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

This season felt more scandalous than any past season, like the love affairs, the secret family members and of course the Royal family can’t be wrong – it’s been one heck of a season.

The season starts with Ireland wanting to break away from the U.K. and a new Prime Minister being voted in. The first woman PM. I was really excited to see this, seeing a woman in power, but woof was I not prepared for Margaret Thatcher.

My first thoughts were, that was her voice, and why does she tilt her head like that when she talks? I have to say, it’s not just her mannerisms that I didn’t enjoy, but her overall outlook on life and their country annoyed me and don’t even get me started on her thoughts on her father, but we will get to that.

The next big thing to happen is that Lord Mountbatten, Dickie, is killed in a boating explosion. We find out that a bomb had been planted on his shipping boat by the Irish Republican Army. Apparently bombing people were their tactics to get their voices heard about whether they are with the U.K. or not.

This really shakes Charles up because Dickie was like a father to him… I guess better than Philip ever was. This also angers Philip because we know Philip had issues with his father and that’s when Dickie stepped in to be a father-like figure for Philip. Then when Charles needed a father figure, Dickie was by Charles’ side.

I can see why Philip is a bit bitter, but in reality he became like his father, even though he didn’t want to. You can see that he blames Charles for taking Dickie away from him.

So it’s Charles who speaks at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral, per Dickie’s request. It was also Dickie’s suggestion to Charles that he “sow his wild oats” I hate that saying, and he’s the one who told Charles he couldn’t marry Camilla.

So enter Diana.

I liked her introduction and her and Charles definitely had a meet cute. He’s about to hang out with her older sister and while waiting for her, does Diana pop out, hiding behind a plant because she’s not to be seen. He tells her that he’ll say he never saw her.

I guess he must have found something amusing in her because when they meet again he’s all shy smiles and asks her sister if he can ask her out.

I have to say their “dating” period was really short (don’t get me wrong, it was really cute). They went on like a few dates, then she met the family, bada-bing bada-boom they’re getting engaged.

It could be for the sake of TV they made it faster, but it was quick. And what sucks is that once Charles’ family likes and approves her, he all of a sudden can’t stand her and doesn’t want to marry her. Come on Charles!

Before we move on with that, the Prime Minister and her husband are asked to join the Royal family to their vacation house in the (I believe it was the highlands) for the weekend to get to know them. Boy, do the Thatchers mess that up. They can’t seem to get anything right. From the proper attire – at any point during their time there, to what to say or do. I felt bad for her, but I think that was the last time I felt bad. If anything it was super awkward to watch, yet somewhat entertaining.

Back to the Charles and Diana show. So he does propose and Diana says yes, was she really going to say no? You can tell how happy she is that she’s going to be a princess, a girl’s all-time dream. Too bad she didn’t know what it would entail.

He thinks she’s too young and they don’t really know each other so he has doubts. That’s fair to have doubts, but Charles continues to keep in contact with Camilla. I thought that was interesting and it really intrigued me. Their friendship would be cute (seeing as she’s also married with children) if there weren’t ulterior feelings there.

These two even come up with nick names for each other and on the night before his wedding he gets engraved bracelets for them. When Diana finds out, because Camilla was stupid enough to tell Diana their nick names, she’s furious. Who wouldn’t be? He tries to tell it was a peace offering to let her know it’s over and that he loves her… WOOF BIG LIES!

I do find it funny that Princess Margaret can tell that Charles is still in love with Camilla. I feel as though Margaret and Charles relate a lot on that level – more on that in a bit.

I was a little surprised that we didn’t get more of the wedding. We see the church and we see Diana in her dress and that’s about it. I do like that we saw her wedding dress.

Then see Margaret Thatcher’s son go missing and she’s beside herself. She flat out calls her son her favourite child and that takes the Queen by surprise. So she talks to Philip about it and he flat out goes ‘yeah I have a favourite’. Even before he said it I knew it was Anne.

This leads the Queen to have private lunches with all her children. It was really nice to see the two younger children, Andrew and Edward, as we’ve never really seen them. But what we really find out and the Queen notices it too, is that Thatcher’s son may be physically lost, but all four of their children are lost in their lives.

Philip tells her that’s she crazy pretty much, that their kids are fine and she was a good mother. The Queen worries that because she wasn’t affectionate towards her kids that’s why they are the way they are… not going to lie, that’s probably half the reason Charles can barely look at her when he talks to her.

This season has shown me that this family needs therapy.

Thatcher also has a really hard conversation with her daughter because her daughter knows that her brother is her mother’s favourite and she can’t stand that she treats them so differently. So her daughter totally calls her out on it, and Thatcher then brings up her upbringing and her father. She goes on and on about how her father was the best man in the world, there was nothing he couldn’t do, he did no wrong, blah, blah, blah. She didn’t like her mother because she was weak, she wanted to be a housewife when her father wanted to give her more so she resented her mother for her choices and she sees those qualities in her daughter and thinks less of her because she’s seen as “weak”. This is why I can’t stand Thatcher – that all makes me so angry her unneeded resentment of women for their choices with what they want to do or who they are.

We then have an episode where we watch a man fall very hard as the choices Thatcher has made (to start a war that costs billions of pounds and takes away jobs from Brits) – especially this guy who used to paint houses, but now that no houses are being built he has no job. In his anger he breaks into the palace – at first I was like what’s his game, but he wants to talk about his frustrations with Thatcher’s decisions on where she’s spending money.

This then really starts to drive the wedge (that has been happening for a bit) between the two women. Again, Thatcher sees the Queen as weaker than her and she brings up her perfect father again. *eye roll*

Charles and Diana have their tour of Australia and New Zealand and everyone loves Diana because she’s personable and human, where the rest of the Royal family aren’t; this upsets Charles to no end. His jealously knows no bound, like wow. You really see his true colours come out when he’s with Diana. We really see the jealous, privileged, spoiled boy he is. That tour was a rollercoaster of emotions; they hate each other, they love each other, they hate each other.

I love how we got see little Prince William. Seeing Diana as a mother was nice too – and again another reason the Royal family have a tiff with her, she’s more mothering and nurturing than the Queen was.

Princess Margaret falls in love again even though it doesn’t last, this leaves her in a depression. I think Margaret is my favourite Royal, she’s just so spunky because she doesn’t have the responsibilities that the Queen has. After her heartbreak and the surgery, she goes for her lungs, she wants to dive deep into her royal duties. Instead, the Queen wants to take them away from her because she’s not in direct line for the throne and Prince Andrew is of age to take on more responsibility.

This then drives her to another depression and it’s Charles they send to help her out; didn’t I say they were alike earlier? When Charles suggests she sees a therapist, colour me shocked. Didn’t I say that?

So she goes, and this is when her therapist tells Margaret about these sisters who are part of the royal line who are in a mental hospital. Lo and behold Margaret finds them. So, basically the Royal family just abandoned and discarded people in their family because they have a mental disability- like they are people too! Just because they are seen as not perfect they can’t be associated with royalty… like it taints their pretty perfect image. Ugh.

I was wondering what the connection to the mental hospital was and it’s because they have family living in this place. When Margaret finds out she lashes out at her mother, rightfully so, but her mother won’t hear of it. She tries to bury it by saying it would question the bloodline. Ugh. Such a sad story.

I didn’t think we’d get more of the Queen and Thatcher disputes and yet, there were more. You could already tell that the Queen wasn’t the biggest fan of Margaret’s way of running the country and they go back and forth on an issue close to the Queen’s heart and Thatcher won’t sign off on it. They go back and forth until the Queen hires someone to re-write it using different words and she finally signs it. Holy!

They it was put on record how the Queen felt about Thatcher as PM and that was the biggest scandal. Prince Andrew is mad because it’s his wedding and he’s supposed to be the top thing in the news, but his mother is taking it away from him. *rolls eyes*

In the end, the Queen never comes clean about saying what she said, but they fire their writer and blame him for writing defamatory words against the Queen. At first I felt bad for the guy because someone had to take the blame because of course the Royal family aren’t ever going to claim they were wrong *eye roll* again. But apparently he went on to become a successful author so I don’t feel as bad, but still the Royal family are such duds who are so robotic… why do we like them again?

Oh because of the drama. Like serious the whole back and forth with Diana and Charles has me going mad.

If people in this robotic family could marry who they want to marry, these two wouldn’t be in this situation. Charles could have married Camilla and lived happily ever after. But that’s not the case and Charles is secretly (I guess not so secret as loads of people have found out) seeing her, which looks hella bad, but of course he wants to blame and get out of his marriage based on Diana’s infidelity, alright then.

When Diana goes on a solo trip to New York, well not only does it look bad the Charles isn’t with her, she goes to a hospital with sick children and she’s compassionate towards them and seen hugging them, which again makes Diana look like a saint and Charles like the bad guy… which he kinda is.

Even Camilla when she sees it on TV tells Charles that they can’t possibly be together because it’ll make Camilla look like the bad guy, the girl who stole Charles away from Diana and she can’t have that… which only makes Charles even angrier and he takes it out on Diana.

But even the Queen tells Charles he can’t divorce or separate from his marriage and he should stop the allusion that it will ever happen (again, they should be able to leave a toxic relationship!! No one is perfect!).

The season ends on a bit of a sad note.

First, it ends with Margaret Thatcher being voted out of Parliament so she’s no longer Prime Minister, then we end with the ongoing saga of Diana and Charles.

I won’t lie, Thatcher wasn’t my favourite PM and I’m not sad to see her go.

After Charles has a talk with his mother, Diana wants to speak with the Queen but she doesn’t get the chance. Instead it’s Philip who finds Diana to ask if she’s alright. They get into a bit of a heated discussion about her leaving. He tells her that he thinks she’s forgotten who she serves and that the Queen is the most important and everyone else is just an outsider.

This gets Diana downstairs to the Christmas party and to take photos… awkward photos I might add as she’s off to the side not even close to Charles or her kids.

And that’s where the season ends! I was a little surprised they didn’t cover her death this season. I do hope they’re going to cover it next season because it’s too big of a thing not to cover.