The Crown S4
IMDb rating: 8.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 97%
In the first episode of the season, three of the events that would shape and shake the British royal family and the United Kingdom for decades to come take place: Charles meets a young woman called Diana Spencer. The Queen welcomes England’s first woman Prime Minister. And an IRA attack leads to one of the family’s deepest tragedies.
This is the season of the Crown where we get to see Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, or the Iron Lady, and newcomer Emma Corrin captivates us as the young woman who becomes Princess Diana. As a result, Elizabeth herself is almost overshadowed by two very different and yet both deeply influential women.
Charles has to choose between his heart and his duty, having had to let go of Camilla Shand, the woman he truly cares for. Unemployment keeps rising in Thatcherite Britain. The royal family welcome new heirs in William and Harry. Princess Margaret battles with mental health issues. And Thatcher and Elizabeth disagree about how and whether to apply sanctions against apartheid South Africa.
New Statesman says, “Gillian Anderson might be the best Thatcher ever seen on screen. Hers is not so much an impersonation as an inhabitation”, and RogerEbert.com writes that these 10 episodes “may not be uniformly among the show’s finest, but … are somehow its most authentic.”
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