Elizabeth Debecki as Diana.Photo:Netflix
Netflix
The Crownis back for its final season.
The Abdication Crisis of 1936, which saw dunderheadKing Edward VIII getting himself demoted to Duke of Windsorfor the sake of the woman he loved, has hauntedThe Crownand shaped the psychology and actions of its royal protagonists since season 1.
Returning with the first four episodes of its concluding, sixth season, the show could provoke a different abdication crisis. You may want to abandon it.
You won’t, of course, not with just six more episodes scheduled to launch Dec. 14. The first five seasons, after all, were extraordinarily good television, always riveting, often deeply touching and just as often wryly funny — not to mention flawlessly acted.
This first chunk of season 6, though, could be consideredThe Crown’sversion of jumping the shark (or, given the show’s impeccable British pedigree, maybethe snark).And this is exactly the wrong moment for that to happen: We’ve reached the point at which the seriesconfronts thefateful, fatal romanceof Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla). At the end of the fourth hour, the two will drive off into that tunnel in Paris and on to eternity.
The problem with these crucial episodes, oddly enough, is thatThe Crownis going out of its way to be nice. The show this time around feels painfully well-intentioned, determined to spin the traumatic story as gently as possible.
This may be a response tocomplaints from the likes of Dame Judi Denchthat season 5 took too many liberties with history. And, besides, the circumstances of Diana’s death, and her own emotional state as she and Dodi flirted on his family’s yacht in the summer of 1997, were always going to be a formidable dramatic challenge (or obstacle), requiring tremendous sensitivity.
And so the show walks on tiptoe, like a Lady in Waiting reluctant to wake up her sovereign. Better to let sleeping lions lie.
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Episode 3, which deals with Diana’s very last day alive in Paris, is where things start to go seriously wrong — especially when we’re presented with her final, intimate conversation with Dodi up in the Ritz hotel.
The scene isn’t necessarily implausible, given what’s in the public record. Even if Dodi didn’t propose that very night (as he does here), there’s evidence that he may very well have been intending to. And it’s not out of the question that Diana would have decided that same night to end their heady, two-month romance (as she does here), with the intention of returning to a more stable role as a humanitarian and the mother of a future king. Who knows? Why not?
Charles (Dominic West) with the heir and the spare: William (Rufus Kampa) and Harry (Fflyn Edwards)).Keith Bernstein/Netflix
Keith Bernstein/Netflix
But, after having let Dodi down as kindly as possible, would Diana then try to rally him — man him up, more or less — to defy his powerful, bullying father, the Egyptian billionaireMohamed Al-Fayed(Salim Daw)? For that matter, would Dodi then fake a phone call to Mohamed, who’s hellbent on allying his family with the Windsors, to tell him the romance is kaput? Well, maybe. Like virtually all the exchanges of private dialogue onThe Crown,this falls within the realm of dramatic license.
The problem is that the encounter all feels so snug, inoffensive and sentimental — trite. It plays like a lost royal chapter fromLove Actually.
This leads us to episode 4, where the season breaks off and the show breaks down. Diana, it turns out, has decided to stick around, at least briefly, after her death. She returns for several scenes as a ghost, come to haunt — with sad, self-deprecating humor and wisdom — both Charles and the Queen. (Dodi also makes a spectral appearance to his father.)
These scenes are done with delicacy and tasteful restraint. It’s not as ifTheresa Caputo, the Long Island Medium, was summoned to the palace. You could argue, as well, that all theThe Crownhas done is create a metaphor for Diana’s inextinguishable spirit and importance. Or you could also point out that royal ghosts have a distinguished literary antecedent in the works of Shakespeare.
‘The Crown’ season 6.Netflix
But Shakespeare wasn’t the head writer for a Netflix hit —Peter Morganis. Diana’s ghost is a ridiculous device, and far more insulting to Elizabeth than anything elseThe Crownmight have thrown or will throw at her.
Perhaps Morgan just couldn’t resist milking Debicki’s uncanny re-creation of the Princess for a few more minutes. She’s more like Diana than Diana ever was.
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Part 1 ofThe Crownseason 6 is now streaming on Netflix. Part 2 will conclude the series with six episodes that drop on Dec. 14.
source: people.com
