The Crown: final six episodes of season 6
December 15, 2023 5:33 AM - Season 6, Episode 5 - Subscribe
Covers the episodes "Willsmania," "Ruritania," "Alma Mater," "Ritz," "Hope Street," and "Sleep, Dearie, Sleep." Might as well put them all into one post since they all dropped at once.
Alma Mater: why is this so boring? I'm watching William swim and drink, for fuck's sake. I thought I was supposed to get budding love...okay, finally they got to that. The big controversy here is showing Carole Middleton as a scheming matchmaker, which...apparently is based on real life, I read the other day.
"I did that too. We missed each other by a week." HMMMMM.
This Lola person is awful and I presume an invention of the show. Kate meeting Princess Di definitely was.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:05 PM on December 15, 2023
"I did that too. We missed each other by a week." HMMMMM.
This Lola person is awful and I presume an invention of the show. Kate meeting Princess Di definitely was.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:05 PM on December 15, 2023
These final episodes were a bit on the boring side to me, probably because it's just not that interesting to watch college students be college students.
I also felt Harry was being portrayed as a little shit, which feels a bit mean-spirited considering at the time he was a teen grieving the sudden death of his mother.
posted by champers at 4:02 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
I also felt Harry was being portrayed as a little shit, which feels a bit mean-spirited considering at the time he was a teen grieving the sudden death of his mother.
posted by champers at 4:02 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Margaret: I don't like watching someone decline like this. It hurts.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:08 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:08 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh lord, Kate's modeling "dress" looks even worse in this. Literally just prancing in undies with a fake semblance of a dress.
Ohhhhh my, this "If I can't be here with you" out of William, followed by his bodyguard interrupting, the fuck.
I would never, ever want to explain: "The ganja, Granny?"
SUCH A SLAP IN THE FACE TO MOU MOU. But dude, they could prove she wasn't pregnant.
"The British are a nation of zombies who elect donkeys to rule them."
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:33 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ohhhhh my, this "If I can't be here with you" out of William, followed by his bodyguard interrupting, the fuck.
I would never, ever want to explain: "The ganja, Granny?"
SUCH A SLAP IN THE FACE TO MOU MOU. But dude, they could prove she wasn't pregnant.
"The British are a nation of zombies who elect donkeys to rule them."
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:33 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Having William point out that "colonials and natives" is offensive, um....doesn't seem like they noticed that at the time IRL. Also, why are they literally shooting at some guy right now?!
This party. The Queen singing Queen. My, my.
You're nitpicking the accuracy of the uniform, Phillip?
Wow, did this show creep on downhill. At this point I watched to get it over with.
NYT: ‘The Crown’: The History Behind the Final Episodes
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:17 AM on December 16, 2023
This party. The Queen singing Queen. My, my.
You're nitpicking the accuracy of the uniform, Phillip?
Wow, did this show creep on downhill. At this point I watched to get it over with.
NYT: ‘The Crown’: The History Behind the Final Episodes
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:17 AM on December 16, 2023
Every Episode of The Crown ranked. - season six does not do well. Some good reminders about how it stacked up against what came before.
posted by rongorongo at 3:48 PM on December 16, 2023
posted by rongorongo at 3:48 PM on December 16, 2023
I have to love the perversity of the queen's wedding speech, starting with the racing results.
I miss Claire Foy.
Pretty odd to cover "the queen's death" without actually having her die, but you do you, Peter Morgan, I guess.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:55 PM on December 16, 2023
I miss Claire Foy.
Pretty odd to cover "the queen's death" without actually having her die, but you do you, Peter Morgan, I guess.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:55 PM on December 16, 2023
I've realised how this all needs to end. They need to extend up to the queen's death, and then have the Queen and Princess Di as force ghosts à la Obi Wan & Vader.
posted by biffa at 1:34 AM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by biffa at 1:34 AM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Jenfullmoon: You may enjoy the Stephen Fry story that stars at about the one minute mark here.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:54 AM on December 19, 2023
posted by Paul Slade at 4:54 AM on December 19, 2023
Original coverage of Tony Blair's ill-received speech to the Women's Institute - "Ruritania" was a poor episode but thing was not entirely made up. Missing in the saga, of course, was the Queen getting stuck next to Tony Blair at the Millennium dome - and ballsing up the whole Auld Lang Syne thing.
posted by rongorongo at 5:37 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by rongorongo at 5:37 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
Wow, did this show creep on downhill.
As the show shifted from how society interacted with the monarchy to how the monarchy interacted with society, the show lost narrative focus and got subsumed into a dull interpersonal drama. It's just not that fun to watch emotionally-stunted people sit around stone-faced as society ignores them all, except for Diana.
posted by rhymedirective at 11:22 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
As the show shifted from how society interacted with the monarchy to how the monarchy interacted with society, the show lost narrative focus and got subsumed into a dull interpersonal drama. It's just not that fun to watch emotionally-stunted people sit around stone-faced as society ignores them all, except for Diana.
posted by rhymedirective at 11:22 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think, because I remember a lot of these events, the show suffered a little bit from not being as surprising or educational to me. A lot of the early seasons put certain things in context - or told me about things I never knew. Hard to make Wills and Kate and young Harry interesting, when these events are relatively recent and some of them have been relitigated or put into a more personal context in Harry's recent book. I did appreciate the small effort Peter Morgan put into Harry being the "spare" and how hard it will be for him, since the Monarchy is designed to protect the people in the line of succession and no one else. (The parallels to Margaret are clear, but the connection is never explicitly drawn.)
I appreciated the first four Diana episodes because one of my favourite tropes is stories about people not knowing what is coming. But the rest of the season was mostly just reporting on what happened with no real insight.
There were two exceptions to this - Margaret's final episode, because she was just a much more flamboyant character in life and throughout the series, but also because I didn't know the story about her and Liz at The Ritz on VE Day. See, more history makes the show more interesting.
And the actual final episode, because designing the Queen's funeral is a good dramatic place to end things - regardless of whether she actually dies in the end. Remember, she died during production on the final season. To me, the final episode could have just ended with the photograph, like every cast of this show has ended - but I did appreciate the coda.
And bringing back Clare Foy and Olivia Colman so the Queen could talk to herself and reckon with her responsibility at 80 years of age worked extraordinarily well. I cried more at the death of the Queen on the Crown than I did at the real-life Queen. But this is because Morgan got to craft a good final episode - planning for the future and not dragging it out until she actually died in her late 90s.
For a show that I started to watch out of curiosity and didn't expect to stick with very long, I have enjoyed the journey, even if the last two seasons did not compare to the early years at all.
posted by crossoverman at 2:12 PM on December 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
I appreciated the first four Diana episodes because one of my favourite tropes is stories about people not knowing what is coming. But the rest of the season was mostly just reporting on what happened with no real insight.
There were two exceptions to this - Margaret's final episode, because she was just a much more flamboyant character in life and throughout the series, but also because I didn't know the story about her and Liz at The Ritz on VE Day. See, more history makes the show more interesting.
And the actual final episode, because designing the Queen's funeral is a good dramatic place to end things - regardless of whether she actually dies in the end. Remember, she died during production on the final season. To me, the final episode could have just ended with the photograph, like every cast of this show has ended - but I did appreciate the coda.
And bringing back Clare Foy and Olivia Colman so the Queen could talk to herself and reckon with her responsibility at 80 years of age worked extraordinarily well. I cried more at the death of the Queen on the Crown than I did at the real-life Queen. But this is because Morgan got to craft a good final episode - planning for the future and not dragging it out until she actually died in her late 90s.
For a show that I started to watch out of curiosity and didn't expect to stick with very long, I have enjoyed the journey, even if the last two seasons did not compare to the early years at all.
posted by crossoverman at 2:12 PM on December 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
The last season really did not stick the landing, and I have greatly enjoyed the previous seasons, with multiple rewatches.
Clearly the runner/writers did not have a definite ending in mind. Her having an argument with her past selves about stepping down was not believable. Nobody actually thinks she was ever going to do that. She wasn't, and Charles won't do it, either. He'll live to be 102 and the next king will be another old man.
That long slow walk out of the church was meant to symbolize the last 18 years of her life, but bloody hell that was a lot to leave out.
So many prime ministers! The last one we see is Blair? Her meetings with Boris could have been some comedy gold.
Then there's Brexit. An absolutely turning point in the UK's history, and I think we'd all like to know--or in this case get a dramatization of--what she thought of the referendum and how it played out.
We are supposed to feel good about her telling William to look after Harry, but yeah, how did that turn out?
Like others have said, I thought the casting choice for Harry was not the greatest. Harry did a lot of adolescent stuff, but (based on my reading of his book) he comes across as a traumatized teen who needed guidance and support from his family that was never forthcoming.
Anyway, during the show's six seasons we are told over and over that the crown is supposed to represent the country and be its moral backbone, but knowing everything that transpired after the closing credits, that argument does not hold up.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 3:15 PM on December 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Clearly the runner/writers did not have a definite ending in mind. Her having an argument with her past selves about stepping down was not believable. Nobody actually thinks she was ever going to do that. She wasn't, and Charles won't do it, either. He'll live to be 102 and the next king will be another old man.
That long slow walk out of the church was meant to symbolize the last 18 years of her life, but bloody hell that was a lot to leave out.
So many prime ministers! The last one we see is Blair? Her meetings with Boris could have been some comedy gold.
Then there's Brexit. An absolutely turning point in the UK's history, and I think we'd all like to know--or in this case get a dramatization of--what she thought of the referendum and how it played out.
We are supposed to feel good about her telling William to look after Harry, but yeah, how did that turn out?
Like others have said, I thought the casting choice for Harry was not the greatest. Harry did a lot of adolescent stuff, but (based on my reading of his book) he comes across as a traumatized teen who needed guidance and support from his family that was never forthcoming.
Anyway, during the show's six seasons we are told over and over that the crown is supposed to represent the country and be its moral backbone, but knowing everything that transpired after the closing credits, that argument does not hold up.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 3:15 PM on December 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Peter Morgan was clearly trying to put a bow on the show even though there were 18 years more to go. He tried, I guess. But yeah, obviously she wasn't going to quit, it wasn't even a debate, for fuck's sake.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:34 PM on December 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:34 PM on December 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
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"Hereditary Grand Falconer....Does the job really need to depend on birth, not merit?"
"The Washer of the Sovereign's Hands?" Only once while I'm at Holyrood!
"Royal Bargemaster even though there hasn't been a royal barge since 1849?" (no response)
The swanmaster? "SOMEONE has to oversee the swans."
"She probably thinks the only way to survive is to double down on the madness."
LORD HIGH ADMIRAL OF THE WASH.
"Few have truly mastered the Dutch bonnet napkin fold."
"There's no such thing as too royal."
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:40 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]