Savoring the Opulence of "The Crown"--"The Way Ahead" and "Ipatiev House" (S5, Ep. 5 and S5, Ep. 6)

The fifth and sixth episodes of the hit Netflix drama highlight the costs of the Crown in both the past and the present.

“The Way Ahead”

I know that this most recent season of The Crown isn’t to everyone’s liking, but I am finding myself enjoying it. Partly this stems from the fact that, though I have pretty clear memories of this particular time period, I still find that this season of the series has a bit of the “period drama” patina of past seasons. Thus, though I am obviously watching a docu-drama chronicling the events of only a couple of decades ago, there is just something about this series that makes you feel as if you’re settling in for a cozy costume drama from Masterpiece (though obviously a bit edgier than one typically sees from the latter).

This is true even in an episode like “The Way Ahead,” which is another Charles-centric outing. In particular, it focuses on a scandalous phone call he shares with his beloved Camilla which, having been intercepted by a random citizen, is later sold to a tabloid who, in turn, releases it after Charles’ marriage with Diana begins to publicly break down. Soon enough, the entire country (and the world) hears about how the Prince of Wales, the heir to the throne, would like to be reincarnated as a tampon so that he could live inside of another woman’s trousers. 

Of course, to those of us who remember the “Camillagate” controversy, all of this is very familiar territory, but what I appreciated was the lack of sensationalism employed throughout these scenes (no small feat, considering what’s going on). The repeated use of tight close-ups brings us into their intimate space, and while there is a bit of an ick factor involved here–who wants to be near two people in such an emotionally vulnerable moment–it ultimately becomes more touching than titillating. These are, ultimately, two middle-aged folks who are trying to snatch what little bit of emotional warmth and fulfillment they can in their staid lives.

Unfortunately for Prince Charles, the news lands like a bomb with the rest of the Royal Family, particularly Philip, who lets his son know in no uncertain terms just how furious he is with him. From the beginning of this season Jonathan Pryce has done a very good job at letting us see the many sides to Philip, and now we get to see him filled with righteous indignation that his son could drag the Crown’s reputation through the mud so fully (though, to be sure, it is pretty rich of him of all people to chide his son for such behavior, when he was no stranger to either rumored peccadilloes of his own or publicly embarrassing commentary). 

Charles, however, is not one to take any situation lying down, and so he decides, as the Royal Family has before, to invite the media in to see how his daily life unfolds. Fortunately for him, it goes better than previous outings have, though it’s still a bit of an uphill climb when it comes to regaining the trust (to say nothing of the goodwill) of the country at large. It quickly becomes clear, however, that, whatever his family might think, he is quite forward-thinking. He wants to make the monarchy relevant in a way that it has ceased to be, and one can’t help but admire his desire to do so (however much it may not come to fruition in quite the way he intended). 

Naturally, there are two other notable casualties in this whole affair. One of them is Camilla herself, who has to endure her husband’s sad yet judging stare as their private life is splashed across the television and the nation’s biggest newspapers. As a whole, The Crown has been very adept at giving us a very nuanced portrait of “the other woman” in the Charles/Diana saga, and in this case we get to see how miserable her life becomes, chased and hounded as she is by paparazzi while her husband looks out the window at her departing car. This is a cruel and judgmental world that they all live in, and she is one of the most notable casualties. 

The other spectator to all of this is, of course, Diana, though we don’t get to see too much of her. The most we get is a shaking of her head as she sees the news. One gets the sense that it is, for her, a vindication as much as it is a torment, for now the whole nation gets to see what she has had to endure.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Princess Anne, who gets another chance to shine in this episode. Both in real life and in Crown, I have always found her to be one of the most sympathetic of the Royal Family, someone who has put her head down and got the job done, while her siblings hogged up the spotlight. Here, we see the extraordinary bond that exists between her and Charles, and I appreciated that, along among her family, she seems to appreciate her brother’s inner resources of strength.

Personally, I found this to be quite a good episode, and I appreciated the fact that it painted Prince Charles in a more flattering light than perhaps any other episode of this series to date. While it was, of course, filmed before the Queen’s death this past September, it’s still clear that there is an awareness here that, whatever his flaws and foibles, and however badly he might have messed up his marriage, Charles is, at bottom, a decent enough chap and someone who does seem to have the best interests of the monarchy and the country as a whole at heart. 

How else to explain the little postscript explaining the good that the Prince’s Trust continues to do among disadvantaged youth? I will admit that the sight of Dominic West/Prince Charles breakdancing with a bunch of young people may yet be the moment that breaks The Crown, but I think I can just about see what they were going for, even if the moment didn’t quite land. 

“Ipatiev House”

I found this one to be a particularly fascinating episode of The Crown (yes, I know I say that every time. Live with it). Like several others, it engages with the past of the Royal Family, particularly with the vexed question of their complicity in past horrific actions,in this case the death of Tsar Nicholas and his family at the hands of the Bolsheviks. In the series’ telling of events, George V, under the advice of his wife, declined to give support to an effort to bring the Russian royals to the UK, thus indirectly contributing to their (very brutal and ugly) death. It's a bit of an ugly blot, and a reminder of how thoroughly intertwined Europe’s royal families have been with the continent’s overall history.

Indeed, history, both international and domestic, hangs over this episode. As viewers, we bear witness to the horrifying execution of the Romanovs, who are deceived into believing that they are to be photographed and then brutally murdered by their Bolshevik guards, who fear that their royal cousins throughout the rest of Europe might come to their aid. Meanwhile, in the present, Elizabeth works with her government to establish renewed relations with a newly democratic Russia, even as she also puts pressure on Boris Yeltsin to have the Romanovs–whose remains have recently been discovered–given a proper burial. 

In order for this to take place, however, Philip’s DNA is needed to ensure that the remains in question are, in fact, those of the Romanovs. In doing so, he embarks on a bit of a journey, getting in touch with a part of his own family that he had largely put aside in favor of becoming a part of the British Royals. Ever restless, he dives headfirst into genealogy, and he even goes so far as to learn more about the process of DNA testing. Unfortunately, this puts him on a bit of a collision course with Elizabeth, particularly once the two of them go to Russia. 

The emotional centerpiece of the episode is a fraught conversation between the two of them. For some time now, it’s been abundantly clear–to us and to Philip, if not entirely to Elizabeth–that they are drawing ever further apart, sundered by their very different interests. I give both Imelda Staunton and Jonathan Pryce a great deal of credit for the heart and emotional resonance they bring to this scene. One gets the sense, watching them, that they truly are two people who were once truly in love but who have experienced what happens to so many: they have simply grown apart. It’s clear that Philip takes no more pleasure in saying all of this than Elizabeth does in hearing it, and it is particularly agonizing to hear him refer to the fact that he has sought “companionship” (of a strictly spiritual and emotional sort, he rushes to add) in the arms of others, a small coterie that he has gathered around himself. From his point of view, this is totally justified, given how much he was made to sacrifice to become Elizabeth’s husband, while from hers it’s a grievous emotional blow, made all the worse by the fact that his strongest attachment is to the significantly younger Lady Romsey (who just happens to be married to his godson).

And, as we saw several episodes ago, they truly do have very different ideas of what marriage means. For Elizabeth, it means the same thing as it always has: two people joined together for life, each bringing out the best in the other. More than anything else, though, marriage represents the same sort of thing as the monarchy itself, i.e., stability and constancy, with each person being the one the other can lean on. Above all, marriage is a duty, and one that she has done her utmost to fulfill, no matter how troubling, demanding, or petulant Phillip has been in the past (and he has most definitely been all three). 

Now, whether this conversation ever took place–and whether the late Duke of Edinburgh ever had an “emotional” or “spiritual” affair with the much younger Romsey is, I think, somewhat beside the point. It is common knowledge that Philip, for all of his curmudgeonliness was quite intellectually curious, something which has never been said of the Queen. Whatever else she might have been, she was a bit stodgy and, more to the point, there is a rich and complicated authenticity to this episode that I think rings largely true. What’s more, Elizabeth does at least make a good-faith effort to befriend her husband’s protege, even if she does correct the historical record, noting that her grandmother Queen Mary advised against bringing the Romanovs to England not out of jealousy (as Penny rather naively seems to believe) but instead because she understood, rightly, that doing so would destabilize the monarchy and the kingdom, given Empress Alexandra’s very public pro-German sentiments. As so often with the Royal Family, duty trumps everything else, and sacrifice is its own form of virtue. 

There is, then, something particularly touching and poignant about the last scene of the episode, which sees Philip taking his usual seat by the window, while Elizabeth plays energetically with her beloved corgis. On the surface, it seems like just another day with the two senior royals but, in reality, it’s an acknowledgment that, despite the many things they’ve endured, and no matter how different they might be, they have at least found a measure of peace in acknowledging that they still love one another. They might be on different tracks, but they are at least headed in the same direction. 

All in all, I found this to be another remarkable episode of The Crown. It shows us how this institution has had influence over both the past and the present, often with dreadful consequences for all of those involved. Fortunately, this episode, for the most part, avoids the sort of blunt moralizing that has been the case with so many of the other episodes of the season, and it is all the better for it.