Through four seasons of The Crown, the royal family has had its fair share of ups and downs. There was Wallis Simpson, Edward VIII’s abdication, the death of the King George VI, Princess Margaret’s attempted marriage to the divorcé Peter Townsend, and, of course, the eventual arrival of Diana Spencer, whose every move was gobbled up by the tabloids. The series’s Season Five—which is the first to hit screens since Prince Philip’s death, last April, and Queen Elizabeth’s death, in September—lands in the trickiest territory yet. It starts in 1991, when the Queen’s popularity is at an all-time low, and dramatizes the publication of Diana’s book, Diana: Her True Story—in Her Own Words; the leaking of the Charles-Camilla tapes (in which he declares he wants to be her tampon); and the Queen’s stiff-upper-lip response to it all. This new season is every bit as good as previous seasons, and Elizabeth Debicki is uncanny as Diana. —Elena Clavarino
The Arts Intel Report
The Crown: Season Five
Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown, Season Five.