The Crown: Heavy is the Head

My favorite episode from the first season of The Crown was "Scientia Potentia Est" (and not just because that's Latin for "Knowledge is Power"). In this episode, the young Queen Elizabeth hires a private tutor to give her a proper education. She was raised solely to be a good wife, mother, and princess, but never to be a Queen who ruled most of the world's population. As a result, while she has a thorough knowledge of how to breed horses, she has a distinctly muddled understanding of art, literature, or world politics. Filled with self-doubt, she asks her tutor to give her an education that will let her talk intelligently with men like Winston Churchill without being outmaneuvered or out-debated. And yet, ultimately, it is her rigorous grasp of the British Constitution (the one subject drilled into her as a child) and her rank and bearing that help her to give Churchill the dressing down he deserves and assert her authority.

While the first season of The Crown felt like a marvelously lush history lesson, the second season manages to blend both history and psychology in fascinating ways. Building on "Scientia Potentia Est," the recurring theme of this season is Elizabeth's impostor syndrome and her hatred of the spotlight. Her family is no support, with a philandering husband, a wild sister, a clueless mother, and a fawning bunch of old-fashioned courtiers who continue to advise her as though the world hasn't changed since Queen Victoria's reign. In the brilliant Episode 5, "Marionettes," she comes under fire by peer-turned-journalist, Lord Altrincham, who points out just how out of touch the monarchy has become with the British public and suggests ways in which they must improve (suggestions that you may recognize as still being in place today).

As the season builds to its climax, we see a world-weary Elizabeth steadily grow a backbone and learn how to use her position to her advantage. In Episode 8, "Dear Mrs. Kennedy," Claire Foy turns in a particularly masterful performance as Elizabeth feels washed out and irrelevant when pitted against the glamorous American First Lady. Though the two women bond, there is an interesting dynamic at play, one which will be familiar to anyone who understands the complicated ways in which women help and hurt each other. Ultimately, they play their political games the way they know best, and they do forge a special bond that only women in positions of unimaginable power can share. But it is always a struggle, and as Elizabeth says, "that's the thing about unhappiness. All it takes is for something worse to come along to make you realize it was happiness all along." By the end of the season, it remains patently clear that here is a woman who will never truly embrace the role of being the Queen.

This season also gives us deep-dives into the psyches of other members of the Royal Family. Episode 9, "Paterfamilias," is an absolutely grueling exploration of Prince Philip's childhood and his subsequent treatment of his son, Prince Charles. It's a quintessential illustration of how the sins of the father are visited upon the son, and while it will make you empathize with Philip (mostly because Matt Smith is impossible to hate) and understand a bit more as to why he is such an irritating and odious figure throughout this series, you'll still take Charles's side and never quite be able to forgive his father. But the true star this year is Princess Margaret, played by Vanessa Kirby, who deserves Best Supporting Actress statuettes left and right. After her doomed romance in Season 1, she finds love in Tony Armstrong-Jones (played by the delicious Matthew Goode). The scenes leading up to Tony's proposal in Episode 7, "Matrimonium," are set to a devastatingly romantic Max Richter recomposition of Vivaldi's "Spring" that made my heart soar. And yet, these two people enter into this marriage for such twisted reasons that tragedy is inevitable.

The Crown is a breathtaking show with outstanding actors, impeccable production values, crisp scripts, and an ability to make history come alive in a personal and relatable way that feels fresh even after the events being discussed are decades past. There is a whole tirade by Prince Philip about how he underwent intense scrutiny when he wanted to marry Elizabeth despite the fact that his father was a King, while now Princess Margaret is freely allowed to marry a common photographer with a social-climbing mother. That scene feels particularly apposite given that Philip's grandson, Henry, is currently engaged to a biracial, divorced, American actress, who will probably do more for the Royal Family than any insipid duchess of "good breeding." So watch The Crown. Like all great history lessons, it teaches us how we went wrong in the past, so we can learn for the future.