Rating: 2.5 stars on 5
The Crown Season 6 has been divided into parts for some reason and Part 1 (four episodes) dropped on Netflix on November 16. Part 2 (six episodes) will drop on December 14. Creator Peter Morgan is ready to bring this highly-talked about show to end with this season and there was a lot of anticipation as to what these 20 episodes would showcase of the Royal Family.
In Part of Season 6, we meet Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) post her official divorce from Prince Charles (Dominic West), and she is much more her own person than she ever was. Diana is seen living her life the way she wants to despite the invisible boundaries within which she has to operate and find her voice. She comes into her own and the mother of William and Harry starts to slowly thrive. Her work on the global ban on landmines is also highlighted here.
As Charles gets busy with Camilla’s (Olivia Williams) 50th birthday and trying to get the public – and the Queen’s (Imelda Staunton) – approval and acceptance, Diana ends up meeting Dodi Al-Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) and romance ensues. She once again ends up upstaging Charles and causing embarrassment to the Royal Family, as per the Queen, but Diana is blissfully happy with her newfound freedom. As the fourth episode ends, we see Diana and Dodi’s demise in that horrific car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997.
Diana’s death and the way she died in the car crash is possibly one of the most reported events of the century. It is till date a mystery as to what truly happened in the days leading up to the accident and what transpired within the Royal Family in the days just post the accident. Peter Morgan has tried to recreate some of the occurrences and one questions how much is fact and how much fiction. Mohamed ‘Mou Mou’ Al-Fayed (Salim Daw) is portrayed as a manipulative businessman and the Queen and Prince Philip quite cold and heartless after Diana’s death. While Mou Mou truly mourns the loss of his son, the Queen and her husband are just dismissive of Diana. It is Prince Charles who feels the need to respond to the public’s outpouring of grief and love for Diana and, eventually, the Queen does shed a tear or two for a woman who caused a lot of grief in life to the Royal Family. Diana had been let-down in life by Charles but he promises not to let her down in death (Ghost Diana). And in that Diana shows she’s the true princess of hearts.
Elizabeth Debicki’s performance is stellar in this season as she’s given much more scope to perform. The remaining six episodes will focus on Diana’s sons, William and Harry, and that should hopefully be better than these episodes.
As for Peter Morgan and what we have seen so far, there seems to be a sudden penchant for exaggeration and high drama in Season 6 of The Crown. With so much drama already in the Royal Family real life thanks to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Morgan could have gone easy on that in the web series.
