I’ve been looking forward to this chapter of The Crown, the acclaimed series about the British royal family. This final season dwells on the romance and tragic end of Diana and Dodi Fayed. It’s intriguing to see how the show’s creator Peter Morgan tells this story, which is among the most sensational in the monarchy’s history.
This final season comes in two parts. What’s streaming on Netflix now is the first part which consists of four 45-minute episodes.
The opening scene of the first episode goes direct to the point: to the streets of Paris on the late night of 31st of August 1997. Dodi Fayed’s Mercedes Benz is seen careening into the Alma Bridge tunnel. A pedestrian hears a loud crash, and he immediately dials the emergency number. The show then takes us eight weeks back, when Diana takes her two young sons on a 10-day summer sojourn at Mohamed Al-Fayed’s villa in St. Tropez. For Diana, it’s the perfect way to shield her children from news coverage of Camilla Parkington-Bowles’ 50th birthday bash. It’s being hosted by none other than Prince Charles.
Her own host, Mohamed Al- Fayed, meanwhile, also has an agenda. He’s playing matchmaker, and he coerces son Dodi to leave California (and his fiancée) to take over hosting duties for his very important guests. Meanwhile, Camilla gets snubbed by the Queen who refuses to attend her birthday party. To add salt to the wound, Diana upstages Camilla by posing for the paparazzi in a revealing swimsuit on Camilla’s birthday.
Now what happens int St. Tropez is mostly sheer concoction, but writer and creator Peter Morgan has come up with a riveting version of the events that take place. The depiction of Diana is that of a victim. He wrote the role so well that we can’t help but feel profound sympathy with the treatment she received from the royals, the manipulation by Dodi’s father, and the yellow press of England (though she wasn’t impervious to using the latter to overshadow Camilla).
In this final season, Diana plays like a victim of a horror movie. Oftentimes, films of that genre has a person being sternly warned not to enter a particular room. Right away, we viewers understand that the room is inhabited by something malevolent. Yet that person attempts to enter it nonetheless, and there he meets his doom. Similarly, in this series, Diana has already faced the consequence of being romantically linked to Dodi Fayed, and yet she accepts another invitation to spend the rest of summer with him in the south of France.
So just as we’d scream at the screen to warn the horror movie victim not to enter that room, we want to tell Diana to catch that commercial flight she has booked to take her back to London. According to Peter Morgan, she was at that point where the Fayeds are concerned. So we also want to discourage her from dining out on that fateful evening—like hadn’t she had enough of the paparazzi? But Dodi had planned for a romantic evening. He was going to propose to her.
These first four episodes of The Crown pay much attention to Diana, the Fayeds, and Prince Charles. We also get a glimpse of an adolescent Prince William and Prince Harry. There are no unremarkable side plots which have bogged down the previous season (Prince Philip takes up horse carriage riding and the Queen’s royal yacht is decommissioned. Yawn!).
But as usual, this final season is exquisitely produced and captures the flavor and psyche of the era. The sets and locations are always glamorous, but they never distract from the storytelling. It’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous without Robin Leach. Diana’s official duties are also painstakingly recreated. The authenticity of these scenes is impressive.
Though the actual turn of events is lurid, The Crown tells it in tasteful fashion. Peter Morgan did write The Queen, which chronicled Elizabeth II’s reaction to the Diana tragedy. It won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. Helen Mirren won Best Actress for the title role. Thus like the movie he wrote, the show doesn’t dwell much on Diana’s funeral and ignores Al-Fayed’s conspiracy claims. Sans the funeral, the Spencers are merely mentioned. Perhaps it’s because the Spencers aren’t public personalities, while the conspiracy theories are better suited for tabloid shows.
Likewise, the show doesn’t recreate the actual accident, nor do we get to see the remains of the car’s occupants.
Morgan staged a number of situations that led to the tragedy. Prince Charles was publicly flaunting his relationship with Camilla, which compelled Diana to accept the older Fayed’s invitation. The Fayeds hijacked Diana who wanted to fly back home to London, but instead they took her on a whirlwind chase with the paparazzi around Paris. Diana herself, undaunted by the bad press, still went on another rendezvous with Dodi.
What makes this part of The Crown so compelling is the way Morgan dramatized the overwhelming grief that followed Diana’s death. Suddenly, viewers get to feel compassion for Prince Charles and Mohamed Al-Fayed as they openly weep over the loss of their loved ones. Yet the scene with Diana’s ghost conversing with Charles feels so out of place (Dodi does the same with his father). It may be an inventive way to express the sense of loss felt by both the Crown Prince and the Egyptian billionaire, but it ruins the tone of the series. It comes out as amusing and fantastical—a radical departure for a show that aimed for realism throughout its long run.
The show belongs to Elizabeth Debicki
The show belongs to Elizabeth Debicki. The voice, the stature, and the look—she captures them perfectly. She is less sullen than she was in the previous season. Her stares and nuances accurately capture Diana’s emotional state in every scene she’s in. Debicki is all at once Diana the fun-loving mum, the lonely divorcee, a lost soul, and the public’s beloved princess. Not for once did Debicki make us feel she was an actress playing Diana. It’s as if the producers had cast Diana to play herself.
I’ve never been familiar with Dodi Fayed. I thought he was opportunistic. But as depicted by Khalid Abdala, the younger Fayed is sympathetic and was perhaps also a victim of his father’s social climbing ambitions. Abdala makes Dodi accessible and actually amiable to ordinary folk like us. But Peter Morgan does show him exhibiting the kind of flaws a billionaire playboy and Hollywood producer would have.
As Mohamed Al-Fayed, Salim Daw is excellent. The man he plays is portrayed as the villain of the show. He received no sympathy from the royal family since Diana was his and his son’s responsibility while she was their guest. Salim Daw is especially moving when he wails over the loss of his son. During the burial rites, he looks dignified as he mourns quietly. In this poignant scene, the actor looks just like the real Al-Fayed we see in the newspapers. Having passed away last August 30th—almost to the day Diana and his son died 26 years ago—Mohamed Al-Fayed didn’t live to see this final season of The Crown. He would have sued had he seen it.
Reprising his role as Prince Charles is Dominick West. I wasn’t impressed when he took on the role in Season 5. He looked more like a movie star and nothing like Charles. But he redeems himself in this new season. Charles isn’t fighting Diana anymore. His own mother, Queen Elizabeth II, is his nemesis who remains intractable when it comes to royal tradition and protocol. This time we get to side with the Prince, because Dominic West is so convincing in conveying Charles’ anguish.
Trust Imelda Staunton to deliver a perfect performance in every role she takes on. But when she was cast in Season 5, I couldn’t see her as Elizabeth II. Perhaps she could play her in one of those raunchy Carry On British satires. But Staunton is subdued in this season and less crusty. We also don’t see much of her, which is a help. She does show us her acting chops when she, as the Queen under intense pressure, finally acquiesces to issue a public statement. The Queen’s speech serves as the grand finale and it’s worthy to be used as Staunton’s Emmy Awards clip. But which actress was better at delivering the speech, Imelda Staunton or Helen Mirren? You be the judge.
Netflix showed a trailer of the second part and it seems the main focus will be on Prince William, the reluctant heartthrob. Let’s hope they give the actor playing him nicer-looking clothes. It seemed both William and Harry wore the same scruffy shirts throughout the first four episodes. Will Harry’s dramatic exit be on the menu? That’s unlikely since he and his wife, the Duchess Meghan, have a lucrative deal with Netflix. It’s a shame since their “documentary” has no impact. I couldn’t get past the third episode. It’s best they hire Peter Morgan. He can add a few embellishments to their epic saga.
Duchess Meghan fares much better in the TV series she co-starred before meeting Harry. In Suits, the former Meghan Markle plays a paralegal who hopes to enter Harvard University’s law school. Meghan is a competent actress who exhibits a likable personality. She also looks taller (she’s 5’6”) because in Suits, we don’t see her standing next to William or Harry or Kate, whose respective heights make even Charles seem diminutive. She also looks sexy in her business suits as opposed to the frumpy dresses made for queens and princesses which never looked flattering on her.
A drama that focuses on the everyday struggles of a prestigious law firm in New York, Suits had a long run (nine seasons) and received wide acclaim. It’s also streaming on Netflix.
