The Crown season 2 reviews say it's fit for a queen
The Crown's second series has the hefty responsibility of saying goodbye to leading actress Claire Foy and setting up the next phase of Netflix's lush period drama series.
Foy and co-star Matt Smith are both bowing out of writer Peter Morgan's Emmy-winning hit after emotionally-wrenching new episodes, in which the Queen's bond with both her husband, Prince Philip, and sister Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby) is tested like never before.
The good news is that all of this royal family drama seemingly makes for intense and engrossing viewing. The first critical reviews have lavished praise on both the writing and acting, making it clear that the show is being left fine shape for its new monarch Olivia Colman.
1. The Radio Times
"The thing that elevates The Crown beyond a by-the-numbers historical drama is its honest portrayal of complex relationships, so showrunner Peter Morgan gets right down to business in the opening episodes. There's no soft start."
2. Telegraph
"It is Claire Foy's consistently sympathetic portrait of the Queen that is at the centre of The Crown. Sensible as a pair of Brevitts, tough as a Barbour wax jacket, and with an unwavering commitment to serve the nation, Foy's Queen is a character you root for at every stage of the drama.
"That her replacement for series three is to be the irrepressibly likeable Olivia Colman would suggest that, despite the odd whiff of unearthed skeletons, The Crown is likely to only strengthen the Windsors' reputation across the globe."
3. Entertainment Weekly
"Peter Morgan's creation works so well as a whole because it's consistently well written and lushly filmed - so lush it almost shames a small screen - but its greatest strength once again is in the casting."
4. Collider
"One of the defining factors of television in the Netflix age (that is to say the age of binge watching) is that the art of the episode has been largely forgotten. In a drive to create novelistic television, which is seen as being preferable to procedural storytelling (even though neither one works if you don't have enough story for it), episodes become lost in a race to the end of the season.
"Not so with The Crown, whose second season is again a perfect balance of episodic plots encased in an over-arching story."
5. Metro
"A particularly rocky first episode doesn't help quell doubts the show is struggling to find its footing after completing Elizabeth's rise to reluctant power, coming off as aimless without a strong branching story to combine events over this decade in the 1950s.
"The second season's strengths however reveal themselves to be the closed-off episodes which highlight singular historical events."
6. We Got This Covered
"Unafraid to delve deep into the Monarchy's turbulent history, in its second season The Crown has once again set the bar for Netflix Originals. The series' regal production design, sublime writing, and ravishing camerawork frame the ensemble's consistently impeccable theatrics in pure gold.
"The biographical drama has justified its minutely dull setup and indeed shown viewers that heavy lies the crown."
The Crown premieres on Netflix on Friday, December 8. Watch a trailer below:
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