneath that layer in a fully formed human being? And I think that Emma Corrin crushes it, Elizabeth DeBickey, an incredible part of season five. So we will talk about all of that. You mentioned Margaret, of course, in terms of our outsiders, like Margaret and the heartbreak. You mentioned also like the seas that are planted early on and how we know they're going to pay off. All of that stuff with Margaret and Peter Townsend in the early season in season one, we know watching this we're like, oh, no. Like all of this is laying track for what happens with Charles and Diana, as you mentioned, the abdication as well of Edward, you know, in pursuit of Wallace.

And so the evolution of Margaret as played by Vanessa Kirby and then Helen Bottom Carter and now Leslie Manville, the great Leslie Manville, who people might know from the fan of the thread or harlots, incredible actress, who's playing Margaret is always like very, very exciting. And we last left her, you know, a lot of booze, private island, incredible caftans, Heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak. That's the Margaret story. The most interesting aspect of Margaret in season four for me leading into this season is the way in which watching Diana come and encounter these other outsiders like Philip, like Margaret, and who has quarter for her, who has support for her and who doesn't. And the way in which Margaret does not have as much support for Diana as I would expect her to, given her own experience in. the family. Underlines for me this idea, Margaret is so focused on feeling like she is central

to this royal family, like feeling like she has that purpose. And it's almost like if I keep someone else out, that will make me feel more in rather than offering my hand to someone who feels left out. But I'm always watching who is helping Diana and who isn't. And I always have like judgmental feelings around that. What do you, what do you think about Margaret? Another one of my favorites. Again, in part, because just the performances are so incredible. I mean, Kirby and icon, obviously, Eleanor Bottom Carter, like, just incredible. I was overjoyed to see the Leslie Manfeld casting news.

The versions of Margaret that we've gotten across the batches, similarly to, like, fill up as compared to Elizabeth, it's felt like, okay, we've moved into a new phase, as opposed to this like really, really, really steady progression, but also it's felt like that's been the point. I, you know, we always love Joe over on Ringervor's chatting about second sons inside of a game of throne story. The spare, as it's called in the Royal, the British Monarchy parlance. Yeah.

And so the second daughter energy that has defined Margaret's life, you know, we see the flashback to the pitch that they make as kids that Margaret's, should be queen instead in the way that the way that your guide Tommy rebukes her like in a way that will not only be a traumatic childhood moment and memory, but becomes this defining reality of her life. Margaret is this remarkable, beautiful, carefree, modern spirit inside of this increasingly antiquated system. And yet, instead of, whether it's Elizabeth or anybody else saying, hey, help us. And this is something that Margaret and Philip really have in common and part of why they've latched on to each other over the years. Absolutely. It's like, please don't mess this up for us,

right? Like the Margaretology episode of season three where Margaret and Tony are in America is like a great example of that, this fear that Elizabeth has, Margaret's just going to mess everything up, and Margaret secures the bailout, and then wants more responsibility always. And I think, like, at the end of season four, in particular, after the lung surgery, the discovery of these, like, horrific family secrets, the fear of mental illness, learning that Edward is going to take her spot. as one of the senior most royals because there are only so many spots

and to go from like, and we watch Elizabeth and Margaret become closer and closer over the years after the duty and reality of Elizabeth's rule has consistently force them apart where she has to choose between what she would want to do as her sister and what she feels honor bound

and duty bound to do as queen, these moments of like care and tenderness that then just immediately always consistently just evaporate because they have to because it's what duty requires necessitates in the moment. Heartbreaking.

And it's such sister stuff, honestly. It's one of my favorite depictions of sisters on screen. Speaking of spares, second children, we just want to briefly, Anne. Anne is never the flashiest character in general. That's sort of the point of Anne. Anne is very much Elizabeth's like sort of spiritual successor. But we just want to personally ourselves shout out Aaron Doherty as Anne in three and four. And then Claudia Harrison is taking over in the next two seasons.

We love Anne. We're big Ann fans over here. So, so, so great. What do you want to say about Ann? Anne cracks me up and makes me laugh all the time. So witty, so sharp, completely unafraid to critique her family members and show them the reality of their own hypocrisy or immaturity. The Aaron Dardy performance is incredible. I mean, again, like they, so many of the performances in the first four seasons are remarkable. but she's like a stealth MVP of those seasons because she comes in with like, it's just like heater after heater in those scenes that really make them pop. And I just, I just love the performance. It's wonderful.

Brief, check in on Camilla. Camilla will have much more to do, I think, in the ensue, you know, in five and six. Olivia Williams is taking over for Emerald Fennell. And astonishing wig performances on both women, honestly. But at the end for, you know, Camilla basically asked Charles to stop, like, stop trying to break up the marriage and go with her because she feels like Diana is so beloved in the public eye. Camilla is just going to be increasingly vilified the more that she's the other woman in this sort of fairy tale romance. And Charles says to her, you know, if people knew of our love, they would understand that this is a fairy tale. And she says to be the protagonist of a fairy tale, you must first be wronged.

I just loved, I loved that treatment of, of Camilla. And, you know, I'm eager to sort of explore this third part of this triangle. What we thought of as people who lived through tabloid journalism in the 90s, what we thought of Camilla at the time, and maybe what we think about her now and how all that played out. Anything you want to say about Camilla? Very difficult given the perception as just people in the world that everyone's going to bring to the show to like engender even an ounce of empathy for somebody. And they really do it.

I mean, I think in part because we see the beginning, the origin of the Charles Camilla relationship, like, which predates Diana, see the way that the family didn't want them to be together and, in fact, engineered it so that they would not be. And then, of course, that is, like, introduced, but never comes at the expense of the horror and the disgust that we feel every time we see Charles and Camilla on the phone together

or like the lunch that Camilla and Diana have where it's like, oh boy, like, you can't wait to make Diana feel like shit for all the things that she doesn't know about Charles. So that like balancing act is just so difficult to achieve. Fred and Gladys, the Fred and Gladys reveal really at all time. Knife to the gut. That was just a brutal. So yeah, I'm excited to chat about Camilla in season five. Tricy role.

The fairy tale thing hits really hard in season four because, again, you're not inclined to feel sympathy toward Camilla and Charles. And in many ways, you shouldn't. But that idea of, like, how will I always be measured against a person who is so widely loved? It was Diana. Yeah. I don't know. That would weigh on people.

I think the crown does a really good job of making you feel forever. everyone in that situation. What a tragedy it is that, like, you know, again, the system has put them all in this spot. Because one thing is, like, Charles is just, like, philandering with, like, random women for, like, whatever. But it's like, he fell in low with someone and consistently in love with her for decades and decades and decades.

Last and not least, the prime ministers, I just want to say, you know, we had our Thatcher era. Margaret Thatcher was prime minister from 79 to 1990. And the crown in a certain point of view could be sort of, what the monarchy looks like from the prime minister's point of view as we go move through these eras you know like the churchill era the thatcher era there you know the eden and like there's a little bit more turmoil in between those two sort of buttresses as you said and then the the major era 1990 and 1997 like john major is prime minister throughout that whole time so johnnie lee

miller in another extraordinary wig uh is going to show up you know this is the first prime minister that I remember being aware of is John Major. So, you know, big glasses, statured, you know, not quite as thatchy as Margaret Thatcher, but here we are. Anything else you want to say about the PMs of Johnny Lee Miller time here? No, I always like when we get to shift to cabinet or, you know, to a scene in cabinet, to a scene at Downing Street and to get the perspective from inside of the government because I think it tends to encapsulate a lot of that dissonance that we're talking about in a more macro scale, where there's often so much pushback and shock

and like a resistance to what the monarchy represents or how the monarchy is in some way inhibiting some sort of progress, whether it's in terms of perception, public spending during a recession, whatever the case might be. But then also this through line of reverence, and to see inside, like, each relationship that Elizabeth forces with the prime minister is so interesting because like some of them start off more smoothly. Often they start off from a place of trepidation. Like I got comfortable with the last

person and now you're new. What will you think of me? And to watch them work their way forward into some shared understanding is like always a each of those journeys is unique. But I think they have like a lot. There's a pattern that tends to unfold there that I think again like taps into that larger or constancy that Elizabeth is striving for. So that's always been one of the interesting things to me about the show. The theater that I alluded to from Peter Morgan, the play is called The Audience 2013, and it is just a series of scenes between Queen Elizabeth

and her various prime ministers over the heiress and Helen Marin, who played Queen Elizabeth in the Queen, played Queen Elizabeth in this play. But it's just like, that's something that Peter Morgan has done previously is like snapshot of a monarchy through the lens of these weekly meetings between. And so when we get those meetings within the queen, It's always an interesting time for me and to go from, like, Churchill who is, like, instructing this young woman on how to be monarch through to, like, Elizabeth bumping up against a female prime minister for the first time and what that feels like. And now into John Majors, who, like, for Queen Elizabeth to go from this, like, young woman who people are underestimating to a woman in her 60s who now people are, you know, questioning, are you at a time.

touch. Are you too young for this job? Are you too old for this job? Is, you know, an interesting journey for us to be on. I have a lot to say about the media, but we're going to talk about that, I think, a little bit more inside the episodes, but the media is, as you mentioned, a particular fascination for me in season five. So let's just do, let's just wrap up with our seasons one through awards that we're going to run through really quickly. And we're going to do this in all of our blocks of the crown. But in this, in this case, we've a lot to choose from in seasons one through four. So it's a little harder, I think. Very hard. Let's, let's start, let's start superficially. Fitwatch. What is the like outfit or whatever that you want to call out from seasons one through

four of the crown? For, I will say just generally, I put Margaret in Best Fit, uh, the Hall of Fame territory here. Uh, whether Margaret is, uh, dressed the nines, as chic as she can be, or in a more casual look. Uh, It's going for the photo shoot with Tony. Let's show a little shoulder. Everything with Margaret and fashion and how you present yourself to the world. Sensational.

I'll say for worst fit, but it's deliberately the worst fit. And so it's also in the running for like best because it's so strategic and intentional is when Thatcher failed the Balmoral test and didn't bring outside shoes and wore a blue suit out for the stock. and were sent and was shamed and sent back to change

and then never went out again. Real classic mean girl stuff from Margaret in that episode. For FitWatch, I decided to go with like heavily symbolic FitWatch because we're going to talk about heavy symbolism. The metaphors have metaphors in season five of the crown. I'm going to just give it to the paper crown that King George's wears in season one, episode one of the crowd. Jared Harris as King George.

I crying, singing the carols, heartbreak. Every time he is crying wearing that crown, I cry. Again, I am not a monarchist. But Jared Harris is really effective to me. And so, like, the idea of him in a paper crown and the idea of a paper crown in general, and the crown is very, very interesting to me. Whigwatch, I'm just going to step up to the plate here and say there's nothing that's going to, there's nothing going to touch the thatcher thatched for me.

the incredible wig on Jillian Anderson. I don't know how we can top it. There's a whole sequence where there's like choral music playing while Elizabeth gets her hair, hair sprayed. That is like sort of one of the peak crown moments. But it's the Thatcher wig for me. How about you? I mean, it has to be.

Yeah, Thatcher wig. Without question. All right. Best line of season one through four of the crown. I mean, this was even having just really. watched this, I would say a near impossible exercise. And so I decided to just go with, with humor. And I went with Anne after the family summons Anne for a rundown on Charles and Camilla in season four and requests that she present a calm, candid, frank, measured account. Nand says,

as opposed to what, the hysterical and neurotic way I normally behave. I just think that encapsulates so much about this absurd family dynamic. So that's what this. Okay, my line here is a little bit of a smuggle because I didn't pick him for MVP, but also like he's kind of the MVP of my heart. And it's Alex Jennings as Prince Edward, the Abdicator. And this is a line from season one episode three where he says, And what a bunch of ice-vane monsters my family are. How cold and thin-lipped.

How dumpy and plain. How joyless and loveless. I love what a terrible Nazi- sympathizing bitch Edward is. I love Alex Jennings. Alex Jennings plays Charles in The Queen. I'm just like a big Alex Jennings fan. I love any time he shows up. And spoiler, I suppose, we get Alex Jennings in season five,

and I'm so excited to see him again. So, yeah, that's my best line smuggle. Acid dipped pen that the Duke of Windsor uses to write his letters to Wallace and the crown. That's astounding. Great stuff. Best episode. I'm counting on you for this one to. did you come through for me on Best Episode, Maliborbin?

This was not hard for me at all. This is the Wales episode. This is Season 3, Episode 6. I think that in general, this middle stretch of season 3 is my favorite. We go from our Charles Dance, our guy, heavy episode, the coup, which is the fifth episode, into the Wales episode, and then into Moon Dust, the Philip Moon Mission episode. I think all three of those episodes are in. incredible in the Wales episode in Moonduster, like two of my five favorite episodes overall

in the entire run of the crown. I think that the moment in, first of all, everything in the Whales episode I love, there's this tenderness inside of it, but also this real interrogation of the harm of the imperialistic pursuit. And it's also emblematic, I think, of how sometimes the crown could be very on the nose, right? So you have a young charles. I was literally reciting Richard the second. He's reciting the Hollow Crown. And I think in a less deftly written and certainly less deftly performed episode,

we'd be like, okay, we get it. But I was like in tears, watching it, in tears. And I think in particular, the scene where his tutor, Teddy, brings Charles home for dinner and this family that is inclined to hate Charles and everything he represents. They're in bed at night after and talking about the look on his face

when he watched them take their kid to bed and just like, how did, well, how did he look? Shattered. Like, I just think that's one of the best, that line tells you so much about the character and this history that we then build upon

and I just think it's like sublime. So that's my pick. How about you? I'm really dazzled how you got through all of that without trying to pronounce the Welsh that is the title of that episode. So we'll just call it Charles and Wales episode. I'm so grateful to you for picking that because that probably would have been my pick.

I just knew that you were going to pick it. And again, that episode speaks to Peter Morgan's skill as a playwright. It's a very, like, you could just see a whole play, just Charles and his Welsh tutor sort of play. That's kind of what we're watching that episode. I'm going to give it to, again, this feels kind of theatrical. I'm going to give it to season one, I think season one episode nine Assassins, which is when Churchill gets his portrait painted by our guy's. Stephen Delane Stannis breathing himself. That's also one of my absolute favorites.

So Churchill's portrait, sure, and then you already mentioned Porchie, which is, like, Queen Elizabeth's dear friend. It's the height of, we talk about the stability of Elizabeth. I think this is the, you know, this is the shakiest her marriage with Philip is. She's, like, tempted in her own, like, horse girl kind of way by Porchie, right? And I love that. That like it's necessary. I mean, it's real world stuff that Elizabeth had this like very, very close relationship with this guy Porchie and who is so much more her match in every conceivable way than Philip is. And like what a happy little life maybe she might have had being married to someone like Porchie.

And I just think that, I mean, saying Porchie five times in a row sounds ridiculous. But I just think that those two stories, juxtaping. pose where we get this portraiture digging into the heart of someone like Churchill, and then the troubled heart of Elizabeth side-by-side an episode is, I think, a sublime example of what the crown can do. I love that one so much. The goldfish, the pond, the way that grief shapes your life. And with the portrait in particular, it's very like metatextual, this idea of, like, well,

what are you presenting to the world and what do you want to present to the world? And is that portrait supposed to show you reality? or the ideal? Like, it's a, it's, it's very much interrogating the mission statement of the show. That's a great pick. I love that one. Series MVP,

Oliver Rubin. An actor or a character, I guess you could pick, but probably an actor. For the performers, I'll say every Elizabeth. Clarifoy, Olivia Coleman, and now into Amelda Staunton for character I'm going with Philip.

This is actually surprised me. I didn't know you were such a Philip head. We're going to have to talk about this a little bit later when we cover the actual episode of season five. I'll say, it'll be coming up probably less during season five, then what happened seasons one through four, just for what it's worth.

I'm not, like, Moondust is far away not my favorite episode, so I'm very, I'm very curious about our past diverging on, on Philip.

I'm going to give it to Claire Foy because I feel like if we don't have Claire Foy doing what she does in season one through two, we don't have a show. Olivia Coleman is obviously incredible. Melda Stanton is obviously incredible,

but I think giving us someone like Elizabeth, and the fact that you can see like the old woman older woman that Elizabeth becomes in this very young woman that Claire Foy is her sort of like fussy stuffiness that is there from the start, but also sort of that you like youthful like her love for Philip and you know her naivete that that you know the education that she gets about that speaking of education, her frustration around like how she's not been educated.

I think all of that is is so interesting. I just think Clairvoy astounding as Elizabeth in one too. So, all right. Well, we have picked Elizabeth and Philip the core characters of the crown as our MVP, so we're not, you know, we'd love to Aaron Doty and Alex Jennings and all those other people, Josh O'Connor. We'll be back on Wednesday for episodes 1 through 3 of the Crown. And then more and more and more.

And anything you want to say to the Corgis before we go, no? I was tempted to pick the Corgi's as my MVP's. And if they got the screen time that they frankly deserve. I would have been able to. All right. Well, thank you to Steve Allman for producing this episode, and we'll see you later. Bye.