The Crown, season 2, episode 7 review: Elizabeth and Margaret give us the best scene of the series so far
Crikey. For a series notably coy about sex and nudity, this episode (titled Matrimonium) brings plenty of both, even if little of the flesh on display is royal. There’s a fair bit of soul-baring going on as well...
First, however, a handy weapon in the arsenal of The Crown is once again deployed: the ability to attract stars from the previous series back for the briefest of cameos. With Jared Harris and John Lithgow having already popped up, this time it’s the turn of Ben Miles as Peter Townsend, returning as a plot device to sting Margaret into action with news of his imminent engagement to a girl less than half his age.
It’s part of a sharp little opening sequence of morning routines soon to be rudely shattered, as Margaret acknowledges he has broken their pact not to marry at all if they couldn’t marry each other. And so the little girl inside has to grow up a little more.
But only a little. Her response is to hustle Tony Armstrong Jones into proposing to her, partly to steal the thunder of her former beau (who “looks like a pyjama man,” according to a catty Tony) and partly to dare her sister to deny her again or even, just maybe, “eclipse her”.
In spite of his abhorrence of commitment (marriage being “the very opposite of happiness”), Tony has his reasons for going along with it - primarily, to spite the mother (Anna Chancellor, who simply had to turn up at some point) who has never valued him as highly as his brother, and also to see if he can snag a title that outranks her new husband.
And so a union looms between a woman with daddy issues and a man with mummy issues. “Promise me one thing,” says he. “Not to bore me.” “Promise me one thing in return,” says she. “Not to hurt me.” Spoiler alert: only one of those promises is kept. There’s no gainsaying the intense physical attraction, at least. In fact, allied to the explosive tempers, petty meanness and grand powerplays, they resemble nothing so much as a prototype Taylor and Burton.
As Elizabeth discovers, her sister’s fiancé is temperamentally unsuited to marriage, carrying on what Tommy Lascelles surmises to be “at least three intimate relationships” including with a young model called Jacqui Chan (shades of Blow-Up in this racy sequence, as a fashion shoot becomes a seduction). “And these are just the natural ones,” notes Lascelles. “The straight Christian path is not to his taste.”
Most alarming to strait-laced Tommy are Tony’s threesomes with his putative best man, Jeremy Fry and his wife Camilla which eventually leave her pregnant. The shock of these revelations is apparently sufficient to bring Prince Andrew into the world; the future Duke of York has by this point already committed an early faux pas through his mere existence, protocol dictating Margaret’s marriage be delayed until he is born.
It’s riotous, gossipy fare, pivoting around two set pieces, both exploring the clash of old and new, of tradition and, depending on your side in the culture wars, irreverence or boorishness. The first is the party thrown in honour of the happy couple by the Queen, desperate to bring her understandably miffed sister back onside after her baby news. A truly strange affair, it sees the Queen Mum join a conga line, Tony’s chums scoff at the stuffy formality and Philip grumble about the establishment’s lowering of standards. It’s fun, but filled with foreboding.
Of greater significance is the scene between Elizabeth and Margaret - one of the best of the series so far, brilliantly written and impeccably played to bring to light all the facets of perhaps The Crown's most fascinating relationship: each is jealous of the other, but only one seems truly able to control it. And, as we know, one follows the simple pleasures of pursuing her desires while the other adheres to the more complex ones of doing her duty. We can never say for sure who ended up happier, but we can certainly guess.
As before, the uninhibited chemistry between Vanessa Kirby and Matthew Goode turbocharges what can be rather staid drama. While Goode isn’t given quite enough to work with to secure our sympathy for Tony, the relish of his performance remains deeply seductive. And Kirby works wonders to turn Margaret in something akin to a tragic figure.
This reaches its apogee on her wedding day. Philip and Elizabeth do their best to be supportive, with the former saying exactly the right thing to Margaret: “your father would have been proud.” And the day is grand enough, but while Philip looked merely disgruntled at what his marriage would mean, Tony’s furious dismay looks a little more existential. “Darling, I do hope you haven’t done this all for me,” says his mum, thus denying him the only pleasure the day could have possibly given him: outsmarting her.
Margaret’s apparently uncomplicated bliss is, by contrast, both genuinely touching and very sad. It’s a supremely joyless episode, but gripping drama.
