The Cough
No better way to start a historical series than having a king cough dramatically disgusting bits of his insides into the toilet. Having said that, everyone knows that if you cough up blood in a movie or TV series, YOU WILL DIE before said creative endeavor is completed, and of course that is true for poor King George VI here, because Bertie must needs be felled by lung cancer before too long, or you know who will never ascend the throne. I want to open by noting, as I did in the intro, that Jared Harris is lovely in this role. I think it helps that we know he's doomed, but he also has such a kind face, and brings real subtle emotion to all of his scenes. (Obviously, having seen him in Mad Men, I also think I have a Pavlovian empathetic response to his very being.)
The Princess
I kind of appreciate that the show is opening the day before the wedding. We know Philip and Elizabeth get married; I suspect that seeing too much of their courtship might have slowed down the works a bit, and this is a show which -- as much as I am enjoying it hugely -- is already pretty languid in terms of pacing. Additionally: Princess Elizabeth could use a little more color next to her face. Additionally additionally, I'm interested in what the floral arrangements budget was for the Royal Family because wow there are a lot of bouquets in this room.
The Philip
As it is the day before the wedding, Phil is getting all his required British titles (and being very unceremoniously inducted into the Order of the Garter, without a plumed hat in sight) and also renouncing his Greek nationality and all his foreign titles. (Philip was a fairly unpopular choice for Elizabeth, given how a lot of his extended family were, uh, Nazis, so they really had to Extra-British him up.) In real life, this happened the morning of the wedding -- this show moves little details around for logistical reasons and takes a fair amount of creative license with stuff like that, and in this case, I think it makes sense because it seems INSANE that they did this the morning of the wedding when everyone would, you'd think, have other stuff to do. This is the first of many scenes in which Philip rather annoys me, in part because he smirks a little when Bertie stammers a bit before launching into his Now You're A Duke spiel. Have some respect, dude!
The Willoughby
Just thought you'd want to know that Greg "Mr Willoughby/Mr Emma Thompson" Wise is in the house, playing Philip's uncle Louis Mountbatten, who is also a fascinating historical figure (and the Louis for whom Prince William is partially named). His Wiki is a fascinating read -- he was, as you may know, eventually killed by the IRA -- and he was India's last Viceroy. (I strongly recommend his daughter Pamela Hicks's book about her childhood and their time in India, Daughter of Empire; it is fascinating and also very gossipy.)
The Kiss
Several things about this scene, in which Philip kinda complains that he just signed his soul and life and identity away:
a) Uh, you knew what you were getting into.
b) Your very VERY tardy agreement that getting to marry Elizabeth is worth it because she's "one of the greatest prizes on earth," makes you seem like a JERKWAD; don't leave your betrothed hanging like that;
c) Long closed-mouth kisses are weird looking. It's just people JAMMING THEIR FACES against each other.
The Longing
I believe this is the human depiction of the Heart Eyes Emoji. It's all this poor girl can do not to screech "eeeeeee can't wait to sleep you immediately!!!!" Girl, just wait until he actually slips you the tongue!
The Other Princess
Although this photo looks slightly as if Bertie is going to lay one on Princess Margaret, he's really just presenting his cheek for her excited kiss. I mostly wanted you to see her tiara and fur cape here, for The Royal Wedding Attendant Purposes. You know that somewhere, Pippa is shooting Kate an aggrieved text that she was denied a fur capelet.
The Once and Future Prime Minister
Also to be discussed: John Lithgow as Churchill. His voice seems pretty good to me, but I DID spend a lot of time thinking, "Hey! John Lithgow!" when I looked at him. (This is the scene wherein he brilliantly waits a moment before walking into Westminster Abbey so as to perfectly time his entrance with a chorus of angelic children warbling.) Also to be discussed: how much Harriet Walter (as Clementine Churchill) looks like a flamingo in his hat, and how much I LOVE HER. No one is better at her than Amusingly Snooty British Women, as seen in Downton and Sense and Sensibility and about two hundred other things. . (Clementine Churchill is also a fascinating person whose paternity is SUPER in question and who was secretly engaged to the same person twice, among other things.)
The Wedding
Whatever. (Just kidding. This was very thrilling. I love a good wedding, royal or otherwise, and as a set piece to open this series, this was a brilliantly showy one. I wager that VERY FEW people who would chose to watch The Crown in the first place do not slightly thrill to a grand royal wedding. Just that tromp up the very very very long aisle alone is dramatically satisfying. I look forward to making it my own when I succeed in talking Prince Harry into marrying an aged cranky blogger who's written all kinds of weird, questionable stuff about his family, and wrote a whole book based on an alternate version of his life.)
The Queen Mum and The Queen Mum's Mum-in-Law
HATS! Here we have the Queen Mum (just, you know, The Regular Old Queen at the moment) and her mother-in-law, Bertie's mother, Mary of Teck, who is a woman who saw some stuff in her time, including, of course, Son #1 running off with Wallis Simpson. She was also apparently a HUGE lover of tschoktes and could not stop buying things for the Royal Collection, usually hugely over-paying for them, so I think we would have gotten along. (Also, if you visit Windsor Castle, where she is buried [along with a ton of other people, including her son, and also Henry VIII], you HAVE to stop and look at her dollhouse, which they have on display there permanently. It is THE BEST. It is a massive delight. The toilets actually flush!) Anyway, both these hats are historically accurate AND rather hideous. Mary of Teck's looks like a wallpapered wheel of brie.
The Peter Townsend
In case you are curious, Margaret and Peter Townsend ARE giving each other The Eye throughout this episode, which obviously foreshadows their own romantic drama, which I assume we'll get into later. I clearly remember, when Charles and Diana were getting divorced, my own mother sighing, "they ALSO should have let Princess Margaret marry Peter Townsend!" Like, as long as we were enumerating Mean Things The British Royal Family Did With Regards To Marrying People Off.
The Gown
Here's your best look at Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown, which looks very much like my own grandmother's wedding gown -- and was, as you probably know, made in part using clothing rations. (The government nicely gave her extras; you've probably read that women all over the UK sent her their extras -- a detail which always makes my heart swell a little -- but she had to return those.) Wiki also just taught me that "the silkworms to manufacture the silk were bought from Nationalist China and not the then enemy countries of Japan and Italy, which were termed as 'enemy silkworms." WHO KNEW?
The "Obey"
The interesting bit in this scene to me is that (a) it's not particularly romantic and (b) Elizabeth insisted on including "obey" in her vows -- much to the irritation of one Clementine Churchill; Winston is like, "I KNOW. There have been MEETINGS." That's not the bit she hesitates at, though, when she gets to it. It's the "to have and to hold" part. I thought that was an interesting place to give her the nerves, and look forward to your thoughts.
The Smirk
Phil does a lot of smirking throughout the ceremony, especially at the "for richer, for poorer," bit, like, WE KNOW, Philip, but no one expects you to be as rich as the royal freaking family. (I get that a lot of this show is going to be about gender roles and Philip feeling emasculated by his wife in a time when men were certainly not raised to be cool with powerful woman. However, I am also prepared for that behavior, however historically accurate, to really annoy me.) (On the other hand, while Philip has ISSUES, he was also extremely kind and loving and supportive to Wills and Harry when Diana died, and he gets a lot of points in my book for that. But THAT is several seasons away.) Anyway, I can't decide if the show wants us to think Philip is kind of a dickhead, or what. I think...maybe? I mean, he might be one.
The Crown recap, season 1, episode 1, "Wolferton Splash"
You can't see it in this shot, but there's a great moment where Philip's mother sweeps into the photo wearing her nun's habit, and Mary of Teck sniffs that she's "straight from the sanitarium." Apparently, she ACTUALLY wore her habit to the Coronation, but I understand why they moved that bit of history to this point: It tells you a LOT about Philip's family. We've talked about this before here, but Philip's mother, Alice of Battenberg, was VERY INTERESTING. In short, per her Wiki: "In 1930, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland; thereafter, she lived separately from her husband. After her recovery, she devoted most of her remaining years to charity work in Greece. She stayed in Athens during the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognized as 'Righteous Among the Nations' at Yad Vashem. After the war, she stayed in Greece and founded an Orthodox nursing order of nuns known as the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary." After things got a bit hairy in Greece in the late 60s, she came to Buck House to live with Phil and Liz until she died. You really should read her entire Wikipedia entry, though. It has everything, including Nazis and Freud.
Also a fun detail here: That background kept getting swapped out for the photos, like a map of the United States your teacher would pull down over the chalkboard for geography. We saw this room when we took the Buckingham Palace tour two years ago, but we did NOT get to see the magically changing backdrops.
The Camera
This scene was, I thought, very touching. Bertie's gift to Elizabeth is a camera -- I almost wrote, "a video camera," but it's of course a film camera -- and tells her, "if your marriage is as happy as mine has been, I don't want you to miss a single thing." I might love Bertie. DON'T DIE, BERTIE. BERTIE STOP SMOKING.
The Balcony
This is also a GREAT moment, when they all go out to the balcony to wave at the public -- Princess Elizabeth's mother calls her "Lilibet," as that is her nickname, and it is what my own grandmother (who is about QE2's age) also calls my little sister (who is named Elizabeth), and I'm sure that she got it from reading about QE2, so hearing it sort of touches my own heart. Hi, Grandma! I love you!
Anyway, seeing the moment where they all go out on the balcony from inside the palace, instead of watching them emerge from outside, is a very well-done and well-orchestrated visual, and also gives us a good bit in which we see the King's anxiety and general discomfort with public life. So much of this show is about the disconnect between public and private lives, which Heather and I are obviously very interested in (The Royal We is VERY much about that) and this was a really good visual metaphor.
The Montage!
In addition to being a nice gift, Bertie's camera also allows us to montage through a couple of years and two royal babies.
The Anne
Aw.
The Malta Period
And the young family is off to Malta, where Elizabeth gets driven around in a gorgeous speedboat and Philip does a lot of shirtless rowing and everyone is very tan and happy and wearing good sunglasses.
The Sunglasses
What did I tell you?
The Party
And this gown is GORGEOUS, for a party celebrating Philip's promotion -- a party which is ruined when they get a call from London that they need to come back, because the King is having lung surgery.
The Bertie
You can't really tell here, but that's Bertie from Downton taking the call. We'll get more from him later.
The Chaz and Anne
I did think you might want to see how cute the Wee Prince Charles is. This is good casting.
The Surgery
This is one FABULOUS operating theatre. (They really did perform this operation in the Palace. I also read that the show used real surgeons in this scene, for verisimilitude, and this article about it is extremely interesting.) I demand all of my medical procedures to involve chandeliers henceforth.
The Waiting
"I have my doubts about this rug," Elizabeth is thinking.
Of course, Bertie survives, but also of course, he's in BAD SHAPE and no one really tells anyone that, including him -- although the show implies that Philip figures it out once he wanders into the operating theatre later and looks at the-still-there diseased lung that has just been removed from his father-in-law and king.
The Vermin
Also, just FYI: Buckingham Palace has mice, and they're VERY BOLD. Maybe if you guys stopped leaving INTERNAL ORGANS AROUND.
The Fathering
Philip here is overseeing renovations for Clarence House and he's very hands-on and loving with Anne and Charles in this episode in a way that I think he was NOT in real life. Which is an interesting character choice. I suspect making him too chilly with the kids made this character too hard to root for, and given that, you know, they're still married, you have to sort of like Philip to be willing to stick this out.
The Princess Margaret
This dress on Margaret was LOVELY, and also she's VERY annoyed that Elizabeth doesn't understand that she's in love with Peter Townsend. Who happens to be married with children. Oh, Margaret. None of this is going to end very well for you. PS: you should also seriously stop smoking.
The Prognosis NEGATIVE
Speaking of things not ending well, this seems like a good place to note that the Old School Tradition of Not Telling People They're Totally Dying Until You Figure Maybe It's Time To Tell Them I Guess is NOT OKAY. Both before and after Bertie's doc is like, "oh, yeah, your other lung is also rotten," we get a lot of scenes of Bertie and Churchill talking -- mostly obliquely about how they need to start preparing Elizabeth for the inevitable -- during which it's all I can do not to scream, "STOP SMOKING YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LUNG LEFT!" at the TV.
The Christmas King
And the knowledge of Bernie's impending demise -- which everyone either has figured out, has FINALLY been told by their doctor, or suspects and is in serious denial about -- makes these Christmas scenes at Sandringham very poignant, as all kinds of super sad glances are exchanged and Bertie joins the local carolers (who have brought him this crown) for a round of "In the Bleak Midwinter," one of the most poignant carols there is. (The final verse is, "What can I give Him/ Poor as I am?/ If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb/If I were a wise man, I would do my part/Yet what I can, I give Him/ Give my heart. " I got a little misty here, especially because Jared Harris looks so SAD AND STRICKEN and there's a moment where they cut to Elizabeth and it's like she just KNOWS.)
The Talk
And shortly thereafter, Bertie calls Elizabeth into his study and tells her he just wants to spend time with her (sniff), but that if she has any questions for him, she should ask. ASK NOW, ELIZABETH. They talk about the red boxes -- the memos and items that come everyday and need to be reviewed by the monarch -- and he tells her that everything his ministers and advisors want him to know, they put on top, but all the juicy stuff they stick on the bottom, so to look there first. It's very charming, but he cannot stop coughing and that part is very upsetting -- and also why Bertie tells her that he wants her and Philip to go on an upcoming Commonwealth tour on his behalf. Elizabeth confesses that Phil has become "a nagaholic," who nitpicks everything (thanks to the stress of redecorating, like, EYE-ROLL, Phil, try being THE KING). Elizabeth asks her father to take Philip shooting and take an interest in him, and he agrees, but I can't help thinking that Philip could just realize his wife's father is DYING and she's going to be the Queen and it's GOING TO BE STRESSFUL so maybe he shouldn't worry so much about ELECTRICAL OUTLETS.
The Whinge
Also, Phil and his sweater vest don't want to go on this Commonwealth tour because he doesn't know what HE'S going to do while SHE "cuts ribbons." Shut up, Philip. What do you expect her to say?! IT'S HER JOB. SHE'S GOING TO BE THE QUEEN. THIS IS HOW IT WORKS. YOU DON'T REALLY GET A VOTE.
The Nudity
Also, put some pants on when the King comes in to wish you a good morning. (In case you were wondering, Philip sleeps in the nude.)
Wolferton Splash
So, despite the fact that he is LITERALLY coughing up a lung, Bertie takes Philip out to basically tell him to PULL IT TOGETHER and be a good husband FOR ENGLAND. "You understand, the titles. The dukedom. They're not the job," Bertie says. "She is the job. She is the essence of your duty. Loving her, protecting her. Of course, you'll miss your career. But doing this for her, doing this for me, there is no greater act of patriotism. Or love." Philip says he understands. "Do you, boy?" Bertie asks. "Do you really?" I don't know if he does.
The Box
And this final scene is really beautifully done. As Bertie and Philip row across a beautiful misty lake and shoot at birds -- the King surely wondering if his son-in-law is going to pull it together -- Elizabeth winds her way into her father's study and looks at her fate in the form of a large red leather box. She, at least, is going to pull it together just fine.