The Crown season 5 sees Queen Elizabeth watching her family fall apart while the country begins to question the need for the monarchy. The fifth season is now streaming on Netflix.
Story
A poll from a newspaper criticizes Queen Elizabeth, calling her old and irrelevant, and suggests that people want her to abdicate in favor of Charles, the Prince of Wales.
The queen takes the comparison with Queen Victoria, mentioned in the article, as a compliment, while Charles, on the other hand, meets Prime Minister Major, hoping to change the way monarchy works.
Prime Minister Major gets a chance to talk to a number of royal family members at the Ghillies Ball and realizes how they are not in touch with each other.
Charles and Diana’s marriage falls apart, with the former still in love with Camilla. Diana, who continues to feel isolated finally opts to come out and talk to people to tell them how the royal family has mistreated her over the years.
Charles finds himself in a scandal and decides to go through the divorce with Diana to move on and focus on himself and Camilla.
Apart from that, he also thrives to modernize the monarchy, which results in him clashing with his own mother.
Performances
The Crown certainly retains its acting performances with a new, strong, star-filled cast aiding the show.
Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II captures the queen’s old age as she lives the worst time of her life.
Staunton’s character slowly realizes how she is getting old, not only in terms of age but also according to the way she looks at the monarchy, which the world feels is not with the times.
Though Staunton puts up a commendable performance, she takes a back seat in favor of Charles and Diana’s storyline.
Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana certainly walks and talks like a princess. From her mannerisms to her accent, everything feels royal and elegant.
Dominic West as Prince Charles embodies the Prince of Wales’ impatience to be the next ruler or the most modern ruler the country will witness.
Positives
The show continues to be a history lesson and paces itself well, but only in the last few episodes.
It balances the ups and downs of Prince Charles. For every scandal Charles is involved in, the viewers get a detailed insight into how he got out of it.
At the same time, it does justice to Diana’s story, who is just trying to be a normal person as she feels alone in her broken royal marriage.
The arc involving the BBC journalists pursuing Diana to tell her story is quite thrilling and keeps the viewers on the edge of their seats. This arc is probably where the entire fifth season shines, as it is executed very well and details the risk the channel was taking.
Negatives
Much like how it does well in its last few episodes, The Crown falls flat at the very beginning of the fifth season as it tries to bring a number of storylines altogether into the mix.
These storylines are not followed up one after the other properly, and thus, it would be hard for the viewers to hook themselves up for the show they had loved over the course of the last four seasons.
There is no reason to spend much time on Mohamed Al-Fayed and Dodi Al-Fayed’s story, as they had only a few minutes to aid the main storyline.
They could’ve been introduced to full-length in a future season as Diana gets close to them.
Verdict
The Crown hasn’t lost its touch or anything like that, but yes, the first half of the season is concerning, as it may force the viewers to take a break or give up.
The viewers need to dedicate themselves and get past that portion of the show for a more thrilling and well-paced storyline near the finale
The Crown season 5
Director: Jessica Hobbs, Alex Gabassi, May el-Toukhy, Christian Schwochow, Erik Richter Strand
Date Created: 2022-11-09 12:30
2.5
Also Read: The Crown season 5 ending explained: Does the royal family fall apart?