The Crown Season 6 Part 1 Review: The Death Of Princess Diana Looms Large Over The Final Season
A fascinating thing happened to "The Crown" as the show progressed. The first few seasons of the ornate Netflix series were at least partially sympathetic to the members of the House of Windsor, particularly Queen Elizabeth, played first by Claire Foy, and then by Olivia Colman. And then came season 4, and with it, the introduction of Princess Diana, played by Emma Corrin. All at once, the show's portrayal of the royals began to shift, and they became cold, miserable people, with Diana suffering the brunt of their iciness as she butted up against rigid tradition and a loveless marriage. The more prominence Diana had, the less sympathetic everyone else on the show became. Whether or not this was always the plan is hard to say, but it's undeniable. Perhaps it's because Diana has always been a sympathetic figure; a beautiful outsider cut down in the prime of her life.
Diana's untimely, tragic death looms large over the first four episodes of "The Crown" season 6, the show's final season. It was inevitable that the show would arrive here, and indeed, creator Peter Morgan has covered this ground before with his script for the 2006 film "The Queen," which showcased the immediate aftermath of Diana's death. The four episodes that make up part 1 of the 2-part final season (the remaining episodes drop on Netflix in December) are devoted almost entirely to the final days of Diana, played with devastating grace by Elizabeth Debicki. It makes for a melancholy beginning of the end.
The Diana Show
As the sixth season begins, Diana and Charles (Dominic West) have been divorced for a year. Diana no longer has her HRH status, and yet, she remains constantly in the public eye, followed everywhere by both hungry paparazzi and adoring fans who look at her as if she were some kind of religious icon; a walking, talking miracle. In the midst of all of this, Diana finds herself in an almost accidental relationship with Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), who is pressured by his father Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw, doing great work with a difficult character), to woo the Princess. Dodi is currently engaged to another woman when this happens, and yet Mohamed makes it clear that if he can sweep Diana off her feet, he'll make his father proud — not to mention help the Fayed's rise in the ranks of society.
That may make Dodi sound conniving or manipulative, but "The Crown" actually portrays him in a mostly sympathetic light as a man who desperately wants to make his demanding father happy, no matter what the cost. As for Diana, she seems taken with Dodi, but that doesn't mean she's ready to jump into a serious relationship. Instead, she just wants to get away on holiday — something that proves difficult when the paparazzi are following her every single move.
As for the Queen, played by Imelda Staunton, she mostly exists in the periphery for the bulk of these episodes — she no longer feels like the main character. Instead, this is now Diana's show — but fate dictates that that won't be the case for very long.
The end of an era
The final season of "The Crown" arrives at a strange time. All the previous seasons dropped while Queen Elizabeth II was still alive, but the show's finale now comes to us after her death. Will the show conclude its story with the passing of the monarch? Or will it stop short of giving us that definitive ending? There's no indication of a finale in these first four episodes, save for the end of the Diana story. For six seasons now, "The Crown" has been one of Netflix's most consistently strong shows, following in the footsteps of "Mad Men" in how it lets each episode act as if it were a short, self-contained story.
But as it nears its endgame, the show has become more serialized, particularly with these four episodes that make up the first half of the final season, all of which run into each other. I'm not quite sure that's a good thing, as it robs the series of much of its previous strength. Still, there's enough high drama packed into these four episodes to satisfy those of us who have stuck with the show over all these years. The fact that this season is unfolding in the '90s adds a new dimension to the proceedings, particularly in the way the series presents fashions and music (there's a Smash Mouth needle-drop, folks).
As "The Crown" comes to an end, it closes the book on a saga that has spanned decades and generations. Can there even be a satisfying conclusion to such a story? The era of the real Elizabeth II is over. Will the TV series that followed her ascendancy manage to match reality? Do we even want that? Perhaps we want something more dramatic, more scandalous, more spectacular. Only time will tell how this story ends.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10
"The Crown" season 6 part 1 is now streaming on Netflix.