The thing about The Crown’s final season is that we’ve crept into territory covered by Prince Harry in Spare, a memoir which Peter Morgan claims he didn’t read (although the other writers and supervisors do admit to reading). Why would you want a fictionalized account of Harry and William’s relationship when Harry has written it out in his own voice? I guess Morgan’s belief – and the belief of most royal biographers – is that we should never allow a royal’s own words get in the way of the story they want to tell. Now, Season 6 of The Crown is very Sussex-coded, from QEII telling Tony Blair that royalty is a binary choice, you’re either in or you’re out. Diana and Dodi’s conversations about running off to California were also Sussex-coded. And now, with the final episodes, we’re seeing seeds of how Harry and William’s “feud” began:
Peter Morgan may have brought the curtain down on The Crown decades before Prince William and Harry’s real-life feud, but it has not stopped him from imagining the early signs of discontent between the brothers. The Crown’s final episode, now streaming on Netflix, foreshadows the cracks in their relationship as the two royals wrestle with adulthood and their royal duties.
The princes, played by Ed McVey (William) and Luther Ford (Harry), have a frosty exchange after being told by Imelda Staunton’s Queen Elizabeth II that their father Prince Charles (Dominic West) intends to marry Camilla Parker Bowles (Olivia Williams). Prince William is grudgingly accepting of the idea, recognizing that it is important for his father’s happiness as he prepares to ascend to the throne. Prince Harry is less keen and says nothing as his brother offers the Queen their blessing.
“I can’t believe you caved like that,” Harry snipes. “I didn’t cave, I’m just being a realist,” William replies as they look on at the Queen informing Prince Charles that he is free to wed. “Such a f***ing company man,” Harry remarks.
William and Harry are later imagined bickering over the dinner table on the eve of their father’s wedding. Harry accuses his sibling of “stabbing me in the back” following an incident in which he was pictured wearing a Nazi uniform at a fancy dress party. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how many faces does this man have?” he asks.
In recent years, allies of the Duke of Sussex have accused Prince William of briefing against his younger brother in the press. This version of events was repeated recently by Omid Scobie, who is seen as close to Harry and Meghan, while promoting his book Endgame. “He’s sharing private information about his brother that ended up on the front page of a newspaper not long later,” Scobie said.
Back in The Crown’s finale, the Queen offers William some wisdom about his brother — and makes an apparent reference to Harry’s eventual exile. “Be kind to him,” she says. “In many ways, it’s harder being number two than number one. The system protects number one. Number two tends to … need extra care and attention.”
One thing this will hopefully give viewers and casual royal-watchers is the sense that William and Harry’s paths diverged long before Harry met Meghan. I mean, they would know that if they read Spare, but at least The Crown is showing it too, that they fought and disagreed and that there was always going to be a falling out at some point. Through Spare, we heard his perspective: that William was always jealous and competitive, and William never really looked out for him, then all of the Meghan stuff came much later. Perhaps this shows that QEII was mindful of the sibling dynamic and she wanted Harry to become “Margaret” to William’s QEII. Or something.
Photos courtesy of Netflix.
I stopped watching after S3.
All you have to do is watch the BBC interview of William and Harry in their late teens early 20ties, when they were in the military. William kept being condescending (about Harry) when talking to and about Harry in the interview. The BBC reporters kept asking Harry questions, instead of Willie, and you could see the jealousy seething from William’s eyes.
Yeah, that interview said it all. The rage and jealousy was already there, it’s just grown out of control after Harry’s successes and William’s flops.
I stopped after S2. I started watching the Crown after Harry and Meghan got married and I couldn’t take the cloying propaganda of show while in real life this “sweet” family was tearing down Meghan.
QEII may have wanted Harry to be like Margaret, who, let’s not forget, drank herself to death, but Harry looked into his future and saw…Andrew.
Andrew? Andrew was protected as much as Charles. He was Queen’s favorite child. He is still living in luxury. Harry would be lucky if he was treated like Andrew.
I think that’s who the writers was speaking about. Andrew. His place was never secure without his mother. They treated Anne like the spare but Andrew was pushed out front. He went around begging for money which lead him to that whole circle crime.
Seriously Andrew is just a dreadful person , nobody forced him into his dodgy dealings that’s just him as a privileged person thinking he would get away with such behavior.
The back half of this season was really difficult to watch. Most of kate and wills story felt like fan fluff (though I think they nailed Carole), I don’t understand what they were thinking with Harry as a character, and the king tony stuff fell flat in comparison to what it was actually like.
The two good things were the episode centered on Margaret and the final 10 minute of the finale. The comment made by Philip to Elizabeth about relevancy felt like a HUGE dig to the future of the monarchy.
Those last minutes were the best!
I feel like The Crown flip flopped between being very critical of it all and being a white-washing excuse for them (I like how they portrayed Carole and didn’t shy away from reality, but then Chuck & Cam as star crossed lovers and Will as introverted good guy? Just as most recent example of where and how I found The Crown to be 50/50 criticism and propaganda at once).
Kate never looked as good as the girl playing her part. CarolE is perfect, straggly hair, thin lips the whole enchilada.
If Kate was anything like the character on the Crown, she would have stayed away for good after Willy called her at work to break up with her so he could be with other women.
And lets not forget how busy he was with work during the first few years of their marriage. But only on Valentine’s Day, Kate’s birthday, Anniversaries…
They pushed so hard to make it look like Kate was the only girl William ever had eyes for, and Camilla was a saintly woman waiting patiently in the wings to be with her Prince Charming, I really don’t think they need that fiction disclaimer.
Well, I finished it now and feel, they told the story as the RF would like to rewrite it for history. Wasnt Imelda Staunton also one of those who spoke out against Meghan, too? Watching this season felt like theatre – irritating for everyone who remembers the real unfolding of it all. That got me thinking too – I was fascinated by the first two seasons – but also had no knowledge about the historic events. How do people, who are so young that they don’t recall how it had gone down in reality, receive this season now?
I mean the writers have always relied on other books written about the Royal Family so it stands to reason that they would also consult Harry’s book.
Harry is portrayed as an upbeat trixster and William a morose, introvert with the weight of the world on his shoulders. And Pa is deeply disturbed by their rift, seeking advice from Cam. FWIW.
I don’t believe William became a pushover but I do think he became sullen. He seems to sulk around different castles and offices.
I don’t for one minute believe he approved of Camilla. I don’t think he gave his blessing.
I don’t have any need to watch it. The real drama is happening every day.
IDK the cartoonish caricatures are entertaining.
I haven’t watched the Crown, but according to the reviews I’ve seen of Season 6, Harry is portrayed in a negative light. Definitely not a flattering portrait of Harry at all.
He’s portrayed as a partier and drinker which he was for many years before he met Meghan and he now admits he did to deal with his mother’s death.
William was going out clubbing and partying. It was not just Harry. Lots of photos of William in his partying days
Yes, but so were Will and Kate. There is no shortage of skate in particular me being sloppy drunk and partying, but that’s not how they chose to portray the two twu wuvs of Cambridge.
@Tessa: Yes, I know that. Too bad the Crown chose not to portray the Palace covering up for William but my response to Overrtired was meant to convey that there was some truth to the portrayal of Harry and that there was a reason why he behaved the way he did. I don’t know if she feels that Harry would be upset about it, given he’s written about his behaviour in his book and talked about it in interviews and documentaries.
Yeah, too bad they didn’t include the bit about William getting caught shagging some woman at the back door of a club.
Well, its not wrong to say that the system protects #1 and leaves #2 out in the cold. We’ve watched that play out for the past 30+ years.
I don’t think Harry ever required special “care and attention”, as they portray the queen advising William. He just needed to be treated like a human being and not constantly scapegoated. The Windsors couldn’t even manage that.
That framing and wording is intentional. They need to portray Harry as being delicate, fragile, mentally unstable so that his criticisms are seen as less damning and not as accurate of a portrayal of what life is like growing up in that system. So it’s always going to be William is shy but resolute and understands his duty and will give up his personal wants for that, and Harry is just too “emotional”.
Exactly. Here we go again with “too emotional”, just like they did to Diana.
I think it was a good move to show the cracks in their teens, because as Harry said in Spare, the cracks were there long before Meghan arrived on the scene.
The cracks are very believable, but here are some thoughts:
1. I’m not buying that Will was painfully introverted and found Harry’s exuberance overwhelming.
2. I’m not buying in the slightest that he and Kate tried to talk Harry out of the nazi uniform.
3. I do buy that scenes such as when TQ asks for their opinion on Charles marrying Cam, that Will’s opinion was the only one that mattered and no one listened to Harry (whether or not that exact scene ever occurred). I think that might be one of the most realistic scenes in the entire season.
Harry is a teen this entire season. He’s got an ADHD, neglected child vibe to him. I don’t think any of the claims of his behavior are unfair, and the nazi uniform is well documented. What I choke on is the portrayal of Will as full of dignified sadness and longing, pining for the beautiful Kate who is out of his league, and fully aware of his responsibilities.
The real problem with the portrayal of Harry is that the show ends on that note while the real life adult Harry is out here showing us who he truly is.
@bettyrose I like your conclusion! Also I was thinking how much power and ability to destroy people the British media has – after watching the backham documentary. And we know the media gets used as a weapon by the RF against everything they don’t approve of. So putting 1 and 1 together I would find it plausible that Peter Morgan took an outlook on his own career when deciding how to tell the story.
I see how tongue in cheek and clever Peter Morgan is . Anybody can read between the lines especially seeing where the story went after the series ended . This was Harry nearly 20 years ago, before the army and before he grew into the compassionate man he is now . Imelda Staunton to me is the most like the real Elizabeth..the final episode was Emmy and Golden Globe worthy . Why they ever put Olivia Colman in I don’t know ..she is nothing like the Queen. But Morgan has effectively established that the monarchy is a dead horse with hyenas like the Middletons and Parker Bowlses sniffing around.
@Ioalnthe – per reading between the lines, what about when. Philip calls the costume shop and rips them a new one because the costume was historically innacurate? 😳
So they think that PW was concerned about KC’s happiness and PH was not?
The Robinsons Group is right. I was a (very young) adult during Diana’s death and William’s college years, and if the last several seasons of The Crown were released contemporaneously, they’d be mocked relentlessly. William was photographed (or rumored to be) with a different girl every other week in college – hardly pining over Kate, as The Crown argues – and videos of him with Harry clearly showed W an arrogant, rude bro to his little brother who lapped up (positive) press attention.
I wonder if Jecca will even be mentioned . She was very prominent in the media during Williams dating years
If William really wanted Kate as much as the show portrays him , he wouldn’t have dragged his ass in deciding to marry her almost a decade after they first met.
I saw the first three episodes. There was a soap opera moment of William and Charles reconciling at the end of the first episode that was hard to watch. The series should have ended in season 4.
The first four seasons are fascinating historical drama, teaching us history that predates most of our lives. I don’t know how much Brits study the modern history of the BRF, but I imagine many Brits also aren’t well informed on the events of these seasons. The minute Diana was introduced, though, it stopped being historical drama. Most of us still watching the show were old enough to recall these events unfolding in real time and the entire tone of the show shifted from history to expose.
Diana’s premature death cast both sons adrift and not getting the love and support from a dad obsessed by his public image and determination to foist Camzila on us as Queen. I genuinely hoped and believed that the brothers were close and had each other for support. Spare exploded that delusion. Harry seems to have a huge capacity for love whereas William lacks generosity and comes off like as I am going to be King, you all owe me allegiance so I don’t have to make any effort. Fractious relations with CC, trashes mum and H as paranoid, K and Midds in cold storage? He does OWN 3 lovely children and as long as they never defy him or steal his limelight then hopefully he won’t turn his anger on them. William seems narrow and limited not generous and loving. How many long-term friends has he sustained and nurtured I wonder?
I’d assume that most of his friends are Toffs, and so, will be ass kissers to the end of his days. It’s tradition after all, isn’t it? I don’t see anyone telling him the truth about how he is perceived.
Any PoW will always have “friends,” or those pretending to be, who’ll angle for proximity to the future king & any perks to be had.
I think the portrayal of the reactions of William and Harry to their grandmother telling them about Charles’s plan to marry Camilla are reversed. I find it totally implausible from observing the brothers public behaviour that William has the sensitivity to care about Charles’s happiness. Even Diana had mentioned that Charles and Harry were close (whatever “close” means when it comes to Charles) and obviously Harry loved his father. So while they were at it, they gave William’s character a make-over as well as Charles and Camilla and Harry again is thrown under the bus.
I finished it last night. Particularly smirked at the foreshadowing of the “We are very much not a racist family” discourse where it’s heavily implied that QE2 did some kissing with a Black American soldier 🙄
William is way too competitive, petty and jealous for Harry to have ever become his “Margaret”.
It was widely talked of in the press when Spare came out that Harry wrote that he and William were against the notion of Charles and Camilla marrying, but that is only what Harry said about how they felt when the notion was first floated. Everyone seems to be wilfully blind to or have forgotten that later in the book, by the time Charles and Camilla are set to wed, that Harry wrote that both brothers had made peace with the idea along the same lines: Charles should be allowed to be happy.