The queen has returned to leave. The Crown bids farewell, and also bids farewell to its queen, Elizabeth II. It's been seven years since its premiere and, now, yes, the goodbye is what was expected, in a big way. Since November 4, 2016, a lot has changed in this series, in fiction in general and also, of course, in its portrayal, in the subject of its study and its success: the British royal family. After five and a half seasons, as the sixth has been divided into two parts, the last six chapters of British fiction (on Netflix since last Thursday) return to recover everything that has given it brilliance over the years: silences, reflection, conversations with double and triple intentions, the emotion, the look forward with an eye back, the quarrels and its eternal protagonist with all its folds: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England.
If the first four chapters were almost an obligatory toll to resolve the well-known and sad fate of Diana of Wales, and had been traced with a brush brush somewhat thicker than the usual finesse of Peter Morgan and company, this time the creator has recovered the elegance that characterizes him to pose the viewer with the following challenge: What will happen to the Queen? When the series began, Elizabeth II had just turned 90 years old and six decades on the throne, and she was still surprisingly active. Today, the picture is different. The sovereign died at Balmoral Castle in September 2022, 15 months before the end of the series, precisely during the filming of this sixth and final season, which was temporarily halted as a sign of mourning. Although this sixth season focuses on the late nineties and goes up to the mid-2000s, that inevitable future, which Elizabeth II had very much in mind, floats throughout the season and resolves itself (in a last chapter of which it is much better to go completely blind, without even knowing the plot) in a very Petro-esque way. very The Crown.
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'The Crown', Diana of Wales and the elegant morbidity of seeing just what you want
This whole final season tastes like a farewell. It's a peephole into the future. It's hard to even focus on the present, seeing the inevitable departures of some of its protagonists. These are not spoilers; After all, it is based on real events that happened just two decades ago. Hence, the future is no longer Charles, but William. The final season gives him a role that looks a lot like the real world: a focused kid, without being pipipi or condescending; closer to his grandmother than to his father; with Diana present and Kate Middleton as a target. As is always the case in The Crown and with Morgan, we will never know what is entirely true and what is a portrait created for illusion, what percentage of reality there is in fiction, but the William that is glimpsed fits quite well with what can be known about the current heir to the throne. In its plot, perhaps the one who most surprises the uninitiated in the depths of the Windsors are the shenanigans of Carole Middleton, the mother of his girlfriend, which are reminiscent of those of Mohamed Al Fayed last season and that open up questions —how far did the family of the current Princess of Wales maneuver so that she had a chance with William?— that, Again, they can never be resolved.
Meg Bellamy and Ed McVey, as Prince and Princess of Wales William and Kate in their university years. Justin Downing/Netflix
The one who comes out the worst, as in real life, is Enrique. His character hovers over the season, having no more than a small plot at the end, but being awkward in all the episodes; that is, something similar to what actually happens with him in The Firm (The Company, as the British royal family is known in the United Kingdom). Enrique responds well to the name he gave to his controversial memoir, Spare, published a year ago, which means replacement or spare. Sometimes it's even a parody: it's pejiguero, simple, disrespectful and even rude. Elizabeth II goes so far as to ask William to be patient with his little brother; Being second is more complicated and has a more diluted purpose. Even so, Enrique is not the terrible sympathetic that many saw in the nineties, he is closer to an aimless gaffer, the image he reflects is more the one we have of him today than it was then, when he was England's favorite orphan. William goes so far as to tell his brother not to dare to compare himself to Diana, Princess of Wales: "Because of what she went through, she was much worse." It's another thing to listen to him, his grandmother or his father.
The British royal family, in the final season of 'The Crow'.
The heir seems this season more liberated, less tormented, already without Diana and less dependent on the figures of Elizabeth and Philip of Edinburgh. Imelda Staunton, in her portrait of the Queen, is the soul of the season, alongside Dominic West as Charles and Elizabeth Debicki in her copy of the Princess of Wales. All three are nominated for Golden Globes, and the series is also up for the award in the best drama category, as well as the Emmys. It's the icing on the cake, the last awards that the series will see.
That B-side of the monarchy that is so popular is also present this season: from Elizabeth II on horseback or haunted by her worries and daydreams – the one that starts the second chapter of the batch is remarkable, where she imagines herself dethroned by Tony Blair – to the Caribbean adventures of Princess Margaret, who also has her own exciting chapter this season. As the monarch says in one episode, "people don't come to a palace to see what they have at home." No. People want to see from their homes what happens in those other houses that are the palaces. Morgan has allowed us for 60 chapters to look at his living rooms and his kitchens, his toilets and his stables, and here, as promised, he closes his work. A seventh season, as so many have called for, to scrutinize the last few decades of the world's most famous and fascinating monarchy, doesn't seem likely. Not for now. It has already given it a round ending.
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