The fourth season of Netflix’s The Crown is set in the 11 years of Margaret Thatcher’s term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In what is definitely the series’ most relevant story arc, the season covers the turmoil caused by the economy-centric, “nation first” head of state and the internal drama arising from the collapse of the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
I think it’s inarguable that Princess Diana is the culmination of everything The Crown has been about for the past three seasons. The series has always been about the dehumanization of the Royal Family in their devout sense of “duty” to the Crown and to the nation. We saw Prince Philip struggle with it in his marriage to Queen Elizabeth in the first two seasons, but he eventually gave into submission. With the third season’s time-jump and the aging of characters, there seemed little hope for passion and personality to break the rigid monarchy—until Diana came along this season.
Princess Diana (introduced this season by Emma Corrin, who stunningly captures not only Diana’s transcendent presence but also the melancholy that surrounds her) struggles with her marriage to heir apparent Prince Charles. However, unlike Philip before her, she doesn’t have a spouse who is at least willing to compromise on emotional needs. Charles has other things on his mind, such as a mistress and a grand garden.
Diana’s perspective is integral to the show’s thesis. We’re immediately put in her shoes in the episode Fairytale, where she goes from a youthful girl partying in the club to God Save the Queen where she is the isolated loner roaming around the dreary, empty palace. All this leads to the royal wedding, recontextualizing the fairytale moment as a marriage evidently doomed from the start. Yet there’s a sprinkle of fairytale moments en route to the collapse of the royal marriage, which culminates in Diana’s decision to remain in the marriage even after the Queen offers her a way out.
Framing her decision around the “highlights” of her marriage is interesting. It’s definitely the character’s naivete, but, in that brief moment, you, the audience, also want to believe that the fairytale will work out for Diana. It’s a captivating moment depicting how genuinely alluring the fairytale moments could be, while making you realize that (four seasons into the series) you should know better.
As someone who wasn’t even alive around the time of Princess Diana, even I was swept up in the fairytale, particularly during the royal wedding and the couple’s tour of Australia. I felt as though I was riding the highs with Diana—which were only momentary reliefs in a disastrous marriage.
The Crown recreates these fairytale moments, of course, because they’re iconic moments in modern history and also because they keep you immersed from the perspective of Diana. How easy it is for us, multi-generation onlookers of the royal family, to be swept up in the fairytale.
On the flip side, Charles, this season, is seen more from a judgmental POV than a sympathetic one. Not that that is inherently a bad thing in any examination of historical figures. The issue lies more in that the final scene tries to conclude that Charles and Diana are both victims of a tragic marriage. But then that idea isn’t effectively solid because Charles’ role this season is limited to a spoiled brat who acts up because he didn’t get his way.
Charles’ insecurities and heavy burden are evident in Josh O Connor’s performance, but they’re not explored as much as in the previous season—the final shot of a “sympathetic” Charles from the previous season. Sustaining that level of sympathy for Charles this season would’ve been bold but would’ve also made the depiction of the broken marriage more dynamic and human.
Margaret Thatcher similarly gets an odd treatment. She is initially portrayed as a tough-as-nail workaholic who’s somewhat a bad parent, and that’s about it. Gillian Anderson is phenomenal, but the character is just so bare for what is historically a highly controversial political figure.
One episode looks down on her for persistently opposing imposing sanctions in South Africa to fight apartheid, but it never goes overtly critical. Her storyline ends with the Queen honoring Thatcher with the Order of Merit, even as she recognizes their “differences” but claims she’s proud that a woman held the office of Prime Minister. It’s a jarring note to end on, for the season was never that patronizing of Thatcher, and it dangerously celebrates a female politician as the first woman to hold the prime minister’s position even as her policies threatened the lives of people in the vulnerable sector of society.
The only episode that best depicts Thatcher’s term as prime minister oddly didn’t even have Thatcher as main character. The episode Fagan is centered on the unemployed Michael Fagan, who breaks into the Buckingham Palace to discuss the rising poverty in the country. It’s a ground-level perspective of the impact the main characters have on the rest of society, which the series has never done until then. Side episodes from outsider perspectives such as this (and similarly The Hereditary Principle) always serve to deepen understanding of the main characters and the world, more than the episodes that are centered on them.
The picture that season 4 paints is that under the rich and formal elegance of the monarchy, there is, well, nothing. Just discarded dreams and people—and deeply rooted dysfunction. However, with electrifying performances and storylines, The Crown manages to capture the alluring power of fairytales that real-life monarchy still possesses.
