Certainly today there are immediate orphans of one of Netflix’s most impactful content since the platform became a Channel and Studio. The Crown is rightly one of the most successful and award-winning content on the platform, making an often dangerous parallel with the lives of such significant people in the lives of the British, almost all of whom are still alive. A mission in which the greatest expert of the Windsor Dynasty, Peter Morgan, demonstrated his unparalleled mastery.

The series helped give Queen Elizabeth even extra affection not only from her subjects but from the world, during her long reign, which reached the 70-year mark, a year before her death, in 2022. It also brought a new lens to the personality of the current King Charles, tarnished by the years of tabloid war with his ex-wife, Princess Diana, in the same way that he rescued the current Queen Camilla from the Disney villain pages. All with good contexts, and some freedoms, but, in general, distance and objectivity. A complex task for a subject who still lives in the country portrayed.

In fact, The Crown is Peter Morgan‘s lesson on the British soul more than a Queen. It covered no less than 60 years of history in 6 seasons, tracing the political and cultural evolution of a country where its sovereign remained firm through wars, cultural revolutions, and moments of pure drama. Of course, it left out many parallel stories, and many people we wanted to understand better, but its proposal, in its simplicity, is the genius of the series.

In each episode, Morgan talks about a system and its conflicts in current times, where “what matters is the Crown, not who holds it”. That’s why the protagonist is Elizabeth, highlighting Charles and presenting us with important moments of a young William. The Crown is their weight in History, the rest is not irrelevant, but close to it. And you can sympathize with one or the other, but the delivery in this great film was perfect from start to finish. The clearest theatrical choices this season (Diana’s ghost and the Queen speaking to their younger selves) are linked to the source of The Crown, the play The Audience that was the beginning of it all. Which spared us, thankfully, the clipped moments of flashbacks to reflect on the trajectory, a cliché that would have been tacky, without a doubt.

I’ll talk more in detail about this season’s episodes, but I’m still developing my feelings about the conclusion of the series. From the beginning, the proposal was to end where it ended, and the Pandemic and the fight between the princes (which puts the drama between Diana and Charles to shame) interfered with a lot of the narrative and delivery time, including ending after the death of the Queen, which we even joked that he was immortal. We don’t know if it will always be the way it was, but having the last episode with the Queen planning her funeral, and reflecting on her reign was particularly moving for those who saw the result of it all at her funeral in 2022. Lucky for the showrunner, I would say.

The same luck almost failed him when he decided to face Elizabeth’s biggest shadow, her daughter-in-law, Diana Spencer. The princess’s charisma remains unchanged even 27 years after her tragic death and has unsurprisingly awakened a new wave of defenders and accusers on all sides. The magical performances of Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki helped us feel like we were once again living in the days when Diana dominated magazines all over the planet and, for her soul and for time, I hope we close and let her rest in peace she never had in life.

One of the conflicts that The Crown highlighted with exquisite precision was the cruel reality of the monarchy with its spare parts, its reserves. From the Queen’s father to Margaret and Harry, the weight of living in a system where there is no real purpose is suffocating and sad. The episode involving Margaret’s death is by far the most emotional and poetic of the entire series, with a stunning performance by Leslie Manville. Magaret did what Harry refused: he remained faithful to the Crown and his sister, but he did not have a happy ending.

The erroneous image we bought for decades, that William and Harry were inseparable and friends, was lovingly contextualized for both princes, but you are mistaken if you think the source was the 2023 biography, Spare. I deleted the posts about this story and will try not to go back to the details, but Morgan’s consultant is the author of Battle of Brothers, Robert Lacey, who had already posted the details confirmed by Harry’s book in 2020. Without avoiding this transparency, The Crown was bold, and correct and ended her passage with full marks.

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