Netflix’s drama ‘The Crown’ continues its reign in Season 2
When Season 2 of Netflix’s “The Crown” opens, Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foley) and Prince Philip (Matt Smith) are on rough seas, literally.
The royal couple is on a ship during a storm. The date is Feb. 6, 1957. It seems the only place where the royal couple can get a little privacy.
“The rumors haven’t gone away,” Liz sternly tells her husband, adding, “It’s time we put our cards on the table about what has to be done to make this marriage work.”
Philip, as we know, has been unhappy playing second fiddle to his wife during an era where men rarely were subordinate to women. The conversation goes on for a beat or two more, and then we cut back to events to five months before. It’s nearly three episodes before we return to the conversation, repeating the beginning of the heart-to-heart before finishing it.
If “The Crown” was just about the British royal family, it would be mildly interesting at best, but the series created by Peter Morgan (“The Queen,” “Frost/ Nixon”) is about more than that. Instead, like his other works, he uses the smaller story as a clever way to reexamining relatively recent history.
In this case, the smaller story just happens to be in a palace. Queen Elizabeth, you’ll remember, is relatively powerless. She and her family are kept in plushy cages only to be occasionally paraded out for ceremony’s sake. It is not surprising that they misbehave at times.
When the story picks up again, it’s 1956, and Philip is off on a diplomatic voyage with the Navy on the royal yacht to British territories in case — as the queen tells her children — “they get any silly ideas about wanting their independence.”
The trip will take him to the Melbourne Olympics with a rowdy stop on New Guinea along the way. The separation would heighten the endless questions and rumors about the royal marriage.
What we hear from Elizabeth in that first conversation is that “I’ve learned more about humiliation in the last two weeks than I have in a lifetime.” So we know things are heating up. A key storyline of the season is about whether the Duke of Edinburgh had affairs.
The wife (Chloe Pirrie) of his party-loving aide and closest friend Mike Parker (Daniel Ings) was seeking a divorce on charges of infidelity, and the scandal would reflect on Philip.
Meanwhile, the Queen is watching the debacle of the Suez Crisis unfold without being able to do anything. The Conservative Prime Minister Anthony Eden (Jeremy Northam) is falling apart, partially due to the massive amounts of prescription drugs he was taking, just as Britain and America were worried about Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser (Amir Boutrous) uniting Arab factions. This as the ambitious Harold MacMillan (Anton Lesser) maneuvers to take over.
And if Philip felt he was a second fiddle, then so did Elizabeth’s younger sister, the wild Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby), who is unhappy as usual but will meet her future husband — Tony Armstrong-Jones (Matthew Goode), a rakish photographer. Their escapades would fuel tabloid headlines.
This season also brings in Jack (Michael C. Hall) and Jackie Kennedy (Jodi Balfour) for a famous 1961 meeting. In an interesting episode, it shows tensions running high between the queen and the first lady at a royal party. Nearly another full episode is devoted to the adolescent Prince Charles — still heir to the throne, think about that — trying to adjust to boarding school. Even Philip says Elizabeth is “a little cold” to her children.
Whether it’s dramatic license or history, it makes for good television. Foy is wonderful at displaying Elizabeth’s emotions while clutching her jaw and tamping down what she wants really wants to say — even in private. Her Elizabeth is always wedded to her duties as monarch.
Even in the few years that this season covers, we see how being queen is taking its toll on Elizabeth, who is quickly slipping from this bright young woman to this stern-looking figure we have since grown used to seeing. This is Foy’s last season, with Olivia Colman taking over to play Elizabeth in the later years of her reign.
“The Crown” succeeds because it gives us this fresh perspective on the world at that time, and in many ways, the events of the royals then are not that far from what’s happening today.
The announcement last week that Prince Harry — Elizabeth’s grandson — is engaged to marry “Suits” star Meghan Markle is a reminder that the monarchy continues to roll along. It’s good timing for the series.
This “Crown” continues to rule.