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Special Episode: ST&TV Tries on The Crown (Part I)

Updated: Dec 18, 2023

Part one of Netflix’ series finale of “The Crown” covers some historic modern royal history. Let’s chat about every moment.


As longtime Sweeties know, we’re self-professed royal watchers. We’ve shared several royal family-related milestones. For instance, last year, we gave you our take on the Harry & Meghan documentary. And then, earlier this year, we woke up before the birds to watch the historic coronation.  


So, we’d be remiss if we didn’t cover the final season of Netflix’s groundbreak series. This is just part I. We’ll have part II for you in a few weeks.


Come on y’all - grab the tissues, grab a cup of tea, and let’s get into it! 


Our sources (in case you want to dive in further):




 

Transcript

Salina: Hey, y'all.

Salina: Okay, well, welcome to a very special episode of Sweet Tea and tv's Extra Sugar.

Salina: Hey, y'all.

Salina: We're going off book, and we're going to pivot ever so slightly from what we typically do, teasing out a topic from designing women to instead chatting about another tv show that's near and dear to our hearts.

Salina: The crown.

Nikki: The crown.

Salina: The crown.

Salina: The crown.

Salina: It's either german, french, or a british accent.

Salina: I don't know.

Salina: Anyways, the Crown is a prestige tv series on Netflix, in case you don't know, and it first aired in 2016.

Salina: It's inspired by real life events, a fictionalized dramatization of the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign, tells us.

Salina: Netflix.

Salina: The show was created by Peter Morgan, who is also known for the queen last, King of Scotland, and Frost Nixon.

Salina: The first four episodes of the 6th and final season dropped on November 16, and the final six episodes drop on December 14, which I do believe is the same day this extra sugar releases.

Salina: But don't hold me to that, because calendars are tough for me.

Salina: We're going to talk about the first four episodes here, and then we'll come back at a later date to talk about the last six, which should be after the holiday, because we have the holiday to contend with first, and then we'll come back and talk about royalty.

Salina: This feels as good of a time as any to say, spoiler alert.

Salina: If you haven't seen it yet, we will definitely go into spoiler territory.

Salina: And then some.

Salina: And then the last thing I'll say is, for those of you who have been with us for a while, you probably don't need the explanation for why we're covering this.

Salina: But if you are new, you may be wondering, why is this happening?

Salina: And I'm happy to tell you, why am I here?

Salina: Yes, well, we ask the same question every day.

Salina: So Nikki and I are both well established anglophiles.

Salina: Before sweet tea and tv was even an apple in our eye.

Salina: A sweet tea in our eye.

Salina: Whatever.

Salina: We watched Harry and Meghan's royal wedding together.

Salina: Indeed.

Salina: Nikki and her daughter Carolina threw us a coronation celebration earlier this year.

Salina: And this time last year, we did a special episode on the Harry and Meghan docuseries on Netflix, season three, episode 25, if you'd like to hear that one.

Salina: And a disclaimer.

Salina: Fascination with the royal family is not endorsement.

Salina: We are indeed Americans with our own set of problems, so the joke is indeed on us.

Nikki: I'm glad you said that, because I was sitting here thinking, I just want to be clear.

Nikki: That doesn't mean I'm a royalist or thinner, whatever.

Salina: Every time I have to say it, because I think people are like, oh, you like a monarchy, do you?

Salina: Did I say that I like a monarchy?

Salina: Or did I say I like drama?

Nikki: I love the drama.

Salina: I also was giving it some thought, too, because I think one could argue.

Salina: I'm going to argue that there are some connector points with designing women, at least one we've shared before, but I've thought about some new ones.

Salina: Okay, so the first thing is the show itself.

Salina: Designing women, that is, seems to have some kind of fascination with the british royals.

Salina: They've referenced them many, many times.

Salina: Or how about Diana and Delta Burke?

Salina: Different on the surface, but perhaps more connective tissue than one might think.

Salina: Here, just go with me.

Salina: Okay?

Salina: Both women went through rigorous training.

Salina: One to be a princess, the other to be a pageant queen.

Salina: Both are very charismatic.

Salina: They both have that indefinable quality that draws every eye in the room.

Salina: That makes you a star, but also makes you a target.

Salina: Speaking of being targeted, they were both helmeted by the media, particularly the tabloids.

Salina: The media was endlessly fascinated with both of their bodies, albeit in different ways, and they both fetishized and consumed them.

Salina: Both women took back their own narratives at different points, using the media to do so.

Salina: Both were trying, in their own ways, to fight a larger system.

Salina: The royal family or Hollywood different?

Salina: Yes.

Salina: And yet both are similar in systems.

Salina: There was even some overlap in the timelines of their respective stories, with some of the biggest things happening in the early 90s.

Salina: We will talk about this in a future.

Salina: Extra sugar.

Salina: But there was a Delta bombshell interview with Barbara Walters in 1990.

Salina: On the other hand, Andrew Morton's tell all book, Diana, her true story, it comes out in 1992, a book it's later revealed Diana directly contributed to.

Salina: So what do you think?

Salina: What do you think?

Nikki: An excellent intro.

Nikki: I have to confess, before we start, that you didn't watch the first four.

Salina: Episodes of the Crown.

Nikki: No.

Nikki: So I fudged up.

Nikki: And so we're working on sort of a compressed timeline to prepare for this particular episode.

Nikki: And these are very long episodes.

Nikki: The Crown is.

Nikki: It's a very big investment.

Nikki: So I started watching, and something just felt weird to me.

Nikki: I just felt like I'd never seen it before, but it felt like they had a lot of ground to cover to get to what I thought I understood they were covering in the first episodes of this final season.

Nikki: I got halfway through the fifth season and realized that I was watching the fifth season, not the 6th season, so I missed the fifth season.

Nikki: And this is sort of that thing I've told you about before.

Nikki: There are some shows I just can't bring myself to finish or to bring to completion.

Nikki: And I think the crown is one of them that if we weren't doing this, I probably wouldn't see it.

Nikki: I probably would be watching.

Nikki: Like, I love the show, but it's finishing and there's like a sense of completionism that I just hate.

Nikki: So I had to skip the second half of season five to skip to season six.

Nikki: But when I made that comment in one of our documents that there was something in the first episode, I already had to Google.

Nikki: Yeah, I was watching season five when that happened.

Nikki: Season six.

Nikki: This is much more like recent royal history to me.

Nikki: I understand and identify with a lot more of this.

Nikki: So I want to start with that preface because there's half of season five I haven't watched.

Nikki: So any spoilers you got there, save them.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: And this was the first time you've watched season five, then?

Salina: Yep.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: I didn't know if you just didn't remember what had happened.

Nikki: No.

Nikki: She met Dodie for the first time at the beginning of season five and I was like, good lord.

Nikki: How are they going to get to what they're going to get to?

Salina: Well, there you go.

Nikki: So when we talk about what we wanted to talk about first, which was sort of talking about show favorites, I can only use seasons 1234, half of season five and now half of season six.

Nikki: It's most of the show.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: But I'm missing something.

Nikki: So at the risk of starting vague, what do you like most about the show?

Salina: So one of my favorite things about the series is that every two seasons we get a change of the guard where different actors come in to play the queen and other members of the royal family or other key characters, and that's because the show is covering roughly 60 years.

Salina: So we can't really have a 25 year old play, a 75 year old.

Salina: I mean, that's just silliness.

Nikki: They tried to do it in Harry Potter and it didn't work out.

Salina: You did like the de aging thing and it's just weird.

Salina: So that is the very first thing that I would say is a favorite for me.

Nikki: Okay, how about you?

Nikki: I think that the sets are really amazing to me and probably should have looked into this a little bit more how they do it because there were parts.

Nikki: Again, when I was watching season five thinking it was season six, I was like, oh, my gosh.

Nikki: These sweeping shots of the palaces and the sweeping shots of the grounds, it's really darn impressive because my understanding is the royal family, they don't confirm much ever publicly, but they confirm a lot privately.

Nikki: That makes it into the press.

Nikki: My understanding is this show is not really doing it for them.

Nikki: They're not super excited about it, especially later seasons.

Nikki: Exactly.

Nikki: So I don't know that they would have given permission to get those sweeping shots of palaces.

Nikki: So it must be digital somehow.

Nikki: But the cinematography is beautiful.

Nikki: Yeah, I love it every single time.

Salina: I only know from listening to a podcast that there are certain things that are CGI in this season, which I think was a complaint for one of the podcasters that I was listening in this season.

Nikki: Okay.

Salina: But I don't think in previous seasons.

Salina: But I agree, because obviously they are not sitting there in Buckingham palace.

Salina: That's not going to be allowed.

Salina: But I think they do a pretty darn good job with the scene setting and then bringing into, certainly something that has been built or whatever the case is.

Salina: So I will tell you that another favorite thing for me about this series is just the writing.

Salina: I think it is so good, and you kind of see this happen in several different ways.

Salina: I mean, we're talking about something.

Salina: It's six seasons now, so you've got a lot of content to play, and.

Nikki: It'S ten episodes, and each episode is like.

Nikki: Conservatively.

Nikki: Yeah, I was going to say conservatively.

Nikki: 50 minutes to 60 minutes.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: So the character development is probably some of the best that I've seen, and each character is just so perfectly drawn.

Salina: Most, with very few exceptions, are pretty well used across the seasons.

Salina: Even as the cast changes, the different relationships are so layered, so nuanced and rich.

Salina: Maybe it helps that there is so much to draw on from real life, and that's true.

Salina: But it could go sideways in the wrong hands, both through the writing and with the camera.

Salina: To your point, they go through these painstaking efforts to show us repeatedly a deep truth about the human condition.

Salina: We are all from very different circumstances.

Salina: Some of us are poor, some of us are queens, some of us have everything.

Salina: Some of us have nothing.

Salina: And yet we all go through the same ups and downs.

Salina: Life, death, marriage, divorce, lost love, second chances.

Salina: You get the idea.

Salina: And the show may be centered on the queen, but I love that they take us on these little side journeys, sometimes with main characters or even peripheral characters, but it usually threads us back to the main narrative or maybe deepens our understanding of this world.

Salina: So it's never without a greater purpose.

Nikki: I was reading a review recently that said, actually, this show intends to not be about the queen because Peter Morgan did the queen, and that was sort of his attempt at showing the history of the royal family through her eyes.

Nikki: So a lot of the side stories, it all has to be about her ultimately.

Nikki: Like they say multiple times.

Nikki: Like, she is the alpha and the omega of the family.

Nikki: She's the one they're all working for.

Nikki: But they spend so much time talking about these other stories because creatively he needed something else to explore.

Nikki: But I agree with you.

Nikki: I like the storylines, and I like hearing about some of the characters that I know less about.

Nikki: There was a couple of seasons where they focused on Prince Philip, and the show changed my perception of him and made him more endearing to.

Nikki: I mean, I don't know how true any of it is, but I didn't have a really good feeling about him, and I can't remember if it was season two or season three.

Nikki: One of the seasons changed him and made him more endearing to me.

Nikki: It has made me feel more strongly about Charles and not in a good way.

Nikki: So it's definitely influenced my perception of the royal family.

Nikki: I really, on the note of the characters, the costuming is top notch in this show, and sometimes the costume actually makes the character.

Nikki: So all I know about Princess Anne is a top knot and, like, knee length skirts.

Nikki: Beyond the fact that she's just sort of generally a.

Nikki: I think when I think Princess Anne, I have a very clear image that comes to mind.

Nikki: And this season in particular, they had Claudia Harrison in oversized vests and knee length skirts, like, multiple times, and all I could see was Anne.

Nikki: She just looks just like Anne.

Nikki: It was really impressive.

Salina: Yeah, well, and I think in this season in particular, so much of what we're seeing already is probably some of the most photoed moments of time.

Nikki: And when they put the Diana pictures side by side, like the original picture with the character, I'm about to cry.

Salina: Okay, no, keep talking.

Salina: That's just how weird I am.

Nikki: When they put those pictures side by side, they definitely take some creative liberties.

Nikki: Like, they don't have exact replicas of the clothes.

Nikki: But if that is not emblazoned in your memory, which is what they're banking on, you remember enough to know she's in a one piece floral bathing suit.

Nikki: If that's enough for you, then they can really make you feel like you're watching something real.

Nikki: And maybe we'll talk about this in a little while.

Nikki: I don't want to go too far.

Nikki: This season in particular was hard to keep real from fiction for me because it feels real, because we kind of lived through some of this stuff, and it feels so real.

Nikki: And so I had to keep reminding myself multiple times more than I had in previous seasons.

Nikki: Like, this isn't real life.

Nikki: This isn't a documentary.

Nikki: They didn't just film these people.

Nikki: So the things that it makes you feel about Diana, the things that it makes you feel about Charles, they're not necessarily fair.

Nikki: Emotions or feelings, characterizations you're putting on them, and I have to keep reminding myself of that.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: Do we want to talk about.

Nikki: Do you have more things you like about the show you want to talk about, or you want to move on to your favorite season or episode?

Salina: We can go on to favorite seasons.

Salina: Do you want to kick it off?

Nikki: Sure.

Nikki: So, at the risk of being basic, I'm going to put season one up there.

Nikki: Okay.

Nikki: Because Claire Foy, I thought was incredible.

Salina: Oh, yeah.

Nikki: It sort of set the stage that season set the stage for what feels like a very singular show to me.

Nikki: There aren't a lot of Game of Thrones comes kind of close.

Nikki: It's all about royalty, but in a very different timeline, in a very different world.

Nikki: Nothing else like that.

Salina: Very different.

Nikki: Nothing else like this.

Nikki: This show is a real life, like you said, a real life dramatization.

Nikki: So there were historic events in season one that I've never known about.

Nikki: Seeing Queen Elizabeth as a young woman, I was going to say girl.

Nikki: That's why I put my quotes up.

Nikki: But a young woman, seeing her as a young woman inheriting the crown was just like a very crazy adventure to go on.

Nikki: And it just set the stage for, I think, the rest of the seasons.

Nikki: And I really liked that.

Salina: I love that take.

Salina: So I will tell you that right now.

Salina: So watching the latest season has put me in a total rewatch for one reason or another.

Salina: So I watched season five to prepare for season six.

Salina: So we were on the same timeline, kind of then watched season six, and then I was like, well, what happened in four?

Salina: And so I've been watching them.

Salina: So I went back and I watched four and then three.

Salina: Now I'm going back and watching one, and I'm ending on two.

Salina: I'm about halfway through it right now.

Salina: That is a very long way of saying I have almost rewatched the series again.

Nikki: Oh, my God.

Salina: Which is what I could have said.

Salina: You'd be amazed what you can tackle in a workout in the morning and watching a show.

Salina: But I think it's very tough to say what my favorite season is because there is a part of me that it depends on the season I'm watching, but if I absolutely have to pick one, I would say four.

Salina: And I think it's the perfect amount of Diana, which when we hadn't gotten to Diana yet, I was like, when are we going to get to Princess Diana?

Salina: When are we going to get there?

Salina: And then we got there, and I was like, it's like that thing where I just got too excited, I think.

Salina: And so what I like about four, it's the perfect amount of her without losing the rest of the cast.

Salina: I also really like the addition that season of Margaret Thatcher, including her up and down relationship with Queen Elizabeth.

Salina: I think it's such a nice mechanism to talk about larger things that are going on in the world both then, but that still matter today.

Salina: There is a lot of gender politics.

Salina: It's just really interesting.

Salina: This is really hard, though, for me to talk about also a favorite episode, because I have several different contenders in mind.

Salina: But if I'm going to pick one, I'm going to say season four, episode two.

Salina: And this is where Margaret Thatcher and later Diana are put to the titular Balmoral test.

Salina: Titular?

Nikki: Titular?

Salina: It's okay as long as you just say the whole word and not just the first part.

Salina: That's what I hear from designing women.

Salina: We'll get there, guys, in another episode.

Salina: So Balmoral is the castle where the royal family goes to retreat for the summers and the holidays.

Salina: And then the balmoral test is a vetting or a hazing, depending on how you look at it, where the royal family tests new guests to see if they fit in.

Salina: And they basically have to prove, can we be a good sport when the royal family turns up the heat.

Salina: And in the episode, Thatcher's visit is an epic failure, while Diana's is a triumph.

Salina: But you also get this.

Salina: The other thing that's in the sauce is like, it doesn't matter how well Diana's going to do.

Salina: Prince Charles doesn't love her.

Salina: And that is also made apparently clear.

Salina: Like, we know that, but this episode is kind of like a tipping point for that as well.

Nikki: Yeah, I think season four was also one of my favorite seasons.

Nikki: I didn't even try to pick a favorite episode one because I haven't rewatched the series recently, so I couldn't tell you what happened in every individual episode, but also because I don't know that I could ever do that.

Nikki: It's just there are elements of all of them but I did really like season four.

Nikki: And I just remember feeling really sad watching the beginning of their relationship because I know how it ends.

Nikki: Like, I know what's coming.

Nikki: I remember feeling really sad about that.

Nikki: I will say one of the struggles I've had with the Diana thing, I didn't get.

Nikki: I have a little bit of a hot take sitting across the table from you with my take on Diana.

Salina: Don't be so sure.

Nikki: I wasn't super excited for her to come.

Nikki: I think the reason I love season one and maybe even a bit of season two so much is because it's so far removed that it feels like history.

Nikki: And it doesn't matter how accurate or inaccurate really it is.

Nikki: At the end of the day, when we get in the later seasons, we're talking about some people who are still alive, some people who are no longer alive.

Nikki: Some stories will never know because they're not here anymore.

Nikki: Some stories will never know because they'll never tell it.

Nikki: And so it starts to get a little bit.

Nikki: It feels very one sided.

Nikki: And they say that in this new season, Doty says it.

Nikki: Remember who I really was.

Nikki: And, like, sort of this concept of don't make me mythical because I'm dead.

Nikki: That line, that one singular moment, is almost how I feel about Diana.

Nikki: She has been mythicized to a point that she can do no wrong, and I'm not sure that's fair.

Salina: I want to be very clear that in more recent years, that myth has really tumbled down around me.

Salina: And I'm okay with that because I agree with you.

Salina: I think it's dangerous for us to lionize people like that and to put them on pedestals.

Salina: Like, I wouldn't want to be put, please don't ever put me on a pedestal.

Salina: I'm a piece of crap, and I don't need anyone trying to make me into something fancy.

Salina: I wouldn't want it done to me, and it's not fair for me to do it to anyone else.

Salina: I think Diana was an incredibly flawed person, just like any other person.

Salina: She just had a lot of really cool attributes and came at a very specific time.

Salina: And there was just, like, a lot of things there that, where all the stars align to make her what she was.

Salina: But at the end of the day, she's a person.

Salina: And I think if anything, in kind of digging even more in, in recent years, and we'll talk more about this, how human she was is just so much more apparent.

Salina: I actually am not sure the show goes far enough will be my criticism.

Nikki: Right.

Nikki: So I think that's what I was struggling with.

Nikki: My in depth knowledge of Diana pretty much begins and ends with her death.

Nikki: I know about the interviews, and I know about the challenges with Charles, but my real life knowledge of her really sort of is like, I remember watching her funeral.

Nikki: I remember thinking how sad, like, this feels momentous.

Nikki: I remember thinking that.

Nikki: And I know about the legacy she left with her kids in the last couple of years.

Nikki: We're seeing so much of the messiness of that, which is not her doing.

Nikki: Obviously, she had very little influence on their lives in the grand scheme of things, but I don't know.

Nikki: I just don't know that much about her.

Nikki: And watching this makes me feel like they have assigned some positive things to her that I'm not sure really were positive.

Nikki: But that's not what we're talking about.

Nikki: We're still just talking about her favorite season or episode.

Nikki: Do you have anything else you want to say in this category?

Nikki: I'm skimming through my notes to see if there's anything.

Nikki: I'll just be sad if I leave it out.

Salina: Do we want to talk about whether or not favorite cast or anything that's.

Nikki: Next on the list?

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: So you already mentioned at the top, they change every two seasons.

Nikki: I don't want to go through the entire cast, but just for anyone who hasn't really watched it, there were three Queen Elizabeth's, there were three Philip's, three margaret's, three Ann's, three Charles's, and then two go.

Nikki: I have the list of actors here.

Nikki: I started to go through it, but maybe it's better just to talk about maybe your favorite.

Nikki: Do you have a favorite queen?

Salina: Oh, okay.

Salina: Well, I can still do it that way, too.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Olivia Coleman.

Salina: I did it wrong.

Salina: There's no wrong.

Salina: I'm just trying to keep up with you.

Salina: So Olivia Coleman is.

Salina: I just think she gives Queen Elizabeth so much life and so much depth.

Salina: It doesn't take away from the other two actors that portrayed the queen at all.

Salina: You can see me in real life blanking on names, and you've already said.

Nikki: One of Foy, claire Foy.

Salina: Like, I am loving that performance right now because like I said, I'm about to wrap up my rewatch and seeing how she transforms from a young.

Salina: I mean, she's 25, but that's a very young person into the Queen Elizabeth that is more in line with what we did know is transformative and amazing.

Salina: I just love Olivia Coleman.

Salina: I think she is just absolutely everything.

Nikki: She did a great job with the character.

Nikki: I will say, amelda Staunton has been.

Salina: My least favorite queen.

Salina: I don't think she's been given a lot to work with compared to previous seasons.

Nikki: They've made her really cold, and it almost feels like there's been a shift in her character.

Nikki: Like, I never found Olivia Coleman cold.

Salina: Yeah, I think that is.

Salina: Well, there's a couple of scenes, but on the whole, I agree with you.

Salina: I think in listening to some other people's takes who are really big, like royal family watchers and also very knowledgeable about Peter Morgan's the Queen, that Helen Mirren didn't play it that cold.

Salina: And the queen is very similar to the.

Salina: And I haven't seen.

Salina: It's in my queue to watch, and I was going to try and do that before.

Salina: See, I can't.

Salina: There are some things I can't get to.

Salina: I did not get to watch the Queen in order to have this conversation today.

Salina: But the first four episodes of this season are very similar to that movie because it's looking at the same thing, which is like the queen trying to figure out how to deal with Diana's death and to make the decision to leave balmoral and go into London for the funeral.

Salina: All those things is really what it's circling, and it does it in two very similar and yet very different ways when it comes to the character.

Salina: So, favorite queens, yours is obviously Claire Foy because you've.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: I thought she just was so glamorous and beautiful, and this is me romanticizing that time period the way Charlene romanticizes World War II.

Nikki: But it was also just sort of breathtaking to see her become a young queen.

Nikki: We don't have to go character by character.

Nikki: Do you have a different way you looked at it?

Salina: I just did.

Salina: Like, these are my favorite cast members.

Salina: I think they're all falling in seasons three and seasons four.

Salina: I guess I was just trying to kind of keep it contained somehow, and this was the only way I knew to do it.

Salina: To your point, it's not an easy exercise because there is so many cast changes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Salina: What I do think is important to say here because of what you said at the top, is that so?

Salina: For you, it doesn't sound like Prince Charles won any favors in your eyes.

Salina: For me, I feel completely different.

Salina: I spent my entire life not being someone who could understand him at all, and Josh O'Connor playing him in seasons three and four almost single handedly made me reconsider my feelings about who is now King Charles.

Nikki: Really.

Nikki: He's so self pitying.

Nikki: He's just always so, like, I've been given such an unfair lot in life, and I'm like, you live in a palace, dude.

Nikki: And I'm not one to say every.

Salina: Single one of these.

Nikki: I'm not one to say, like, you minimize other people's feelings because of their life circumstances.

Nikki: But I do think there's something to be said for acknowledgment of your privilege and life circumstance.

Nikki: He gets called out on it a few times throughout the.

Nikki: Just a really.

Nikki: That's a real trigger point for me.

Salina: I think that's the same for Princess Margaret.

Salina: I see that over and over again.

Salina: But I think it's also kind of seeing these threads again, going back to that point I made earlier about even though there are things that we can just never understand about someone born into these particular set of circumstances, they're so wildly different than the rest of us.

Salina: On the other hand, I can understand lost love, and I can.

Salina: At least there is something tragic.

Salina: It does set up this tragedy for him that he loves someone else, wanted to be with her, is forced into a marriage, and then wildly changes a bunch of people's lives.

Salina: I'm not saying that.

Salina: It's just the first time I think I ever saw anything from his perspective at all.

Salina: And again, to your point, we are watching a dramatization of real life.

Salina: So I don't know.

Salina: Actually, I think one of my takeaways from the entire series is the show is a huge Charles sympathizer in my eyes.

Nikki: Definitely this season, because, again, because it's so dramatized.

Nikki: Like, I don't know what I'm going to get into this in a little while.

Nikki: I don't know what his reaction to some of these events was.

Nikki: I don't know if he really said some of these things, but it definitely.

Nikki: So when I started watching season five, thinking it was the last season, I was like, holy crap, they're going for him now that he's been coronated.

Nikki: Because where I started was Camilla Gate and the tapes.

Nikki: And, I mean, that was the first half of season five.

Nikki: That's where I was coming in, thinking that was the final season.

Nikki: I was like, holy crap.

Nikki: They really wanted to, right?

Nikki: I was like, they really wanted to come for him right after the coronation.

Nikki: Now that I'm watching season six, it is much more sympathetic to him.

Nikki: Yeah, I have to say, Vanessa Kirby played Margaret, so that was Claire Foy's counterpart in the first couple of seasons.

Nikki: I think she is captivating, and I thought her entire performance was beautiful.

Nikki: Speaking of tragic and speaking of a circumstance that's just all the way around kind of sad.

Nikki: She did a beautiful job.

Nikki: Helena Bonham Carter played her.

Nikki: She was the next circulation.

Nikki: She added a beautiful darkness to her.

Salina: But almost too dark and very that.

Salina: So that was my think it.

Salina: But I think part of it is too, is I kind of like seeing that trajectory, though, because she is also like the canary in the coal mine for what happens with Charles because she's like, hey, remember when you did this to me, like 20 years ago or however long ago it was.

Salina: And I think she continues to be this voice of reason even though she's going through so much hardship.

Salina: And I don't like to see someone be in pain, but I do like the intricacy of that character kind of you.

Salina: Isn't that nice?

Salina: I'm so sweet.

Salina: I do like the intricacy of when she is clearly having some real depression issues and goes and discovers about the family that they had locked away because they had mental health issues.

Salina: Right.

Salina: And I like learning about that because I think, again, this is one of those things where a side story like that really deepens our understanding, both of her and the world of the show.

Salina: That's so smart.

Salina: And I think they used her really well in that.

Salina: And I love the episode where she winds up going to the states to be with think that.

Salina: I think that is another example of them using a character really well to do a thing and setting up this tension that is just throughout the seasons between her and her sister, also known as the queen.

Nikki: Do you have other favorite characters you want to talk about?

Salina: Those were mine.

Salina: Coleman, O'Connor, and Carter.

Salina: I think the one thing I have to say, though, because you mentioned Game of Thrones earlier, and it just hit me this season, all three of the men who play Philip are portrayed by someone in the Game of Thrones universe.

Nikki: Oh, that's funny.

Nikki: Crazy funny.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: So Matt Smith is Prince, Damon Targaryen in the new spinoff.

Salina: That's the prequel.

Salina: Tobias Menzies is Edmar Tully, and Jonathan Price is the high sparrow.

Nikki: That's really funny.

Nikki: That's funny.

Nikki: Jonathan Price was my favorite.

Nikki: Philip, by the way.

Nikki: I don't like Menzies.

Nikki: I didn't really care for him.

Salina: Oh, really?

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Moving on.

Salina: Poor Tobias.

Nikki: He doesn't care what I think.

Salina: No, nor I.

Salina: So.

Salina: Not to you.

Salina: He doesn't care what I think.

Salina: What I think I do.

Salina: Why am I here all the time?

Salina: So let's dive into season six with our top reactions.

Salina: Although I would argue that we've been dabbling in season six all along.

Salina: Yeah, but what were your first blush reactions to these first episodes?

Salina: So.

Nikki: I think initially, like I said a minute ago, I was thinking about what is the show trying to say about Charles and where are we in both, but thinking also, like, where we are now.

Nikki: So they ended up laying out.

Nikki: I'm trying to decide if this isn't an old note or not.

Salina: Say it.

Salina: And I'll tell you, maybe he was.

Nikki: Kind of laying out a vision for a more modern and forward looking monarchy.

Salina: Was that season five?

Salina: I think so.

Nikki: Okay, that's an old note then.

Salina: But it does kind of carry on, though.

Salina: I think that's sort of the push pull from the minute he is an adult in seasons, even back to season three, and I'm forward.

Nikki: I do wonder again.

Nikki: I tried so hard not to read too many reviews because I didn't really want other people's opinions to sway mine.

Nikki: In general, the reviews I've read of the Crown really aren't that great in general.

Nikki: There's a lot of criticism about slowness, a lot of criticism about the dramatization, but what else are they going to do?

Nikki: They don't have transcripts of these people's lives.

Nikki: So I tried not to read too many of them.

Nikki: But one of the ones I read really talked about how the show really is.

Nikki: You called it a Charles sympathizer a minute ago, and I was thinking, he just had his coronation.

Nikki: This series is coming out now.

Nikki: He is not a huge fan of the show from what I've heard.

Nikki: And what is it trying to tell us, or what is it telling us?

Nikki: And my takeaway was that they are Charles sympathizers, because I think a lot of the stuff around Diana, like the queen said it at one point, he caused her so much pain in her life, and then at the end, he was like, now we're going to do right by her.

Nikki: But I did appreciate that line where he know I'm going to do right by her in death.

Nikki: Thought that was nice.

Salina: It was well written.

Nikki: That whole scene right there was really well written.

Nikki: But that's what I was thinking about going into this season, when I finally got into the right season, was thinking about where are we in time with Charles and what are they trying to tell.

Salina: I just.

Salina: I will say that it was also been hard for me not to read, and I'm doing this from memory, so I apologize if I'm getting this wrong, but if I understand correctly, Peter Morgan, when he first sets out and he starts doing a lot of this years ago.

Salina: He is much more critical of the royal family as time goes on.

Salina: I think he almost brings himself around more to understand their particular set of circumstances.

Nikki: He gaslit himself.

Salina: I do think he has become much more sympathetic over the years.

Salina: And I do think you start to feel that in the narrative of the show, in some ways.

Nikki: It'S such a tough job, and I don't mean to ever take away from how complicated their lives are.

Salina: I didn't know if you meant to write the show that, too.

Nikki: But no, I can understand why he maybe would come around learning more about them and learning more about the structure and the functioning or some of the.

Salina: Things that, like, maybe.

Salina: Okay, so maybe eventually Queen Elizabeth is seen as being outside the understanding of the times, but back at the beginning of her reign, there are these things that she did that were incredible or these incredible moments all along the way.

Salina: And so I do feel like you could start to see the stacking of that argument to argue for them again.

Salina: I think it just sort of comes back to this idea of everyone is flawed, stop putting people on pedestals, and maybe we just let people be humans.

Salina: I don't know.

Nikki: But when they put themselves on a pedestal, that's really challenging.

Salina: That's true.

Salina: My very first blush reaction to the show is about, like, I understand why it's Diana all the time right now, but I do feel like this has thrown off the balance of the show a little bit.

Salina: I just really missed spending time with the other characters.

Salina: I was.

Salina: Yeah, let me go ahead and say this, because I think it's really related.

Salina: A lot of this show is rewatchable for me because it's so detailed that you can miss things.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: So I get to go back again and be like, oh, but I don't feel that way at all about these first four episodes.

Nikki: You don't think they're rewatchable?

Salina: Not for me.

Salina: Okay, so it's probably because you already talked about this.

Salina: I very much remember 1997.

Salina: I remember the day she died.

Salina: I remember that being very affecting for me.

Salina: And for that reason, the only suspense of these first four episodes was seeing how the show would unfold a story I already know.

Salina: Once you know that, it feels like trauma p***.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: And that is not something I want to relive over and over again.

Nikki: I actually put off even watching what I thought were going to be the first four episodes of season six because I knew the car crash was coming and I wasn't sure I was ready for that because I thought it was going to be a little exhibitionist.

Nikki: Like, I assumed they were going to be a little gratuitous with it because they really wanted to make impact.

Nikki: So I was scared of it.

Nikki: And I remember it.

Nikki: Like I said, I remember the funeral.

Nikki: I remember the circumstances.

Nikki: I've heard the story over time.

Nikki: It's not something I'm super excited to relive.

Nikki: So I really kind of put it off a little while.

Nikki: And so that's what really tipped me, too, when I got halfway through and I was like, we haven't even gotten close to her crash yet, like, what's happening?

Nikki: But I actually thought, for what it's worth, I thought that was really well handled.

Nikki: It wasn't what I was expecting it to be.

Nikki: So I actually started rewatching from the beginning, after I finished the fourth episode, just to sort of go back because I was a little not in the right mind when I first started watching it.

Nikki: And I started rewatching it and I thought it was really well handled in that first episode.

Nikki: And then again toward the end, it's.

Salina: A tall order, I think, to strike both of those things.

Salina: It's something that has to be done well, it doesn't have to be, but one would hope with some iota of accuracy, but also to be super respectful, but also, like you said, to still have that impact.

Salina: And I think it was done very well.

Salina: Also, I think that some people don't feel that way, but what can you say, right?

Salina: Someone is always upset about something.

Salina: Apparently they swore up and down that they would not show the crash, and they really didn't.

Nikki: No, they didn't.

Salina: I mean, it was alluded to.

Salina: You kind of saw it coming around the corner.

Salina: They led up to it, but I think they still had to find ways to interject that drama.

Salina: I agree with you.

Salina: I think it was well done.

Nikki: I think this season also felt like the first one where I felt like I knew where we were in time.

Nikki: Like, I identified with the time a little bit at the very beginning.

Nikki: Diana and William are driving and they're listening to tub thumping.

Salina: Yes.

Nikki: There's so much walking on the sun comes on later.

Salina: Every 90s song I wouldn't listen to again.

Nikki: Oh, God, I love both those songs today.

Nikki: They're such bops.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: I would listen to both of them.

Nikki: Smash mouth, man, to get me, I don't know.

Nikki: Will was listening to something on his headphones in the scenes in episode four.

Nikki: I read that it was something by Radiohead which had been released just a few months before her death.

Nikki: So angsty, so they really leveraged music to put you in time, and it worked for someone like me because I have such a catalog and a mental.

Salina: Catalog of music you couldn't go anywhere and not hear.

Salina: It is so 1997 that it is maybe the most representative song of that year.

Salina: So I couldn't agree more with the song choice to represent that time.

Nikki: Yeah, I would listen to it still, but it's the first season that I've watched, and I felt like, oh, this makes sense to me now.

Nikki: Like, I'm not watching an epic historical drama.

Nikki: I'm watching.

Nikki: I'm watching these days, even though it's not these days.

Salina: I think it was also to show a little bit of Diana's personality.

Salina: She's the hip, you know, she's cool.

Salina: Mom.

Salina: She knows tub whatever it is.

Salina: Chumbawumba.

Salina: I said, tubbawumba.

Salina: Whatever.

Salina: Anyways, okay, so the fourth episode unearthed for me something I hadn't emotionally experienced in some time.

Salina: So this was another one of kind of my first blush reactions just to watching those first ones.

Salina: And that's how her death had such a global impact.

Salina: It's like she unlocked some kind of feeling in people, and the world seemed to all kind of grieve at once, and the sadness was palpable.

Salina: And I felt that again in the fourth episode.

Salina: And with them interjecting in the real scenes of all the people coming to the gates, no matter how we feel about, again, that kind of immortalizing of Diana and whether or not that's fair, the sheer ability she had to bring that amount of people together is tremendous.

Nikki: I had to ask Kyle.

Nikki: I said, did you hear me crying last night when I finished the fourth episode?

Nikki: And he was like, no.

Nikki: I was straight up sobbing through that fourth episode when Philip said to William, william said, why are they crying for someone they don't even know?

Nikki: He said, they're not crying for her.

Nikki: They're crying for you.

Nikki: And that hit 15 layers of feels for me.

Nikki: And I think the world.

Nikki: Part of that outpouring was for the boys and this overwhelming sadness of, in general, she was young, she was beautiful, she was vibrant, and she died.

Nikki: That's heartbreaking to watch all the things she had been through in the press recently, heartbreaking that this was the end of it all.

Nikki: So I think, like you said, it triggered something, and people needed that release.

Salina: So that was a favorite for me as well, that part.

Salina: What were some of your other favorite scenes?

Nikki: So, going back to the car crash, the very opening scene where this man is just this regular person, I don't think we had any indication that he was anybody special.

Nikki: He was just a normal person going about his business, taking his dog for a walk.

Nikki: And that walk coincided with possibly the most influential car crash of modern history.

Nikki: And that was kind of this beautiful.

Nikki: Putting this magnificent and historic family alongside a normal person.

Nikki: This normal person watching this.

Nikki: And then that choice to fade to black but leave the horn honking after the accident was such a powerful choice.

Nikki: So I really liked that opening scene, which they came back to, obviously, in episode four.

Nikki: I also really liked the second and last one I'll mention is there was one part in episode four where they overlaid Diana's landmine walk with the yacht photo shoot situation, where she and Dodi.

Nikki: It may have been episode three, actually, now that I'm saying it, where they were on the yacht and the pictures, the paparazzi pictures are being taken of them.

Nikki: I kind of took a step back and thought about that from a conceptual level, and that was a really beautiful pairing.

Nikki: Landmines are dangerous.

Nikki: This relationship she's into is dangerous.

Nikki: And she's towing this really dangerous and tenuous line and overlaying those two together.

Nikki: When you take that step back, you're like, holy crap.

Nikki: What a mind blowing two moments in her life to put together that had such strong parallels.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: Yeah, I think this show really likes that.

Nikki: Yeah, I love those things.

Salina: They like to bifurcate and kind of pair up different things that have similarities but aren't similar to kind of give the audience that really important juxtaposition.

Salina: So I think, for me, in episode two, favorite scenes where Charles talks with Diana outside of the car, they agree to get along.

Salina: And he said he's proud of her for the landmine campaign in Bosnia.

Salina: Speaking of the, it just.

Salina: I don't know.

Salina: It just felt like a final nice moment for them, which I think also kind of is a nice build up to something.

Salina: If you're just talking about the dramatic tones and not necessarily the real life, whatever.

Salina: All of the first three episodes are building up her sadness, but also she's trying to grow, she's trying to change.

Salina: And so I think helping the audience really kind of understand just how monumental this next thing is going to be and really draw the lines for us, why it's so tragic.

Salina: And it's not just because it's a death.

Salina: This will have some overlap with our next category.

Salina: But when Prince Charles goes to identify Diana's body in Paris, and when Queen Elizabeth reads her statement about Diana over the visual of the funeral procession, those were favorite scenes for me as well.

Salina: I think we know one of the biggest tear jerking moments for you.

Salina: Are there any others that had you worried if Kyle heard you crying?

Nikki: I think the scene setting stuff, the really dramatic choices they made, got me sometimes.

Nikki: So there were two moments this season, specifically you just mentioned when the surgeon told Charles Diana had died, and then when Charles was breaking the news to the boys, rather than rely on dialogue or try to ever rebuild what actually happened there, they went to just music playing and just watching the interaction.

Nikki: And I think that's just such a beautiful creative choice.

Nikki: One to get them out of having to write what was probably an impossible scene, but also to allow your mind to fill in the gaps a little bit and allow you to fully.

Nikki: That's probably what it sounded like to those poor boys when they heard their mom had died was like complete silence.

Nikki: And I just thought that was kind of a beautiful choice.

Nikki: And so that made me weepy.

Nikki: And then, of course, Charles said in episode four, they asked if he had told the boys yet, and he said no.

Nikki: He was letting them sleep while they're sleeping.

Nikki: They still have a mother.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: That was sad.

Nikki: Get me again.

Nikki: Oh, my gosh.

Nikki: How horrible.

Nikki: Yeah, but those were the ones that I really pulled out.

Nikki: What about you?

Salina: Yeah, it's just really.

Salina: Anything in episode four is up for grabs.

Nikki: That's a tough watch.

Salina: Yeah, the whole thing, just front to back, is just really tough.

Salina: So two moments I've already mentioned, but even that very first phone call that reaches Balmoral and this is kind of like a crown regular event where it takes a long time for a phone call to reach the queen or anyone special.

Nikki: How disconnected they are.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: And so you kind of go through these things of reaching the right people, and of course, it's in the middle of the night, and then you just kind of see them, like, sleepily come down the stairs and you just know something horrible is about.

Nikki: All the lights in the palace came on.

Salina: Amazing.

Salina: Moomoo with Dodi in the coroner's office was heartbreaking.

Salina: I mentioned this, too, but the real life footage of everyone showing up at the palace gates, I thought that was really well used.

Salina: So those were some of them for me.

Salina: What were the best performances for you so far?

Nikki: Those scenes in Paris where they're sort of shuttling between locations with the paparazzi and there's attention everywhere.

Nikki: When they sit down at the restaurant, Diana is.

Nikki: You've watched her clearly.

Nikki: Each scene is building, and she's getting more anxious and she's getting more overwhelmed, and she sits down at the dinner table, and it finally all starts to pour out of her.

Nikki: But she also has to balance.

Nikki: But she's like this very public figure, and people are watching her, and that's not what they want to see and not what they expect.

Nikki: And she has to hold it together.

Nikki: That whole bit.

Nikki: For me, I felt the anxiety and I felt the stress, and I thought that Elizabeth Dabicki, her performance was in that particular set of scenes was so amazing.

Salina: If she's not on your list, I would just be surprised for Elizabeth Debicki to not be on someone's best performance list.

Salina: Yeah, I mean, she's the alpha and the omega of these episodes.

Nikki: I didn't mention it earlier, but when we were talking about favorite cast members, I do think it's weighted a little heavy on the Diana side for a lot of things, but she was such an amazing, like, she just was Diana.

Nikki: She did such a beautiful job.

Nikki: The head tip, someone went.

Nikki: One of the reviews I read was just know if you can get past the fact that, know, six foot four, taller than Doty, skinnier than Diana ever was, and you can only tilt your head so many times.

Nikki: And I was like, oh, come on.

Nikki: Like, she was doing a beautiful.

Salina: If you go back and look at Diana, her head's tipped a lot.

Salina: So I think what that was was a really close character study.

Salina: I mean, yeah, she is taller, and she is very tall, but Diana was very thought she did beautifully.

Salina: I mean, just absolutely.

Salina: So I had, like, the poise, the elegance, but the playfulness.

Salina: But also there's just this sadness right behind the.

Salina: And I.

Salina: Beautiful.

Salina: My other favorite was Dominic west.

Salina: As I just, first of all, he's the only other person that got screen time except for.

Salina: So we just don't really spend a lot of time with any of the other characters.

Salina: I am saying something that a lot of people have said.

Salina: Dominic west in that role is a very big glow up.

Salina: He is a very charismatic actor.

Salina: Apparently.

Salina: He's also friends with Prince Charles.

Salina: Awkward.

Salina: So he doesn't really have that much to do until the fourth episode.

Salina: But he just burns up the screen every single time for me.

Salina: So those were my two tops in the first four episodes.

Nikki: Claudia Harrison.

Nikki: So she portrayed Anne, and I said earlier, with costumes, like, she looks like Anne, but there were also just a few little tiny pieces of performance that were so, like, what I do know about Anne is this is what she seems like.

Nikki: So there was a part where they run out to go find for.

Nikki: Find William.

Nikki: He's missing, and they're all going to look for him, and everybody's panicking and you can just hear her.

Nikki: They're not focused on her.

Nikki: You just hear her, like, out in the ether.

Nikki: She says, all right, no need to panic.

Nikki: And it was just very, like, it was very Anne, I don't know.

Nikki: So, like, practical and low drama.

Nikki: And I really liked that.

Nikki: Every time she was on screen, I loved watching her.

Salina: Think.

Salina: And that's fair.

Salina: You don't really get as much of her, but she does make a meal of every time that she's there.

Salina: And I like her interact, her interactions with Charles in terms of just them being siblings.

Salina: This is coming from someone without a sibling, but it feels so siblingy, sibling.

Nikki: Adjacent, as much as they can be good siblings, I think I did like Khalid Abdallah, who played Dodi.

Nikki: I don't want to gloss over him, so I don't feel like he says it.

Nikki: At one point, his story was never really told.

Nikki: And he and his dad, I think when they're having the ghost scene, they talk about how his story was just never going to be told.

Nikki: It was always going to be about the princess.

Nikki: It was always going to be about the white lady.

Nikki: It was always going to be about her.

Nikki: But there was some story to him that they told which I thought was beautiful.

Nikki: I don't know very much about him.

Nikki: To his point.

Nikki: There's not much said about him or his story that has resonated with me, that has kind of filtered down to me.

Nikki: I'm sure people have covered it.

Nikki: It didn't filter to me for probably a million reasons, but I really loved every time he was on screen, I liked what he was doing with the character.

Nikki: I thought he was really well done.

Salina: Yeah, for sure.

Salina: I don't think there was any.

Salina: Let me not say that there were a couple of performances that didn't work for me, but on the whole, all the people that we saw the most I thought were just really doing a really good job.

Salina: For sure.

Salina: I have to ask you this, though.

Salina: This is just.

Salina: Are you ready for something truly off the gosh?

Nikki: I don't know.

Salina: Is it weird to you that they just kind of let William?

Salina: I know they searched for a little bit, but then they were like, casey and I both look at future king of England.

Salina: They're all back inside, like, warming by the fire.

Salina: And Casey and I looked at each other and we were like, they're just going to leave him out there.

Nikki: Leave him out there.

Nikki: And then later they're like, he was out there 17 hours.

Nikki: I'm like, because you didn't have the National Guard looking for him or whatever they're called in the UK.

Nikki: But, yeah, that was weird.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: I was like, is this right?

Nikki: That was such a weird, unnecessary side story, in my opinion.

Nikki: This is like.

Nikki: He did really do that, though.

Nikki: It was unnecessary.

Salina: There were a couple of those, I think, in this one.

Nikki: Did he leave for 17 hours?

Nikki: Was that validated?

Salina: I don't flippity flop if they're going.

Nikki: To mount such a huge search that everyone shy of the queen went out looking for him.

Nikki: Anne was out, Harry was out, Charles was out.

Nikki: Everyone's shy.

Nikki: She's cold.

Nikki: She doesn't care about people.

Nikki: But if everybody else was looking for him, then they are not going to just give up after an hour and a half or 2 hours or whatever.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Or at least give us like 16 hours later.

Nikki: Exactly.

Salina: Tell me something that lets me know that they look for more than 30.

Nikki: He's coming back.

Salina: Let it be dark.

Salina: It felt like it was still light outside.

Salina: Now, I will say, depending on the time of year, it gets dark really late, like 1030, but give me a timestamp or something, man.

Salina: I don't think they didn't care about this kid.

Nikki: I get that.

Nikki: The point was to make the point that he was lost and confused and didn't know what to do.

Nikki: You almost could have just said that.

Nikki: And then William disappeared for 17 hours.

Nikki: We didn't need them all going out to look for him.

Nikki: Yeah, that was a huge plot hole.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Okay, so I don't know.

Salina: This category is going to matter for you now, to be honest, Nikki, it's okay.

Salina: I've got stuff.

Salina: So particularly in the earlier seasons, we wind up getting a bit of a history lesson.

Salina: What was your big history lesson from season five?

Salina: You can tell?

Nikki: No.

Salina: I am a little curious.

Nikki: I started with that first episode where Philip is like, randomly at that woman's house, and they never actually say that.

Nikki: It's like a godson situation.

Nikki: The child, like, I had to look all that up because why are they chariot racing?

Nikki: Like, what is happening doesn't matter.

Salina: I gave up.

Nikki: What I will say is I have.

Salina: Wish they were chariot racing.

Nikki: It's a chariot.

Nikki: All the same, three things I'll mention here.

Nikki: Not a lesson learned, necessarily more of an unanswerable question, but Dodie and Megan this season makes it very clear that I think that Diana had no interest in long term relationship with Dodie.

Nikki: I did not know that.

Salina: Okay.

Nikki: I don't know if that's true or really, I don't think anybody really knows.

Salina: I think it's all based on people who were close to her that had had conversations.

Salina: But I can trust that about as much as I can trust anything I can't know.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: People that are close to her willing to sell that out in conversation.

Nikki: I don't know that I trust their opinion.

Nikki: But if they had ended up together, would Dodi and Meghan have had a thing or two to talk about at Christmas dinner?

Nikki: In terms of, are you talking about.

Salina: The woman he was engaged to?

Nikki: Meghan Markle, Dodie Fayed and Meghan Markle, if they had hung around and if they had met each other, would they have had things to talk about?

Nikki: In terms of the racism in the media that he experienced, he alludes to that feeling like an outsider to the family.

Salina: Okay, sorry.

Salina: I'm adjusting my brain because that just totally went.

Salina: I'm like, who's Megan?

Nikki: From one outsider to really?

Salina: We're talking about, like a piece down the.

Nikki: Unanswerable question.

Salina: Sure.

Salina: I like an unanswerable question, though.

Nikki: I also wanted to know if the boys really had to go to church right after they heard Diana die.

Salina: I was so annoyed by bit.

Salina: I would have not gone.

Salina: I would have been like, you're just going to.

Salina: And Casey was like, you have no idea what it's like to be part of the royal family.

Nikki: Casey does.

Nikki: Casey gets it.

Salina: It was something like that where I was like.

Salina: I was like, yeah.

Salina: And I do what I want, and that's what makes me american.

Nikki: I found a town and country article that confirmed they did have to go.

Salina: Really?

Salina: Okay.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: This is just like, get out of here.

Nikki: That was wild.

Salina: You can skip church.

Salina: That was the day after someone close to you, particularly your mother, passes.

Nikki: And there was no.

Nikki: As far as I remember, it struck me that there was no conversation about why everyone needed to go to church.

Nikki: I imagine it was to appear unruffled.

Nikki: I imagine it was to appear as a united front.

Nikki: It was a terrible choice, especially if the queen said that her goal was to take care of the family that was there.

Nikki: Why did she make them go to church?

Salina: Yeah, I assure you, God will understand.

Nikki: It was a terrible choice.

Nikki: The last thing I wanted to know was, did anyone really hear Charles crying at the hospital?

Nikki: So town and country confirmed part of this.

Nikki: It was actually at Balmoral, where staff heard him weeping openly.

Nikki: A nurse at the hospital did share that his face was ashen, like he'd been hit in the face.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: So this is where my post watch googling led me.

Salina: It was all about unpacking what was accurate and not accurate from these first four episodes.

Salina: Now, there's tons that we can pull from, but the one that really I was looking into initially was, and what was the most standout for me was the show turning Muhammad Al Fayed, our mumu, our beloved mumu from season five, into a villain.

Salina: They turn him into what feels like a straight up bond villain or something in these first episodes.

Salina: And I'm adding this with a question mark because I don't know that the showrunners agree that with my take that they've turned him into a villain.

Salina: We don't know each other, but it's how it reads to me.

Nikki: Oh, it's definitely how it reads.

Salina: Okay, so let's just call it a strange decision when they work so hard in season five to humanize this man.

Salina: You know, actually, that was going to be one of my favorite episodes, but I decided to keep everything and take in with season four.

Salina: But the episode where he gets the valet who was the valet of the guy who abdicated the guy who abdicated little king.

Salina: I hear myself, Edward.

Salina: Yeah, but which number?

Salina: That's where it gets.

Nikki: Where it gets confusing.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: So anyways, that episode is so beautiful and so lovely, and he takes care of him when he's sick.

Salina: And I'm just saying they do all of that.

Salina: And then in this final season, they put him in the center of events that lead to Diana and Dodi's death.

Salina: His own son pushing them together in the first place, asking staff to see if they're having sex, hiring the sleaziest photographer, this hunter of celebrities who will do anything to take what becomes the kiss photos, which in turn, further inflamed paparazzi interest in Diana and Dodi, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Salina: So it turns out there is no evidence he was behind those kiss photos.

Salina: Many actually believe that Diana probably hired the photographer in an attempt to make the man she really loved, haznat Khan, jealous.

Salina: So now we don't know that's true either.

Salina: And I have more thoughts about that.

Salina: But for right now, that final night of her and Dodi's life may have been more of a perfect storm versus the sordid orchestration of a power hungry know.

Salina: Here's what I learned from an excerpt of Tina Brown's book, the Palace Papers, published in Vanity Fair.

Salina: So Diana no longer had round the clock protection.

Salina: This was apparently her decision and not the palace's, as is sometimes reported.

Salina: And I'm not blaming one way or another.

Salina: We're just talking about things that could have led to this night.

Salina: Protection was instead provided by Dodie's security, who wouldn't know how to work the press outline where she was going and what would happen.

Salina: These are things that her protection officer and chauffeur standardly did, so they knew where to be and when to be there in order to get the pictures that they were sometimes brought in to do, and some believe this information would have prevented the chase that ensued.

Salina: I think a 2022 Vox article puts into words what is coming up for me this season, and this is all quoted from there.

Salina: It's not that the crown is largely false, but rather that it's usually pretty on the money because it's so often right.

Salina: The show's fictional liberties merge seamlessly with the truth and make it easy to take the whole series as gospel.

Salina: And so this is me again.

Salina: I guess it's one thing for Charles to read a poem he didn't actually read at Camilla's birthday party.

Salina: This is another fictional liberty, but it feels like a different kind of a thing to pin.

Salina: So much of that lead up to the night in Paris on one person.

Salina: The story reads much more complicated to me.

Salina: And then one other history lesson for me was revisiting the official british inquest into Princess Diana's death, which initially opened in 2004 and closed in 2008.

Salina: I had just forgotten all of the conspiracy theories around her death, including one theory that the royal family was behind it.

Salina: We'll link to an article, but the court explored several different sensational allegations, and ultimately the jury found that Diana and Dodi were unlawfully killed by the grossly negligent driving of chauffeur Henry Paul and paparazzi photographers pursuing their limousine into a Paris road tunnel in 1997.

Nikki: It was so confusing to me, and I don't understand paparazzi at all.

Nikki: I don't understand what was happening that night in particular.

Nikki: But how do you get to a point where you're being chased through a tunnel?

Nikki: Why not just stop and let them take a picture or just pull over to the side of the road and hope they go away or call the police?

Nikki: I don't know.

Salina: I feel like, well, racing down a.

Nikki: Two lane road isn't the answer.

Salina: It doesn't help that the driver with several drinks.

Nikki: Right, right.

Nikki: And that was a very big deal.

Nikki: But it's a blink and you miss it situation in the episode, though, if you weren't watching and you didn't see how many cups were sitting there, I think you'd miss that he had been.

Salina: Drinking from a receipt so in the inquest, he had had, like some kind of french liqueur, and they had two of those on there.

Salina: But people actually think he had been drinking more.

Salina: And there's like a whole narrative just around that.

Nikki: You could have missed that pretty easily, I think, in the show.

Salina: Absolutely.

Salina: It almost felt more like an Easter egg than a plot point.

Nikki: I agree.

Salina: That was all my history lessons.

Salina: Okay.

Nikki: There's so much to say.

Salina: Well, I think we were going to do some.

Salina: At least attempt to do some predictions, although more and more, I feel like, is leaking out into the media about what we can expect to see.

Salina: But do you have any thoughts?

Nikki: So you actually shared with me earlier this week that the last bit will only go through 2005.

Nikki: I saw that in some follow up as well.

Nikki: I was really holding out for willing Kate's wedding and maybe some of the build up to that.

Nikki: So I guess we're not going to get that.

Nikki: I guess at a minimum, we'll get a peek into their early relationship.

Nikki: So I guess I'll look forward to that.

Nikki: I don't know.

Nikki: I guess we'll see Charles and Camilla get married.

Nikki: I gotta be honest, I don't really know what was happening with the royal family from Diana's death until probably will and don't.

Nikki: I don't know too much.

Nikki: I remember Charles and Camilla getting married, but sort of a so what?

Nikki: In my opinion, in my very american, very non british opinion, sort of like a so what?

Nikki: So that's sort of what I'm expecting.

Nikki: What are you thinking about?

Salina: Well, I have to give full credit to the Ringer's prestige tv podcast because they've been doing some deep dives and I'm not as good as you, so I couldn't help myself and I listened anyway.

Salina: But I really tried to formulate my own opinions, and that's why I'm giving them credit on where credit is due.

Salina: But I think they had a really solid guess, which is that the show is likely to end with Camilla and Charles's wedding.

Salina: And it sounds like this has been further confirmed boring since then.

Salina: Well, take it up with Peter Morgan.

Nikki: Wasn't even a fun royal wedding.

Nikki: Like, they had to do everything on the DL because they didn't want to make a big production of it.

Salina: Yeah, I don't know.

Nikki: I mean, good for them.

Nikki: I'm happy for them.

Nikki: Seriously, watching his story unfold, it feels like his and Diana's lives were messed with, messed with significantly, and ruined in some instances.

Nikki: So it seems like he found his happy ending.

Nikki: And I think everybody deserves that all the way.

Salina: Like, in some.

Salina: I mean, I'm not talking about Charles.

Salina: It sounds like he's found his happy ending.

Salina: It's also been widely reported.

Salina: Good for him that filming of the season was paused after Queen Elizabeth died last year and that Peter Morgan changed the ending after her death.

Nikki: Oh, interesting.

Salina: I will have to say I was a little confused by that because I'm like, okay, but it's like almost 20 years before she died.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: But I think maybe.

Salina: Who knows how it was written and maybe.

Salina: I don't know.

Salina: But anyways, that apparently has taken place.

Salina: And then from the trailer, in addition to the fact that we do already know, we see Kate Middleton's see through dress, which was a big deal at the time.

Nikki: Such a big.

Salina: Gonna indicates that we're gonna see William dealing with newfound press interest and his seemingly unwanted teen heartthrob status.

Salina: I had a poster, so I do think we're getting a pretty big pivot to his life.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: And then my only prediction was, to your point, I don't know what was going on with the royal family in five, so I did some quick googling, and he does graduate that year.

Salina: And so it's possible we see that happen as well and maybe see some interaction between him and the family.

Salina: Just seems so like.

Salina: And then there was Easter.

Salina: They had a picnic, I will say.

Nikki: Thinking about the show as a whole.

Nikki: We watched Diana.

Nikki: I'm sorry.

Nikki: We watched Elizabeth literally put the crown on her head for the first time.

Nikki: It's a choice to end before we get to see it end before it really ends, knowing that we've all lived in a lifetime to see it end.

Nikki: I know she died very recently.

Nikki: I know the show was already slated to end, so it's impossible in four or five episodes to cover, to your point, 20 years worth of stuff, but it's a real choice to not cover some of the more recent stuff.

Salina: You know why that is.

Salina: Okay, we'll see.

Salina: Tell me and then I'll tell you if I know.

Salina: Okay.

Nikki: Can I say my presumption would be because it's really almost impossible to cover something living and breathing and have it feel any sort of true, because so much of it at this point is conjecture.

Salina: I think that's part of it.

Salina: I think the other part is Peter Morgan has been pretty vocal about this that he didn't want.

Salina: So I was actually surprised about five, because we're not technically 20 years from five, but that's basically his rule.

Nikki: Oh, we talked about this, I think.

Salina: Around Harry and Meghan we talked about this.

Salina: So 20 years out is where he feels like it can be more objective one, but also, he doesn't want it to be journalistic.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: And he feels like when you start to encroach on those closer time periods, it becomes more of a journalism investigation versus, like, a dramatic storytelling.

Nikki: Well, I'll be interested to see how we change the ending, because I had not heard that there was any sort of adjustment to the ending after the queen's death.

Nikki: To your point, who knows what that's going to look like?

Nikki: It'll be interesting to see that because I couldn't help thinking what it feels like a missed opportunity to not commemorate her death in some way.

Nikki: Because we have watched her entire reign.

Salina: That's right.

Salina: So I think that this was to mend that, to somehow give some kind of nod.

Salina: And I don't know what that'll look like.

Nikki: Could you imagine having that job to figure out how to do that?

Salina: There's so many jobs, so many I'm not sure I can figure out, including my own sometimes.

Salina: So I guess whatever way it plays out, we'll find out soon enough what the crown has in store for the six remaining episodes.

Salina: We'll keep you posted on when you can expect that breakdown to happen again.

Salina: It's going to be after the holidays.

Salina: Me too.

Salina: After holiday.

Salina: It's looking like early January then, so hopefully that gives everyone time to watch and process a little bit and catch up on the end of season five.

Salina: All right, but you know the drill.

Salina: Dm us, email us or contact us from the website.

Salina: Find us all over the socials.

Salina: And that's this week's extra royal, extra sugar.


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