[Editor’s note: The A.V. Club will publish episode recaps of The Crown’s fifth season every weekday at 1 a.m. Eastern through November 22. The following details episode five.]
Ça se passe! La robe vengeance ! Tamponnez ! Après avoir mis en place les dominos de la Guerre des Galles pendant près d’une demi-saison, La Couronne est enfin arrivé aux bonnes choses. Creusons.
“The Way Ahead” est l’épisode de Charles (Dominic West) du début à la fin après qu’il ait été la plupart du temps sur la touche depuis la première. Nous ouvrons avec lui en train de pleurnicher jusqu’à la nausée à propos de son rôle de prince de Galles, d’abord en voix off, mais il est ensuite révélé qu’il parle à tout un dîner d’amis. “Que suis je? Je ne suis qu’un ornement inutile. Coincé dans une salle d’attente, prenant la poussière. Il y a un silence gêné alors qu’ils le regardent tous, puis quelqu’un dit: “Vous êtes une ressource gaspillée criminellement, monsieur.”
Cet homme aime le son de sa propre voix, et cela est sur le point de lui causer des ennuis. Nous sommes en 1989 et il se retire dans sa chambre pour appeler Camilla (Olivia Williams), qui se trouve dans un monde totalement différent : une maison confortable, célébrant les vacances et jouant à un jeu de cartes tapageur avec sa famille. Son mari répond à l’appel de Charles, et ils discutent maladroitement pendant que Camilla abandonne le jeu de cartes pour prendre l’appel.
He wants to run a speech that he’s giving at Oxford by her, and while she’s less than enthused (“Is it very long?”), she lets him do his thing. As he talks, we hear the crackle of radio chatter and the camera leaves Charles’ window to swoop across English landscapes, lingering on radio towers and telephone lines. A man in a van–an “amateur radio enthusiast,” we later learn–stumbles upon their conversation and hits record.
He takes the recordings to The Daily Mirror, and the tabloid doesn’t want to run the transcript and break up a royal marriage, so they pay the guy and decide to keep the tapes for another day.
Another day comes a few years later, once Charles and Diana announce their formal separation. The palace’s official statement says they have no plans to divorce and will continue their royal duties separately. Okay then.
Having finally gotten what he’s been asking for, Charles is looking forward. He’s part of a task force put together to “safeguard the monarchy’s survival in a rapidly changing world,” and he pushes the envelope. Rather than meaningless baby steps like letting the public into Albert Hall or making bowing optional for some members of the royal family, what if they considered taking action on education, the environment, or allowing the eldest daughter to ascend the throne? Charles argues the monarchy should be “less about mystery and magic and divine right and more about our practical role in today’s society.”
It’s a pretty good showing for the future king of England, and everyone, including Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton), notices. “Separation from Diana has liberated him. Energized him,” she says. “The solution we are looking for could be right under our noses.” It’s definitely the nicest thing she’s ever said about her son.
Unfortunately, it’s all about to come crashing down. Charles gets word that because of the formal separation, The Daily Mirror feels at liberty to publish his recorded phone call with Camilla. The aide informs him that the call is “intimate. Very intimate.”
Yikes. We flashback to get the tail end of that conversation, in which, while talking about how much they miss each other, Charles says he would like to live inside her trousers. Even as a tampon. It is horrifyingly embarrassing, and soon, the entire world knows about it. Reports say it has “raised doubts over whether the Prince of Wales can ever be king.”
Anne (Claudia Harrison) visits Charles, who is weathering a cold and the utter humiliation in bed. The Crown has done a great job establishing the sibling dynamic between these two, who give each other a hard time but seem to always have each other’s backs in a family where that’s rare. “In your life, you’ve brought a great many problems upon yourself. But no one deserves this,” Anne tells him.
Philip (Jonathan Pryce) feels differently. In front of their task force, he lays into Charles for essentially pressing the self-destruct button on the monarchy. He asks him to recite the motto of the Welsh Regiment (Charles begins in Welsh–a nice callback to his time learning the language in season 3–but Philip barks, “In English!”). “Better death than dishonor,” Charles mutters, and I have to point out that no matter how big of an asshole this guy is, he does not deserve his father essentially telling him to kill himself.
Especially not…for this? We have seen Charles demean and verbally abuse Diana, but people are not reacting to him having an affair with Camilla. They’re reacting to the cringe factor of saying you would like to be reincarnated as a tampon. As Charles and Anne protest, this was a private phone call. If transcripts of my most embarrassing phone call were published, I’m sure my parents would have some choice words for me, too, but it’s not a character flaw.
Following the beatdown from Philip, Charles tells Camilla he needs to protect himself. So he starts setting up his own court of advisors, and they connect him with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby to do a “hard-hitting” interview and documentary on his role as Prince of Wales so that people can get to know him and what he truly believes.
Does the public “want someone who errs, but learns from their mistakes? Who recognizes the need for change? Or someone who is content to keep making the same mistakes and to keep things as they are?” Charles asks in his interview.
The reaction to the special is mixed, but as the prime minister (Jonny Lee Miller) tells the queen, the public was particularly impressed with his response that rather than being the defender of the Church of England, he would see himself as the defender of all faiths, as he would also be king to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, etc. Elizabeth sniffs at this. “The Crown is an inanimate object. Charles prefers to be animate.”
Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), for her part, responds to the interview by attending a summer party in her infamous “revenge dress,” kicking off “a more volatile phase” of their separation. And Anne comes to take Charles to task for criticizing Elizabeth in his interview, but he’s unfazed, confident in the reaction he’s getting and the direction he wants to go.
Anne reports back to the family: “For years, I doubted Charles, that he wasn’t tough enough, strong enough. Look what he’s just come through. He’s not as weak as everyone thinks. The Charles I saw today was strong.”
Did Charles write this episode? For all the handwringing about how upset Buckingham Palace was about the new season of The Crown, “The Way Ahead” is essentially one big puff piece in support of the new king. What an incredible edit he got. In the credit sequence, young people pull him into a circle and he breakdances (to be fair, this s’est réellement produit). Dominic West tourne dans une performance autoritaire et charismatique d’un homme que je n’ai jamais vu être autoritaire ou charismatique. Mais parce que cet épisode est resté carrément dans le drame des principaux acteurs, il a fini par être le plus convaincant de la saison jusqu’à présent.
Observations parasites
- Si vous vous demandez si l’enregistrement de l’appel téléphonique de quelqu’un est illégal ou non, La Couronne a une réponse pour vous : ce n’est illégal que si vous avez l’intention de le faire, et le passionné de radio amateur est censé être tombé sur Charles et Camilla par accident. On dirait… une mauvaise loi.
- Un peu d’humour : Quand Anne rend visite à Charles au lit, elle lui apporte un médicament contre le rhume « qui fonctionne réellement » au lieu de la baie de sureau et d’autres herbes qu’elle sait qu’il prend.
- Dans “War” de la saison quatre, Camilla est secouée par la tournée américaine réussie de Diana et par l’amour qu’elle porte au public. Elle dit à Charles que si elle affronte Diana dans la presse, elle perdra, et cela se concrétise ici. À la suite des enregistrements, des journalistes se tiennent devant sa maison et lui demandent son avis sur les personnes qui l’appellent “Plain Jane”.
