TV Review: “The Crown: Fairytale” (S4, Ep. 3)
By: Dr. Thomas J. West Iii
Tags: TV Series, Tv Reviews, History, Culture, Television

Now, at last, we come to what will no doubt be the most important conflict in this entire season: the relationship between Charles and Diana. In this episode, he finally proposes to her and she accepts, but unfortunately she finds out very quickly that this little fairytale isn’t all it was cracked up to be. Left largely to herself in the shabby grandeur of Buckingham Palace, she also has to contend with the unpleasant reality that Charles is still very much in love with Camilla.

I have to give the series a lot of credit for its willingness to be truthful about Diana’s eating disorder. I can’t imagine it was easy to find a way of conveying this that didn’t give into the prurient. Though I’m no expert in eating disorders, the series does seem to handle this with a degree of tact that allows the viewer to understand the impact it has on Diana and her physical and emotional well-being.

Altogether, Emma Corrin has done a fine job so far of bringing Diana to life, and that is no easy task. Even more than the rest of the royal family, Diana has become something more than just a person; due in no small part to her untimely death, she’s more of an icon than an individual. It would have been very easy for Corrin to give a rather caricatured portrayal, but instead peels away a bit of the facade to reveal the rather irreverent person beneath, a young woman caught up in the romance of being in a relationship with the Prince of Wales who ultimately comes crashing down to earth once she realizes just what being a part of the Royal Family entails.

One of the things that this season of The Crown has done really well is to highlight the jarring difference between “normal” people and the Royal Family and, as we did in Balmoral, we have an incident that highlights how cold and unfeeling they can be toward those who are outsiders or who don’t fall into what they perceive to be the appropriate standards of behavior for someone encountering the Royal Family. When Diana walks into a gathering of her future in-laws, she inadvertently interrupts Margaret telling a story, which is followed by a horrendously awkward moment where she has to tyro figure out the byzantine etiquette associated with the court, in the process making an absolute fool of herself. What makes this scene so jarring, and so infuriating, is that not a single one of them makes even a bit of effort to rescue Diana, despite the fact that she clearly has no idea what’s going on. Even Charles, the man who’s going to be her husband, and her grandmother, who is also standing there, lift so much as a finger to help her. It’s a cringe-worthy moment, and it doesn’t paint the Royals in a very flattering light.

Nor is that the only indignity that Diana must endure, for she also has to sit through a painfully awkward lunch with the vivacious and earthy Camilla. Though it’s clear that Camilla doesn’t resent Diana, she does seem to go out of her way to show how intimate she is with his little foibles. It’s really rather tragic to see these two women sitting together, both of whom have some claim on Charles’ life. It’s a brilliantly-executed scene, and it highlights the challenges that Diana is going to face as her ill-starred marriage proceeds.

As always, it’s Margaret who has the most perceptive take on the relationship. Unlike the rest of the family, who are simply happy that Charles has at last decided to settle down with someone more suitable than Camilla, she knows that the marriage will never work. She recognizes, with the worldly wisdom of one who has trod this road before, that he will never find happiness with a woman that he doesn’t love in the same way that he does his former girlfriend. The tragedy, of course, is that everyone else refuses to see the truth, even though it’s staring them right in the face. Clearly, their experiences with Margaret, which have led to her becoming so cynical and world-weary, have taught them absolutely nothing at all.

This season has gone out of its way to paint Charles as something of a villain, but a complicated one. While some might see this is as disingenuous, it is in fact very much in keeping with his development as a character. After all, this is a young man who has had to constantly struggle against the expectations imposed upon him by both his family and his position, who has had the love of his life snatched away from him by the machinations of his grandmother. What’s more, there’s a particularly potent moment near the end of the episode, where he turns from the window and gazes at his mother, tears in his eyes. There’s so much going on here, not just in Josh O’Connor’s performance (which continues to astound), but also in the way that it echoes several similar scenes with both his mother (when she confronts him about his speech to the Welsh) and his father (when they have their fateful confrontation after Lord Mountbatten’s death in Ireland). As awful and self-centered and maudlin as he can be at times, there’s still a sensitive little boy inside of Charles, one that really just wants either of his parents to acknowledge him as his own person and to allow him to get a little bit of happiness. Clearly, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

This was a very satisfying episode of the fourth season, and I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how well The Crown elevates what could so easily slip into pure soap opera into something a bit more mature. Even though I already know the broad outlines of what happens, I still can’t wait to see how the rest of this season unfolds.