The Crown: Season 4 and Princess Diana

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Netflix’s The Crown is back for its highly anticipated season four. The newest season of this fictionalized royal drama was released on November 14th and has been generating buzz ever since because of its depiction of one of the world’s most beloved princesses, the late Princess Diana of Wales. Fans of the show anticipatingly waited to see who would be cast as the late princess and how the actress would portray even the darkest points and nuances of Diana’s life. Because, after all, if there is one take-away from The Crown’s previous seasons, it is that royal life is not always what it’s cracked up to be.  

Season four’s opening episode titled “Gold Stick” begins with the election of Great Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, amid continuous conflict with the Irish Republican Army. The episode continues with the introductions of a wide-eyed teenage Diana Spencer and an older Prince Charles of Wales who was originally dating Diana’s older sister. Diana passes the infamous “Balmoral Test,” which analyzes her compatibility with the royal family. By the third episode, she becomes engaged to the Prince of Wales at the young age of nineteen. The soon-to-be princess is immediately swept off to Buckingham Palace and thrust into a world of flashing cameras, merciless reporters, etiquette training, and little privacy. And the queen is not the only one waiting for her to crack—so is Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Charles’s former girlfriend.

With her prince charming away on a five-week tour of the US, Venezuela, New Zealand, and Australia, Princess Diana is left alone in Buckingham Palace to adapt to her seemingly lonely new life. Everything from the cinematography to the lighting of The Crown begins to change, taking a more subdued and isolated tone, while still keeping the curious personality of Diana constant. One of the most visually stunning scenes shows Diana roller skating through the halls of Buckingham Palace, while Duran Duran’s “Girls On Film” plays in her walkman. The scene perfectly portrays the loneliness Diana feels.

In an episode titled “Fairytale,” Diana, suffocated within the palace halls, takes refuge in eating leftover desserts. She quickly spirals into a pattern of sneaking down to the kitchens at night and spending the rest of the evening by the toilet. The bulimia scenes throughout the episode are vivid and shocking but are essential pieces to the rest of Diana’s story. The Crown does not trivialize or romanticize Diana’s eating disorder: throughout the series, Emma Corrin, who plays Diana, is seen hunched over the toilet and crying after purging.  When it came to filming eating disorder scenes, Corrin stressed straying away from allusions to the disorder and, instead, developing scenes.  “I want to amplify that voice,” Corrin told the Washington Post. “You are not alone. You deserve help.”

Unfortunately, Diana’s obsessive food tendencies don’t disappear as soon as Charles returns to London. Shortly after their televised wedding in July of 1981, the new princess becomes pregnant with the future king, Prince William, and even with the prospect of a growing family, Diana is left lonesome and coping with a rocky marriage, thanks to her husband’s relationship with Parker Bowles. In “Terra Nullius,”, the newlywed couple embarks on a tour of Australia, a country that was, at the time, on the brink of leaving the British Commonwealth. The tour brings numerous challenges--Diana not only insists on traveling with a young Prince William and Charles needs to prove himself as a worthy prince and future king. So, the royals put on the facade of a happy couple, which slowly starts to fade as the trip drags on. 

Later in the trip, Diana’s growing popularity with the Australians digs into Charles’ ego, leading to a huge blowout fight between the two. The tension depicted in this episode sets the stage for the downfall of their marriage and continues for the remainder of the season. 

The pattern of Diana coping with her lack of control in her marriage through food is continues until the season finale. "War," the final episode of the season, is the ending of anything but the perfect story. Closure to Diana’s heartbreaking life is something many viewers hope for, even though the world already knos how her life tragically ended. Viewers of the show are left with a feeling of hopelessness, almost like watching Diana cling to a gradually sinking ship with no one around to see.