Season 5 ofThe Crownlaunched in November 2022, to mixed reviews from critics. There are some big moments in this season, particularly revolving around the divorce of Charles and Diana, and this season sees the Queen reflecting on the dysfunction within her own family.
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AsThe Crownedges closer to the present day, balancing fact with dramatic storytelling becomes more difficult. Some dialogue in this season - particularly the infamous Diana interview with Martin Bashir - is lifted directly from transcripts. Other dialogue is, of course, imagined, but the show has no shortage ofincredible quotesin its Season 5.
7"Peter was my sun. My water. And you denied me him." - Princess Margaret
Episode 4,Annus Horribilis, chronicles one of the worst years of the Queen’s life. As she deals with the broken marriages of her children and a devastating fire at Windsor Castle, her sister is busy reconciling with the lost love of her life, Peter Townsend. Peter and Margaret’s doomed love story was a particularly heartbreaking focal point of the first season: Elizabeth refused to bless the potential marriage of her sister on the advice of the Church of England, and they were forced to separate.
Years later, with Townsend nearing the end of his life, the pair reunite and lament the life they could have had together. The end ofAnnus Horribilissees Margaret unleashing her heartbreak and fury at her sister’s decision. It’s a truly emotional moment, acted impeccably by Lesley Manville, the latest actor to step into the role of the tumultuous princess. Elizabeth pays tribute to her sister in a speech at the end of the episode, in which she refers to her whole family, particularly Margaret, as her “sun and water”, in their first step towards reconciliation.
Episode 6,Ipatiev House, contains one of the most brutal moments in the show’s history: it depicts, in graphic detail, the horrific slaughter of the Romanov family. Years later, Prince Phillip is asked to give a sample to help identify the bodies of his long-deceased relatives. The memory of these brutalities brings to the surface a lot of long-held resentment locked within Phillip, and it all comes tumbling out in this episode.
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Phillip tells Elizabeth how he feels: lonely, disenchanted and frustrated with everything he had to sacrifice to marry her. She questions how he has managed to alleviate this loneliness over the years, and he responds that he has to seek friendship elsewhere. Phillip makes it clear that he doesn’t have a romantic interest in anyone else (he’s actually referring to his platonic friendship with Penny Knatchbull), but for a moment, Elizabeth fears the worst, and Phillip’s statement about companionship hangs in the air for a beat too long.
5"Do you have to tell me these things?" - Prince William
Much of Season 5 deals with the explosive breakdown of Diana and Charles’s marriage, and for the first time, viewers get to see the impact the media intrusion is having on their children. The Queen shows concern for her grandsons - particularly William - as his parents take turns airing their dirty laundry in public. Diana is close to William but relies on him too much for his age, and this becomes apparent in Episode 8,Gunpowder.
In a phone call with her son, Diana asks William if he’s made any friends at Eton. She uses this as a launching pad to tell him about her new relationship with Dr.Khan. “I wanted you to be the first to know,” she says. There’s a pause, and then William responds “Do you have to tell me these things?”, marking the first time William ever stands up for himself. Diana, to her credit, takes the hit, but the conversation leaves her shaken and regretful.
4"Were you looking at his eyes?" - Princess Diana
In Episode 7,No Woman’s Land, Diana accompanies her acupuncturist to the hospital. Waiting for news of her friend’s husband, Diana dutifully holds the hand of her friend. Until Dr.Khan appears. Diana is completely smitten with him, much to the bewilderment of her friend. “Quite dishy, wasn’t he?” Diana says. “Dr.Khan. His name was on his shoes.” Diana’s friend tells Diana that given the fact Dr.Khan was delivering important news about her husband, she didn’t actually get to see his shoes. Diana cheekily responds “Were you looking at his eyes?”
While Diana is being spectacularly unhelpful to her friend at this moment, it is nice to see the happy, vibrant, excited side of the princess, especially given the turmoil she suffers through in Season 4. Season 5 has some particularly dark moments, and these moments of levity help to balance things out.
The penultimate episode of the season,Couple 31, interweaves the stories of ordinary couples in the process of their own divorces, alongside the final breakdown of the marriage between Diana and Charles. It’s an incredibly sad and intimate episode, and the final confrontation between Charles and Diana confirms that the latter never stood a chance in the first place.
Both sides are spitting with fury, and it becomes clear that even if a spark of tenderness remains, they’ll never be able to overcome their anger with each other. Charles asks why Diana bothered marrying him in the first place, and she tells him that she married him because she truly loved him. When she bats the question back at him, he finally says it out loud: his parents forced him to, even though he was in love with someone else. It’s an utterly devastating moment for Diana and a heartbreaking end to their relationship.
2"No matter what historians make of it, you will always rank highly in my personal table of Prime Ministers." - Queen Elizabeth II
In Episode 10,Decommissioned, viewers see the arrival of Tony Blair in a landslide victory for the Labour party. In her final meeting with John Major as Prime Minister, the Queen takes a moment to praise him, an unusual moment given she is supposed to be politically neutral. (Viewers also see Charles openly admiring Tony Blair in this episode, so perhaps the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.)
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John Major finds himself in a difficult, unexpected position in this season ofThe Crown, as the Queen asks him to act as a kind of intermediary between Charles and Diana as they try to reach a divorce settlement. Perhaps not what he had in mind when he ran for Prime Minister, but he does manage to negotiate, and Elizabeth can’t help but show her gratitude.
1"Well there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." - Princess Diana
In Episode 8,Gunpowder, viewers finally get to see the infamous Martin Bashir interview with Princess Diana. While the interview isn’t word-for-word accurate to thereal event, it does get pretty close - Diana did, famously, state that there were three people in her marriage, a bombshell that rocked the world at the time, even if Charles’s affair with Camilla was an open secret.
The episode allows viewers to see the reactions of various family members as they watch Diana’s interview, including what she thought of Charles being King, how the Royal Family treated her while she suffered from postnatal depression, and of course, Charles’s love for Camilla. It’s an explosive episode and a painful moment for the family.
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