AT LAST IT’S HERE. It will not surprise you to hear that I am all in for this show.
As with all good things, let’s start with a bit of housekeeping: The entirety of The Crown dropped on Netflix this weekend, and we know that some of you may have seen all of the episodes by now. We’re going to be rolling out our recaps twice a week — Heather and I will be splitting the duties — so don’t feel like you have to catch up immediately in order to follow along. Related: I’m not going to be too fussed about “spoilers,” given that this is all inspired by real historical events, so while I think it’s fair to ask you to keep any really shocking a-historical unfoldings under your tiara if we haven’t gotten to the episode in question yet — like, if they decided Philip is a vampire in episode five or whatever — don’t worry too much about that otherwise. We all know she gets to be the Queen eventually.
Onward! I am really excited to watch this entire series, and I fully expect our discussion of it to be fun. There’s a lot to talk about — the show as a piece of entertainment; the historical inaccuracies or lack thereof (a lot of which I am sure I will miss, so please feel free to chime in; unlike when I covered The People vs OJ Simpson, I was not alive and on the scene for this portion of history); whether or not we think Matt Smith is sufficiently hot to play Prince Philip; how proud I am that I’ve finally committed to memory that Prince Philip only takes one “L;” whether or not Prince Philip is really kind of an ass; the clothes, the rooms, the glorious vistas (the folks at Visit Britain have wisely already put together a guide to visiting a bunch of the real and stunning places they’ve filmed), the delight of royal logistics (my favorite topic); how rough poor Princess Margaret had it and also how she made some kind of bad romantical choices (a long-time trend in this family); how kindly Jared Harris’s face is and how much heavy emotional lifting he’s doing; etc, etc, etc.
In short, this opener really had everything. Ominous coughing, royal weddings, people being inducted into the Order of the Garter, beautiful rugs, Churchill brilliantly timing his entrance into Westminster Abbey for maximum impact with the choir, the brief return of Bertie from Downton, casually beautiful but deadly and therefore highly frustrating smoking, naughty limericks as a way to combat stuttering, fabulous sunglasses, INSANE HATS on delightful old biddies, really glamorous surgeries, the intense stress of redecorating, and, ultimately and fundamentally, that most British of topics, DUTY — to country, to king, to family, to father, to wife. Please join us to discuss, and come back Wednesday as we dig into episode two.
