The Crown season 2

The second season of The Crown follows the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It consists of ten episodes and was released by Netflix on 8 December 2017.

Claire Foy stars as Elizabeth, with main cast members Matt Smith, Vanessa Kirby, Jeremy Northam, Greg Wise, Victoria Hamilton, Alex Jennings and Lia Williams reprising their roles from the first season. Anton Lesser and Matthew Goode are added to the main cast. Original main cast members Jared Harris, John Lithgow, and Ben Miles also return in cameo appearances.

Premise

The Crown traces the life of Queen Elizabeth II from her wedding in 1947 through to the present day. Season two covers the period between 1956 and 1964.

Claire Foy continues to portray the Queen, and the season covers the Suez Crisis in 1956, the retirement of the Queen's third Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963, following the Profumo affair political scandal, and the births of the Queen's two youngest sons – Prince Andrew in 1960 and Prince Edward in 1964. The season also portrays John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy and Lord Altrincham.

Cast

Main

• Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II
• Matt Smith as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Elizabeth's husband
• Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, Elizabeth's younger sister
• Jeremy Northam as Prime Minister Anthony Eden
• Anton Lesser as Harold Macmillan, Anthony Eden's successor as Prime Minister
• Greg Wise as Lord Mountbatten, Philip's ambitious uncle and great-grandson of Queen Victoria
• Victoria Hamilton as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, King George VI's widow and Elizabeth's mother
• Matthew Goode as Antony Armstrong-Jones, a society photographer who marries Princess Margaret

Featured

The following actors are credited in the opening titles of up to two episodes:

• Alex Jennings as Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, who abdicated in favour of his younger brother in order to marry Wallis Simpson
• Lia Williams as Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, the Duke of Windsor's American wife
• John Heffernan as Lord Altrincham, a writer who pens a scathing criticism of the Queen
• Gemma Whelan as Patricia Campbell, a secretary who works with Altrincham and types up his editorial; later Lord Altrincham's wife
• Paul Sparks as Billy Graham, a prominent American preacher with whom Elizabeth consults
• Jared Harris as King George VI, Elizabeth's father, known to his family as Bertie
• John Lithgow as Sir Winston Churchill, the Queen's first Prime Minister
• Ben Miles as Group Captain Peter Townsend, George VI's former equerry and Princess Margaret's ex-fiancé
• Michael C. Hall as John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
• Jodi Balfour as Jacqueline Kennedy, the First Lady of the United States
• Burghart Klaußner as Dr Kurt Hahn, the founder of Gordonstoun school
• Finn Elliot as school-aged Prince Philip
• Julian Baring as school-aged Prince Charles, Elizabeth and Philip's eldest child and the heir apparent

Recurring

Guest

Episodes

Release

The second season was released on Netflix worldwide in its entirety on 8 December 2017. Season two was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on 22 October 2018 and worldwide on 13 November 2018.

Music

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes reported a 89% approval rating for the second season based on 83 reviews, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The website's critical consensus read "The Crown continues its reign with a self-assured sophomore season that indulges in high drama and sumptuous costumes." On Metacritic, the second season holds a score of 87 out of 100, based on 27 critics.

Foy and Smith both earned significant praise from critics. Chancellor Agard of Entertainment Weekly wrote "As always, Claire Foy turns in an amazingly restrained performance." Reviewing the first episode, Gabriel Tate of The Daily Telegraph wrote that Foy and Smith have "seldom been better". Hugo Rifkind of The Times said "While ardent monarchists might bristle at the way this is going, for the rest of us it's getting better and better".

Alison Keene of Collider said "each new episode makes its mark and tells its own complete story... It's another exceptionally strong season of television, full of compelling drama and sweeping grandeur". Krutika Malikarjuna of TV Guide argued that the public is attracted to the royals' celebrity and star power, and said: "The brilliance of this framing becomes clear as the show evolves into The Real Housewives of Buckingham." Sophie Gilbert wrote for The Atlantic that the portrayal of a monarch who "would rather be living any other life" is "riveting", and that it is "gorgeously shot, with flawless re-creations of everything from the Throne Room in Buckingham Palace to a 1950s hospital ward. And it's surprisingly funny."

The Wall Street Journal critic John Anderson said "The Crown attains genuine sexiness without sex. Margaret, à la Ms. Kirby's interpretation, smolders, as does Elizabeth, at least on occasion." Meghan O'Keefe of Decider wrote that the season "continues to romanticize the British royal family, but the romance comes from how they're normal, not divine".

Less complimentary reviews saw the season criticised for what some regarded as failing to meet the emotional intensity of the first. John Doyle wrote for Globe and Mail that despite being "lavishly made" and "breathtaking", it "now leans toward a three-hanky weeper about marriage. It is less than it was, like the monarchy itself, and of interest to monarchy fans only." Alan Sepinwall of Uproxx added "Many of the season's wounds are self-inflicted" and that Philip "still comes across as a whiny man-child". Phil Owen of The Wrap described the season as "trashy" and saw dry comedy in Northam's portrayal of Eden: "I'm assuming that creator Peter Morgan meant for it to be comedy. There's really no other explanation for why Jeremy Northam played Prime Minister Anthony Eden like he's having a nervous breakdown in every scene."

Claire Foy won the 2018 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance in the episode Dear Mrs Kennedy. Stephen Daldry won the 2018 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the episode "Paterfamilias."

Historical accuracy

After season two was released, Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal commented on its historical inaccuracy, and argued for "more truth in art and entertainment". Baron Nahum, for instance, continued to be featured in the season, but in reality had died in 1956. The show also depicts the Queen as giving a speech at a Jaguar factory, when in reality there is no evidence that she gave a speech there. Similarly, while it is possible that she might have met Lord Altrincham to discuss his article, there is no record of it.

Hugo Vickers wrote that the Queen did condemn the Duke of Windsor after she read the Marburg Files, but suggested that the series gave the false implication that the Duke was banished from the royal family upon publication. In reality, the Duke remained in contact with his family, and his public appearances continued.

The depiction of the relationship between the American First Lady Jackie Kennedy and the royal family also drew criticism as inaccurate; reports from the time indicate that she had described Prince Philip as "nice but nervous", with no real bond between them. The implication that the Queen visited Ghana to compete with Kennedy's popularity was ridiculed by critics. Reviews noted that that episode ignored more significant events, such as President Kennedy's sister-in-law Lee and her husband Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł's initial exclusion from the banquet invitation list due to their divorcee status; they were eventually invited, although Princess Margaret and Princess Marina did not attend, despite the Kennedys apparently wanting to meet them.

Gordonstoun School responded to its negative portrayal, claiming that Prince Charles's personal feedback to the school had been overwhelmingly positive. Vickers said that the same episode inaccurately depicted Prince Philip's sister's death in a plane crash as having arisen from his own misbehaviour at Gordonstoun: "It is beyond me how serious film-makers would wish to turn such a dreadful tragedy into a series of invented scenes bearing no relation to the truth". Vickers later added that Philip considered suing the show's producers over the inaccurate portrayal of his sister's death and its aftermath.

Phil Owen of The Wrap saw dry comedy in Northam's portrayal of Prime Minister Eden, stating: "I'm assuming that creator Peter Morgan meant for it to be comedy. There's really no other explanation for why Jeremy Northam played Prime Minister Anthony Eden like he's having a nervous breakdown in every scene."

References

External links

• • The Crown season 2 on Netflix
• The Crown at IMDb