In the fifth season of ‘The Crown’ Diana is sad, Queen Elizabeth is sidelined and Charles saws at the feet of his mother’s throne

Most notable about the fifth season of The Crown is Prince Charles’ upgrade. In previous seasons, he was the bullied child, the oppressed dork and the heartless husband. Now in the Netflix series about Queen Elizabeth II, he has the stature of actor Dominique West ( The Wire ) got: tough, attractive.

Unlike previous actors who played Charles in the series, West doesn’t look anything like the prince – which further reminds the viewer that we are watching a fictional story, not a documentary.

For four seasons, the British Crown Prince has been warming up on the sidelines to finally take over the role of his mother. In the new season, starting today on Netflix, he really makes it work. Charles tries to manipulate the prime minister and sets up a shadow court, with his own advisers who must sell him to the public and politics, among other things, as the new king.

Ripe for royalty

Ripe for royalty is this vigorous Charles. But the series has only landed in the period 1990-1996, so viewers know that the poor man has more than 25 years to wait. And first he has to fight out his marriage to Princess Diana.

Diana also got a new actress, and a downgrade. That is not due to the tall actress Elizabeth Debicki, but to the role she gets. In season 4 we saw Diana mainly as a glamorous crowd favorite, who with her modern sense of publicity made the rest of the royal family look hopelessly old-fashioned, this time she languishes lonely in her palace. She does hit Charles and the royal family twice: first with a ‘tell-all biography’, then with a devastating BBC interview.

The heartbreaking tragedy of Diana and Charles is the best story ever The Crown has to offer – no doubt the reason the makers spread it out over three seasons – but isn’t enough to fill the entire series. So in season 5 there are also other storylines.

Philip and his new hobby

We follow Prince Consort Philip in his new hobby of competitive driving (racing with a carriage). We also see him flourish through a visit to Russia, where the fall of the Soviet Union provides space for the reburial of the Tsar’s family. Elizabeth and Philip are both related to that Imperial family, but it is Philip who sees the visit as a kind of journey back to his roots, as he is Orthodox Christian in origin.

A newcomer to the series is Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. His relationship with the royal family is tenuous – his son becomes Lady Diana’s lover in the sixth and final season and dies with her – but thanks to his life story, we see what the royal family looks like from the former colonies.

Desperate to be part of the British nobility, Al-Fayed uses his millions to get as close to the Queen as possible. The butler of the abdicated King Edward VIII must teach him how to behave in the higher British circles. But the queen doesn’t like the Egyptian upstart. No matter how rich you are, the message is, you remain an Arab to the British. As a consolation prize he gets fat with Lady Di, but she is out herself, so she is not of much use to him.

Dismantling

The season begins with the christening of the Britannia, and ends with the dismantling of the royal yacht. The ship here symbolizes Elizabeth. Around her, the family is collapsing, with three divorces in one year, the embarrassingly intimate details of which make the headlines. Support for the royal family is crumbling, the new Labor government wants to cut spending.

The queen no longer has a grip on it and is kept out of it a bit. Her empire is also crumbling: after the loss of the crown colony of Hong Kong, you see her melancholy leafing through her stamp album. Her image is on old stamps from countries that are no longer hers.

The history of Queen Elizabeth II is also the post-war history of the United Kingdom, that broader story is covered less this season. The fact that politics fades into the background serves the broader idea that the royal family has become too obsessed with its own family vicissitudes, and that the queen is becoming less and less relevant. And then the really big blow is yet to come.

Queen Elizabeth is in all seasons of The Crown never really portrayed unfavorably. Sympathy for the British royal family is and remains the starting point of this internationally beloved series.