The Crown season 5: The key truth at the core of Netflix royal series

It only took one 34-second speech to capture the uncomfortable truth at the heart of Netflix’s The Crown.

The words come from an unlikely source, but it’s a speech that encapsulates the essential conflict at the core of The Crown, and of the real-life royals.

It captures why “modern monarchy” is an oxymoron.

In episode four of the new season of The Crown, premiering tonight on Netflix, a younger Prince Andrew laments to his mother the Queen, “That’s what we do in this family, destroy anyone who’s different.

“Not at the beginning, of course. First we tell ourselves how they’ll be good for the system. They’ll be our salvation, our secret weapon. Make us look more modern, normal, human.

“We learn the same painful lesson yet again that no one with any character, originality or spark or wit or flair has any place in the system.”

Andrew is not talking about himself or his outlier predilections. He’s talking about his soon-to-be ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who has been snapped having her toes sucked in St Tropez by a Texan millionaire.

He’s not angry in the scene, merely resigned.

The series returns for its fifth season. Picture: Netflix

He may be talking about Fergie but that 34-second speech could easily have been applied to Princess Diana, Meghan Markle and Princess Margaret (and scenes of Margaret are overlaid Andrew’s dialogue, making explicit her relevance to this).

It’s a searing insight into why The Crown is such compelling TV and why the streaming drama rankles so many royalists – and why so many members of the public are so obsessed with the Windsors.

There is an undeniable truth explored through Peter Morgan’s series which is that there is no “idealised family life”, a term spoken by the fictionalised John Major.

The British royal family are no more ideal than any family, they just happen to be born into immense wealth, privilege and power. And that so-called birthright puts each individual within that institution in an impossible position – even more so for those who join it.

Anyone with that “spark” finds themselves butting up against a power more forceful than them, because how can they, as one person, assert themselves in a structure whose continued existence relies on suppressing anything that could threaten anachronistic traditions?

Diana couldn’t be the star. The institution has to be the star. The institution is what endures, it’s what has to be protected. And every aspect of royal mythmaking has for centuries been to support this mission.

An idealised family? Obviously not. Picture: Netflix

The Crown understands this. All the drama within the series connects back to this key idea. Margaret’s unhappiness, Diana’s unhappiness, Charles’ unhappiness, Philip’s unhappiness. Even the Queen’s.

No one can ever be truthful because their truth doesn’t serve the institution. So you stiffen that upper lip, and you never complain or explain.

With those imagined behind-closed-doors emotions, Morgan’s series has done more to humanise the real-life royals than the Windsors ever could themselves. Being flawed and vulnerable is not part of the official mythmaking ethos but it’s what inspires compassion.

With the current season’s timeline in the early 1990s – that tumultuous time of Charles’, Anne’s and Andrew’s divorces, the burning of Windsor Castle – there’s plenty of drama to mine, and much of it was publicly played out at the time.

The Crown continues to explore that tension between individual desire and ambition and the institution, it’s the secret sauce in the show.

The fifth season deals with a dramatic time in the history of the royals. Picture: Netflix

With the Netflix series now in its fifth season, there’s not much more that can be said about its prestige sheen. It remains, of course, one of the most visually impressive shows with its superb production values and cinematography.

And when you cast talented thespians such as Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, Jonathan Pryce, Olivia Williams, Lesley Manville and Jonny Lee Miller, you’re going to get great, even sympathetic performances.

Morgan took over writing duties on every episode this season, which has its pros and cons, but The Crown has always had stronger episodes and a raft of weak ones. No matter how much the show has tried, it has never made the Queen’s love affair with horses remotely interesting.

Similarly this season, a subplot involving Philip’s investment in carriage-riding – even as it leads to a potential affair with Penelope Knatchbull – is as dull as all toffy equestrian-based past-times.

The Crown season five stars Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West. Picture: Netflix

But where The Crown does not falter is in its interrogation of the institution’s survival.

Each season has examined the continual challenges faced by the Windsors as a collective through the challenges they face as individuals – and given the plethora of scandals this season, it’s a rich, dramatic seam.

This season may chronicle events from 30 years earlier, but those same questions remain pressingly relevant today.

There are those who profess their love for the royal family because the Windsors represent something more than the mundanity of daily life. They love the pomp and ceremony, they love this idea that there is something larger than them.

But if an institution demands unquestioning fealty more than it recognises the humanity of those trapped within it, there is nothing modern about it.

The Windsors may be crucial to British cultural soft power, but does a dying empire deserve even the pretence of it?

The Crown season five is on Netflix from Wednesday, November 9 at 7pm AEDT

Originally published as The Crown season 5: The key truth at the core of Netflix royal series