Netflix’s ‘The Crown’ Ends With a Death Blow to the British Monarchy: Prince Charles and Prince William “Are Not Remotely Ready to Take Over”

The final season of Netflix‘s The Crown is a weird one. Since the show premiered in 2016, it’s stood as the gold standard for British period drama fare, television drama, and Netflix’s whole catalogue. However, something weird happened the closer the show got to modern times. As soon as Peter Morgan and his team embraced the sordid scandals of the ’90s, The Crown lost its serious sheen. It began to resemble a tawdry soap opera at times, dialogue veering into Lifetime movie territory and dramatic swings flopping on impact. Then, in the last moments of The Crown‘s final episode, “Sleep, Dearie, Sleep,” the strangest thing happens…

**Spoilers for The Crown Season 6 Part 2, now streaming on Netflix**

After lionizing the royals and their commitment to Britain over six seasons of television, The Crown creator Peter Morgan imagines a conversation where the aging Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce) and Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) come to the agreement that the Royal Family is doomed after they die. It’s truly wild in its levels of anti-royalist sentiment, especially considering this season was filmed during the literal transition of power from Queen Elizabeth II to her son King Charles III.

“Those that come after you are not remotely ready to take over…You were born ready. You are one of a kind. By contrast, this lot…Mmm? The good thing is it’s not our problem,” Philip says. He points to the crypt under the floor of the chapel. “This is where you and I will be. Right under this stone. We’ll never hear the screams from inside there.”

If you think that perhaps Philip is speaking crazy talk, and that there’s no way Peter Morgan would end The Crown on a note that completely undercuts the current royal family’s status, the script goes on.

“The system makes no sense anymore to those outside it, nor to those of us inside it,” Philip says. (Oof.)

“We’re a dying breed, you and I.” (Harsh, but true?)

“Oh, I’m sure everyone will carry on, pretending all is well. But the party’s over,” Philip says, literally presaging what has seemingly happened. The royals have indeed carried on, but they’re dogged with allegations of racism, hampered by family schisms, and intent on dimming their glamour with poorly photoshopped holiday cards that at their best, evoke basic suburban tastes.

Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t die in The Crown finale — the series wraps things up in 2005, seventeen years before her death in 2022 — but the final episode is indeed obsessed with Her Majesty’s legacy. She plans her funeral, reflects on her life, and is visited by the ghosts of Crown stars past. Olivia Colman and Claire Foy return first to deliver their bullish advice to their elder version and finally to bid the show adieu. The sight of Foy and Colman doesn’t just help tie the series up in a neat little bow, but it reminds the viewer just how far the show’s quality and aesthetics have suffered since its early seasons.

The Crown‘s first season is an elegant jewel box, opening up to reveal how the Windsors put their personal passions to the side to lead their nation first through World War II and then through the turbulent mid-century. Jared Harris’s King George VI dotes on his younger daughter Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby) the night before his death with a classy duet of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” The young Prince Philip (Matt Smith) and Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) have marital arguments against the backdrop of the cavernous Westminster Abbey. Every inch of the series is as elegant and glamorous as its young monarch.

Then you come to the final season of The Crown. The sumptuous sepia tones of the past have been usurped by the glare of the sun beating down on Mohamed Al-Fayed’s garish mega-yacht. Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) says “Jumanji.” At one point Prince Charles (Dominic West) tries to be a “cool dad” for Prince William (Ed McVey) by switching his beloved opera off for Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.” The show even goes so far as equivocating young Elizabeth and Philip cavorting with rowing teams in Malta with Prince William and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) drinking cheap wine with friends in their off-campus flat.

For me, the last two seasons of The Crown have been a massive let-down. I no longer feel like the quality of the writing is up to par with seasons past, nor do I find the personalities of the younger royals as interesting as the younger iterations of the older guard. Maybe the earlier seasons had the luxury of feeling like period dramas, perhaps I’m less impressed with the familiarity of the mundane. Or maybe — just maybe — The Crown‘s own precipitous drop in quality is meant to be reflective of the royals themselves.

The Crown has always highlighted just how special a monarch Queen Elizabeth II was. Not because she lived so long, but because she hewed so close to the impossible standards set on her title for her whole life. In The Crown‘s finale, Peter Morgan chooses to underscore her specialness by letting Philip throw their heirs under the bus. The implication? The younger royals don’t have the proverbial rizz to follow in her footsteps.

For a show that has always fetishized the British monarchy, The Crown‘s final season does an ironically great job dismantling that mystique. I’m sure the royal family’s defenders will scoff at the Netflix series’s finale, but there’s an element of truth to Philip’s doom and gloom prognosis. The modern royal family aren’t rulers. Instead, as The Crown has proven, they are merely characters in a public soap opera.