The Queen is super, super beige in this scene, and for a hot second I thought she was wearing a heavy wool coat, and was VERY curious how cold they think she keeps Windsor. I do like her blouse, though.
WINDSOR FAIL. Although this building IS beautiful.
Y'all know how fascinated I am by props, and handwriting, and what decisions were accidental and what were deliberate. For example, he doesn't capitalize "Dickie." Is that because he's young and not totally paying attention?
Dickie also doesn't put a comma after his greeting, so maybe in this era nobody cared about punctuation -- which he also left off his next sentence, in addition to misspelling "letter." Again, do we think they made Greg Wise write this, and he just goofed, or was it done to convey something about Dickie? LET'S OVERTHINK PROPS. It's fun.
And now a MONTAAAAGE. Here is Charles looking absolutely tickled about his formal clothes.
And in his cricket duds. Look at that jaunty pose.
Do we think he kept these and came home periodically and touched them longingly, sadly, perhaps with a tear?
Dickie is the father Charles wished he had: attentive, understanding, and a little bit glam, and also not Philip.
This actor is ADORABLE. And dressed for a barbership quartet.
The Gordonstoun uniform is depressing by comparison, which to Philip is the whole point.
Philip is preening while Elizabeth tries to reason with him about Charles. OF COURSE. I had thought the dress was the same one from her televised Christmas address, but in fact...
... the front is different (and better), though the rest is similar. Claire Foy's exasperation here is pure and great and matches my own with her fool husband.
Perhaps his father is where Harry learned to love yellow waistcoats.
Young Philip has CLEARLY auditioned for The Sound of Music at some point, right?
The show does not flinch at being like, "By the way, Philip came from a LONG LINE OF NAZIS." I am curious where they filmed this: It's the one time on this show that the set looks fake. That staircase is clearly real, but most of that building -- particularly the curved bit -- looks like a two-dimensional painted backdrop. Soundstage, or a building that only had one facade that they wanted to make look longer and more palatial? Or am I nuts? Usually this show's every exterior DRIPS with Look At This Great Real Building and this one doesn't.
This is filling in for Gordonstoun. It's called Woodchester Mansion, and it was abandoned in the late 1800s when the builders ran out of money; apparently parts of it are exactly as it was left. It's a perfect dupe for a remote boarding school in Scotland, although it's in Gloucestershire.
Philip has a nice tie, and a deeply unhappy chlid.
Ever so cozy.
Charles's PJs look like a prison jumpsuit, which feels super subtle.
Welcome to P.E. at Gordonstoun.
I can't imagine working out in tiny shorts and a full sweater. Maybe I SHOULD. Maybe it'd be like an extra sauna for my food baby.
And welcome to the showers at Gordonstoun, which are ALSO prisonlike, in case you hadn't gotten that idea yet.
This series has featured rather a lot more partying Nazis than I expected.
In the recap I gave them a hard time about doing this picnic in the car, because I forgot it was raining during the scene. Sorry, show! NEITHER of us is perfect, as it happens. Besides which, even if it was sunny, I'm sure Charles would rather be as hidden away as possible.
I can't imagine having ONE room this big, much less ALL OF THEM being this size.
For the scene in which Liz tries to assert her will about Charles, she handles it VERY much like An Audience with the Queen. And in very innocent-looking colors.
Windsor doesn't have a lawn like this, so I MIGHT not have made the choice to have him brood by the window. Unless they're not at Windsor here. But they are for the rest of the episode, so... insert our usual complaint about space and time on The Crown.
The funeral procession scene is extremely long and Chock Full O' Nazis. I don't know where they filmed this, but it wound through a tiny town; if it was a real town, rather than a sound stage, I cannot IMAGINE how weird it was to live there during these days of work.
One of the young Nazi extras on the right appears to be giggling, or at least smiling/forgetting to look stern. Cope however you need to, Child Actor, is my feeling.
The Gordonstoun challenge is bonkers. Poor Charles barely even makes it over this fence.
As Philip waits for his child to finish this challenge he should NEVER have attempted, he is at least saddled with a shit-colored tie that matches HIS SOUL.
I discuss Charles's bodyguard at length in the recap -- spoiler: He's awesome and they're very close -- but I didn't get to the fact that he got fired. On a school field trip, Charles was taken into a pub for lunch and ordered a cherry brandy, which he claimed was the first drink that popped into his head (he'd had it on hunts before at home). Since he was only 14 at the time, it was a scandal, and the Metro Police fired his bodyguard over it even though it wasn't REALLY his fault. Charles was reportedly devastated. In case you needed to weep for him some more.
Yes, that's right, Philip, Don Green is awesome and YOU ARE TERRIBLE.
And this is how Elizabeth -- per this show -- waited for Charles to arrive home from school. Not downstairs, not by the door, not outside. This show does not like her.
Instead, it gives Chaz a nanny, or a housekeeper, or somesuch. He may have been happier to see her anyway, frankly. Poor Charles. POOR CHARLES. Backed into a miserable corner that he had to endure, all to please an impossible father. Think how formative this must have been.