Hello! Welcome back to the first TV Tuesday of 2020! Today I’m going to be talking all about season three of Netflix’s The Crown.

It’s now 1964 and the Queen is dealing with getting older. I like how the show addresses that issue fight off the bat and it does it in a tactful way. She’s had another portrait done, for what looks like will be on the new coins, and the Queen just says no one likes getting old, rather to just get on with it. So blunt.

It’s a whole new array of cast this season. I do miss Clare Foy as the Queen, but I’m really happy to see Helena Bonham Carter as Margaret. I think she’s going to play a great Margaret… I say this after one episode that she was barely in.

The only one from the past seasons is John Lithgow who plays the former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Well, he doesn’t play him for much longer because he dies in the first episode. This of course rocks the nation.

And of course there is a lot of scandal, the main one focuses on Anthony Blunt, an artist who has a bad reputation, who the Queen has to grant immunity because it would be better, and less of a publicity stunt if she didn’t. Obviously Prince Philipp is not happy with her decision. But when he is ever, I feel like he’s never been on her side.

Wow, that second episode that is so Margaret focused was so good. She’s always been my favourite on this show just because of how defiant she is to everything.

I think now she’s kinda starting to realize her role and maybe she’ll start acting better. But before that she takes a trip to the United States on a book tour to support her husband’s book. While she’s there the Queen calls to tell her that she must go to dinner at the White House. Margaret doesn’t want to though; all she wants to do is support her husband. But when she finds out that she has to make nice with them so they can agree to a buyout she agrees and goes.

And boy does she have an amazing time. The entire time all I could think of was she was born to be an American, the way she’s so free and jokes and the way she wins over the crowd with her crude jokes. Obviously when word gets back to the Queen, she’s furious, but happy that the deal was made.

The entire time Elizabeth was hoping her sister would fail and I find that so sad. Seeing them as kids and how they got along before their father died. It’s sad that all the duty that Elizabeth has had to fulfill and Margaret feeling like second tier that they’ve fallen so far apart.

Episode three covers the Aberfan disaster, oh man, so sad. But it was a strange episode. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. The Queen came off so cold and cut off from everyone, and I guess she had her reasons, and it’s always so mind boggling that this actually happened.

So the Aberfan disaster killed so many children, roughly 116 they say and man was it ever eerie to see all their graves lined up like that. When the weather, heavy rain, causes a landslide of a coal mine to crash into the village of Aberfan that killed roughly 144, the Queen is obviously supposed to make a statement or react somehow to this, but she just doesn’t. Not right away anyways. Instead, prince Philipp does, he goes in her place. She does eventually go. According to the show notes at the end, this has been one of her biggest regrets is not reacting sooner to this disaster.

We’re really introduced to Philipp’s mother.

So in an attempt to get more money, as for some reason the Royal family feel they aren’t being given what they think they’re entitled to, Prince Philipp thinks that creating a documentary to showcase how hard they work would be the solution.

Uhm, well. That backfires. Instead once it airs and the papers have had their say, they call the family, boring and wooden, and why would anyone be willing to pay more tax dollars for them.

Philipp’s mother is even brought down from where she’s been living in Greece as a nun. Now we haven’t ever really seen her and I forgot how traumatic Philipp’s childhood was. She was taken away when he was young and he never thought her a mother. He wants no part in seeing her when she arrives.

Then there is this one reporter who writes a brilliant piece on the documentary, it’s the most brash and honest piece, and Philipp likes this writer so much that he requests him to write a piece interviewing his daughter, Anne.

I was wondering why they were only focusing on her, since she has 3 other siblings and she isn’t even the first born. Apparently Philipp thinks that she is the only royal they have who is so under the radar that she would be a good poster girl and help clean up the mess they’re in.

Well, Anne doesn’t go for the interview, she sends her grandmother out instead. Of course instead of just accepting that Anne is unavailable, he asks the nun if she’d like to speak, and she does. That’s when we learn of all the horror and treatments she was put under, but I stead of using her pained past for bad, she turns it around and uses it for good and she helps people. It’s a lovely piece; so much so, it reunites Philip with his mother.

This episode was highly entertaining because there was so much drama.

It’s good to see Charles Dance again. He plays Lord Louis Mountbatten, who is prince Philipp’s uncle, his mother’s brother, and he’s conspiring against the Queen as wartime is approaching and he’s planning to overthrow the government and get rid of the prime minister and start over.

All this is happening while the Queen is out and about looking at horses. It’s almost as if the Queen is trying to live a life she never had. And she went with her friend Porchey, the boy she could have married… again Philipp and his jealous streak.

Her fantasy world is cut short when the prime minister calls her and tells her of what Lord Mountbatten is up to.

All that time, I just couldn’t imagine having to be Queen; knowing that she had no choice in the matter and it was forced upon her at such a young age, she never got to live she thought she wanted.

One, I didn’t know that Prince Charles likes acting, wow. Second, I didn’t know he is the Prince of Wales. So many things you learn!

So I’ll have to look this up because I don’t know why they decided he was going to be the Prince of Wales… to give him more responsibilities, to prepare him to be king one day? Actually, it was just the Queen’s request, at age nine she decided he’d be the Prince of Wales, and eleven years later he started his journey to becoming the Prince… even if it wasn’t the easiest.

Anyways, the Welsh people can’t understand why he’s being made their prince either, he doesn’t even speak Welsh. He goes to the trouble of learning the language so that he can speak in Welsh for his inauguration.

I think he takes it as a joke at first, but then he actually takes it seriously. He gets himself a good tutor and he learns his speech. At first it seems he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but then he really captivates his audience, which was really well done.

The show covers the moon landing and watching Prince Philip act like such a little boy over it was fun.

We know that he loves to fly, but who would have thought he’d try to (what looks like) fly to the moon in his plane. It’s kinda cute, but at the same time kinda crazy.

His admiration for the astronauts is astounding, and when the Queen tells him that she’s going to invite them to the castle, Philip could not be happier. But of course, Philip is never happy with what he gets, ugh he infuriates me! He gets mad that he only gets 15 minutes with them, dude be happy you get any minutes with them.

Then when he does meet them, it doesn’t go so well and he’s so disappointed, well you did put them on the highest pedestal, Philip.

Around this time, a Dean has come to Philip about turning some old buildings into a place for the church. So Philip goes to sit in on their meeting, but so inspired by the moon, he tells them to stop complaining and do something about it.

In the end, though, he does help them to build something to help restore faith in not only the people, but faith in himself.

Ah, now we’re getting into seeing the older children, Charles and Anne, find love. I never really noticed the age gap between the two older and the two younger children. In Moondust we only see the younger ones for the first time and their both under 10, just older than 5.

Charles has found a fancy in Camilla. They are cute together and they look like they have a good time together.

Anne on the other hand is seeing Camilla’s ex- Andrew… although she’s more like sleeping around with him.

Anne warns her brother that she better hope that they’re playing around with Camilla and Andrew and not the other way around. She makes a fair point, but why would they even date each other’s ex’s though. That’s just a recipe for disaster.

So the Duke, or the exiled brother, is dying, I’m pretty sure he’s dying of the same thing the King died of. In all of this, we find out that Charles has always admired and looked up to his uncle and corresponded with him quite frequently. I think we see a little of his uncle in Charles, and now he really seems to be falling for Camilla, it just looks that he may not get to be with the woman he wants (although we all know how this story goes) it’s just very interesting to see it all play out.

In the end, the Duke does die and the watching the woman he chose over the crown be there when he dies, that was heartbreaking.

Okay, woah, woah, woah so Charles is actually really in love with Camilla. His family are under the impression that it’s just a phase, nothing more than that. But when his position in the Navy is moved over seas to the Caribbean, he knows something is up.

He was warned that his family might not like the choice he made to marry. But it’s unbeknownst to the Queen or Philip for that matter that Charles has any of these feelings until Charles accuses his mother of medaling with his love life.

That’s when the Queen finds out it was Philip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten who has tried to split them up. They even ask Anne if she knows anything, she’s the one who says if Charles is willing to have a third person in his marriage.

SO it turns out that Camilla still loves her ex Andrew, and really isn’t technically her ex because then they get married.

I have so many questions as to where Diana came from and how Camilla came back into the picture. Wow.

So once Camilla and Andrew get married, Charles does go over seas, but he’s so freakin heartbroken. My gosh he’s like a sad puppy dog.

The finale takes place in 1977 at the Queen’s jubilee to honour 25 years of being the Queen.

But on top of that, so much seems to happen in just one episode.

Margaret and her husband, Tony, aren’t doing so well relationship wise. Tony is seeing another woman now that their marriage has fallen apart. Margaret tries to have fun at her own birthday party but she just can’t. A friend of her’s tells her to come and spend time with her, so she does… and that’s where she meets a young man who she begins to fall for.

They spend so much time together that even though she thinks they are secluded, a paparazzi finds them and this obviously creates an uproar. It’s in every newspaper and so she must go back home… I didn’t think she’d take the boy with her. As when she gets home Tony is waiting for her. They argue and the boy leaves. Honestly I don’t know what Margaret thought, but that boy wasn’t going to stay around forever.

And when she leaves to chase after him, that’s when Tony tells her he’s divorcing her.

After all is said and done, hurt by it all Margaret takes too many pills and over doses. Scared for her life, the Queen doesn’t know if her sister is going to make it. In the end she does pull through, the two have one of the best heart to hearts I think they’ve ever had.

On top of this the prime minister has send in his resignation because he has Alzheimer’s. The Queen is really sad about that because she likes him as a prime minister. At this point in time she’s had 6 prime ministers while she’s been Queen. I can only imagine how many there have been up until now.

It was a really good finale, the ending was perfect on her 25 years and the words that Margaret says to Elizabeth are just really beautiful.

This was a really good season that really covered a lot of ground and was very entertaining.