Because it approached the current, although, the present each declined a bit in floor high quality (the West miscasting, the weird look of Diana’s ghost, the battle to make Prince William’s faculty life appear fascinating) and located itself confronted with the problem of claiming one thing about what its story means for us immediately. “The Crown” was at all times successfully pro-monarchy in the identical approach that “Downton Abbey” is pro-aristocracy, however “Downton” and its film sequels haven’t (but) adopted the Crawley household past the late Nineteen Twenties. Whereas “The Crown” needed to say one thing, to spherical its story out, about what Queen Elizabeth II’s reign signifies for the 2020s, what she truly achieved along with her longevity and sense of obligation, what sort of legacy she left.
And what it got here up with was fairly limp certainly. The present’s final phrase on its Elizabethan age was provided by Jonathan Pryce’s model of Prince Philip, praising his spouse within the present’s finale for declining to abdicate, not on the grounds she provided (as a result of sticking it out to the tip is within the job description) however “as a result of those who come after you aren’t remotely able to take over.” After which, this elaboration:
You had been at all times prepared. You had been born prepared. You might be one in every of a sort. Against this, this lot — hmm? The great factor is, it’s not our drawback. That is the place we will probably be, you and I. Proper below this stone! We’ll by no means hear the screams from inside there … You already know I’m proper. The system is not sensible anymore to these exterior it, nor to these of us inside it. “All human issues are topic to decay, and when destiny summons, even monarchs should obey.” We’re a dying breed, you and I. Oh, I’m positive everybody will keep on, pretending all is effectively, however the get together’s over. The excellent news is that whereas Rome burns and the temple falls, we’ll sleep, dearie, sleep.
I don’t need to learn too a lot right into a rambling, not-especially-well-written monologue (the John Dryden citation excepted). However after six seasons of following Elizabeth’s each gesture, the present’s closing send-off mainly implied that her life story was a pointless one. Monarchy is antiquated and irrational, it survived solely due to the accident of getting a long-lived queen who was uniquely suited to an inconceivable job, and we had been entertained for six seasons by a pure anachronism, fated to evanesce like imperial Britain as soon as Her Majesty exited the stage.
After all, this implication is inherently self-undermining provided that we (the trendy, disenchanted, democratic public) did watch the present by way of so many episodes, in the identical approach that we adopted the real-life drama of the royal household all through Elizabeth’s life, however the debatable irrationality of their existence. However it might have been undermined additional, I feel, if “The Crown” had not ended when it did — with the Charles-Camilla nuptials, lengthy earlier than William’s royal wedding ceremony, the Meghan Markle period, the precise demise of Elizabeth and the ascension of King Charles III.
A closing season that coated that territory might need steered a special send-off for its topic. As a result of in 2024, a minimum of, the declare that the monarchy “is not sensible” feels itself a bit old-fashioned, a holdover from the Finish of Historical past and the times of “Cool Britannia” liberalism. In a world characterised by diminished religion in each meritocracy and democracy, in a West dealing with a number of identification crises, in a Britain struggling by way of a interval of stagnation and disappointment, the resilient legitimacy of the throne appears like a extra notable reality than its apparent antiquarianism. Elizabeth didn’t, ultimately, protect her establishment solely to have it dissolve like a dream upon her departure; she preserved one thing that also accommodates an actual efficiency, nevertheless unsure its future functions and closing future.
Clearly, the monarchy could but hit the rocks and perish if British politics is destabilized in radical methods by financial turmoil or demographic change. However within the Wills-and-Harry period, and with the profitable accession of Charles, you possibly can see numerous fashions of Twenty first-century adaptation that had been much less apparent 20 years in the past.
