The Crown: Hyde Park Corner
November 5, 2016 6:08 PM - Season 1, Episode 2 - Subscribe

With King George too ill to travel, Elizabeth and Philip embark on a four-continent Commonwealth tour. Party leaders attempt to undermine Churchill.

Vulture - The Crown Recap: It’s Not a Hat

The Daily Dot - Netflix's 'The Crown' offers gorgeous but shallow depiction of Britain's royal family: "Catering to the Downton Abbey audience, The Crown shares both Downton's strengths and its pitfalls: gorgeous production design and costumes, coupled with a nostalgic desire to ignore the inequality that made all this luxury possible."
posted by oh yeah! (20 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
This episode seemed obliviously racist in a way that creeped me out. Like, at least the show, and Princess Elizabeth seemed aware that Philip was being an ass during that receiving line scene. But the guy kissing her feet in farewell; considering all the horrible things that were done to Africans under colonial rule, just, oof, no.

(Not sure I feel like doing posts for each episode of the show - maybe someone who is more into it can take a stab? Or whoever makes it to the finale first can do a full-season thread?)
posted by oh yeah! at 6:31 PM on November 5, 2016


Not sure I agree that it was oblivious. There was some pretty pointed editing during Liz's arrival speech too that seemed clearly intended to underscore the inherent racism and general weirdness of the situation.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:09 PM on November 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


The racism throughout the series towards the non-British people in Commonwealth countries is really pointed and hard to watch. Intentionally so, I'm thinking.

Especially in light of how terrible things have gone in many of those countries in the last few decades...
posted by guster4lovers at 10:13 PM on November 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


The racism was hard to watch. Phillip was/is a racist and had said even worse things then what they showed. I was impressed by them putting that in because they could have left that out. It was setting up the two Monarchs passing each other scene but they could have done that without the racist part.

I do find it an interested contrast to how Phillip is in later episodes. I did a bit of reading after those and did learn that Phillip is credited with modernizing some aspects of how the family acted as well connecting them more with the common citizen. Which seems laughable considering and clearly is only about white and acceptable citizens. At the time though because of his exile he had way more contact with people outside of a Royal bubble. It's all relative I guess.
posted by Jalliah at 5:35 AM on November 6, 2016


Having watched the series all the way through, I'm pretty sure that highlighting the racism is intentional (and should make the viewer uncomfortable); even though Elizabeth is much more clued-in than her husband, they're all failing to notice that their attitudes have worn out their welcome, with as-yet unanticipated political consequences.
posted by thomas j wise at 9:48 AM on November 6, 2016 [6 favorites]


" I did a bit of reading after those and did learn that Phillip is credited with modernizing some aspects of how the family acted as well connecting them more with the common citizen."

I find Philip dead interesting because in some very public, important ways he super-sucks, and in other ways he's very clued-in and cool. And he's always been so publicly, televised-ly second banana to his wife, and a house husband, from before that was okay or there was any real role for how to do it, and as a very macho man (and legit very good military officer with a good career).

Plus also he escaped Greece as an infant in a fruit crate, which they do refer to later on, so there's that bit too. Good origin story.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:42 PM on November 6, 2016 [7 favorites]


I can report that the racism is even cringier on second viewing when you know it's coming. ("STOP! NO! don't say that! Arrrrgh too late.")
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:16 PM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Phillip was/is a racist and had said even worse things then what they showed.

I was wondering if he was as terrible as he seemed to be in the show, actually. (I am binging for distraction but I keep hating Phillip throughout it.)
posted by corb at 11:49 AM on November 11, 2016


This episode was marvelous for the unspoken beneath the spoken. So British. You could almost have subtitles for what is actually being communicated beneath propriety and decorum.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:07 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


The part where Tommy Lascelles offers Peter Townsend a job, while suggesting Peter's just too friendly with the royal family and of course will reject it, and Peter defiantly accepts it, causing the greatest offense Tommy has ever felt, is the Britishest thing that ever Britished on TV.

OH MY GOD HE WAS OFFERED A JOB AND TOOK IT, THIS IS THE MOST PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE MINNESOTAN THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED EVER.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:25 PM on November 11, 2016 [33 favorites]


I was wondering if he was as terrible as he seemed to be in the show, actually.

I just wrote in the previous episode thread how I keep obsessing about the truthfulness of the narrative - but yeah, Prince Philip pretty much has his foot permanently lodged in his mouth, and has in the course of his years offended just about every other person he has met, in every possible -ist way. From the moment he got off that plane in Nairobi I was cringing in anticipation.

Anyway, when he was instructed to walk a little behind his wife (because "the crown takes precedence", or how did Mr Mustache put it again) made me almost laugh, because it reminded me of this Adam Hills' story about meeting the Queen. In which he describes Prince Philip as a "90 year old man whose entire job is to walk two paces behind his wife and make inappropriate comments". Heh.
posted by sively at 4:41 AM on November 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


"I like your hat!"

"That's not a hat. It's a crown."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:19 AM on November 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


It's particularly fun to see Matt Smith acting like a turd. There is a veeery fine line between being the Doctor and being an ass.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:45 AM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's an interesting choice in casting, definitely - and Matt Smith almost seems to be acting like Asshole Cary Elwes, to boot.
posted by corb at 12:23 PM on November 21, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'm certain I read that Elizabeth did travel with a black outfit to Nairobi; that she always traveled with one. And the rumor that the king died during the day but the news was withheld so it could be announced in the more respectable morning papers.

The arrival scene at Treetops with the bull elephant ready to charge was incredible. It really gave the viewer the sense of how dangerous and HUGE they are.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:40 AM on November 23, 2016


The last scene with Queen Mary curtsying to Elizabeth was also killer. Eileen Atkins is a force of nature.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:51 AM on November 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


The arrival scene at Treetops with the bull elephant ready to charge was incredible. It really gave the viewer the sense of how dangerous and HUGE they are.


My wife and I were discussing during that scene how watching an elephant charge someone on TV is generally "yeah, I guess that would be scary" but in real life would be pants-shittingly terrifying. This show did a better job than most at conveying that terror.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:00 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


The last scene with Queen Mary curtsying to Elizabeth was also killer. Eileen Atkins is a force of nature.

She knows how important it is for her to be the example.
Who were the other three houses? Romanov, Hohenzollern, Habsburg?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:15 PM on December 18, 2016


Coming at this crazy late, but just two observations I wanted to yell at the aether:

1. It was super hard having to watch Lane Pryce die a depressing death again.

2. I almost chuckled at how the royals visiting Nairobi couldn't speak to their subjects, because it does seem that the history of the British Empire is kind of a story of royals who don't speak the same language as their subjects (all the way back to the Norman Conquest).
posted by General Malaise at 5:14 AM on December 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


Just watching the series now. The whole sequence with King George dying and Elizabeth not yet knowing was so masterfully done it gave me chills.

I mean, I was predisposed to like this show anyway, or at least enjoy it, but it turns out to be SO much better than expected.
posted by dnash at 8:11 AM on January 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


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