In the early seasons of The Crown, screenwriter Peter Morgan and the show’s audience only had eyes for Queen Elizabeth II. Critics and analysts of the British royal house were fascinated by the look of the work, which vindicated the role of a monarch as discreet as it was relevant, especially in the 20th century. But Diana Spencer, the mother of her grandchildren Enrique and Guillermo and who was her daughter-in-law between 1981 and 1996, arrived and this attention dispersed. All you need is the new promotional images of the series in its sixth and final season: The Crown only has eyes for the Princess of Wales.
To start, one of the season’s posters is Diana sitting on a pier in the Mediterranean. She forces us to think about the days before her tragic accident under the Bridge of Souls in Paris when she spent her last days aboard the Jonikal, Dodi Fayed’s ship. And, in the photographs published this week, she can be seen both on the Chariots of Fire producer’s boat and inside a vehicle with which she was her partner at the time of her death. Is this a frame from before the accident?
Also notable is an image of Diana in the south of France with those who play her children, now played by Rufus Kampa and Fflyn Edwards. Regarding Diana, Elizabeth Debicki reprises her character after her work in the fifth season, when she inherited the role from Emma Corrin.
It should be noted that, while Corrin was nominated for a season that swept the Emmys (and where she lost to Gillian Anderson, who played Margaret Thatcher in the same series), Debicki also achieved the nomination in the most prestigious television awards for a season that did not obtain any other mention in the acting categories.
Netflix’s strategy is clear: focus the promotion of the final season of The Crown on Diana’s death even though this must happen in the first episodes. And, after dedicating each season to covering a minimum of eight years of the life of Isabel, now played by Imelda Staunton, the fifth covered six years in order to reserve the tragic chapter for the last season.
