The Crown Season 5 Ending Explained (In Detail)
The Crown Season 5's ending highlights Queen Elizabeth's feelings of obsolescence while setting up Princess Diana's tragic death still to come.
Warning: SPOILERS for The Crown Season 5 Finale - "Decommissioned"
The ending of The Crown season 5 centers on Queen Elizabeth II's (Imelda Staunton) dramatic feelings of obsolescence while Prince Charles (Dominic West) fruitlessly campaigns for greater stature as the future King and the tragic fate of Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) hangs in the air. The Prince and Princess of Grains officially separated from in The Crown season 5, episode 9, "Couple 31." The remainder of the Illustrious Family moved to the foundation as their accounts enveloped with The Crown season 5, however Mohamed Al Fayed (Salim Daw) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) became the dominant focal point in the finale.
The Crown season 5 saw Sovereign Elizabeth confronting her disappointments as the sovereign and as a mother, which were solidified in her "annus horribilis" of 1992 with the implodes of 3 regal relationships - Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, Princess Anne (Claudia Harrison) and Imprint Phillips, alongside Charles and Diana - and the horrendous fire at Windsor Castle. The Crown season 5 also depicted Diana and Charles' "all-out war" that led to their divorce, including the Princess of Wales' secret participation in Andrew Morton's best-selling book, and Diana's controversial interview with Martin Bashir (Prasanna Puwanarajah). It all culminated in the formal end of Charles and Diana's marriage. Meanwhile, Tony Blair (Bertie Carvel) was elected Prime Minister, ending John Major's (Jonny Lee Miller) and the Tories' tenure.
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Britannia's Decommissioning Mirrors The Queen Feeling Obsolete
Sovereign Elizabeth finished The Crown season 5 unfortunately visiting the destined to-be-decommissioned HMY Britannia. Elizabeth pronounced the Illustrious Yacht as her "most loved home" and it was a drifting image of the Sovereign.But by The Crown season 5's finale, which is set in 1997, Britannia was at the end of her life as the United Kingdom's flagship. In The Crown season 5's premiere, "Queen Victoria Syndrome," Elizabeth failed to secure her government to agree to fund Britannia's refitting. Tony Blair's Labour Party decided the Royal Yacht is to be decommissioned after over 40 years of service and 9 million miles sailed. The Queen saw her own reign reflected in Britannia's decommissioning, and it exacerbated her own feelings of obsolescence.
The Sovereign's union with Ruler Philip (Jonathan Pryce) was tried once more in a way it hadn't been since The Crown season 2.Along with coming to terms with her perception as an old, out-of-touch relic of Victorian values, and the disappointment of her children's scandalous divorces, the Queen felt a growing distance between herself and Philip. The Duke of Edinburgh had his own "gang," hobbies, and a "special friend," in the younger Lady Penny Romsey (Natasha McElhone). Elizabeth had to acquiesce Philip's request to acknowledge Penny. But it all came back to Britannia for the Queen, as the Royal Yacht's decommissioning was the end of an era that made Elizabeth privately question what her reign was still worth.
The Crown Season 5 Sets Up King Charles (With Lots Of Fictional Scenes)
A significant part of The Crown season 5's contention encompasses Sovereign Charles' storyline. Alongside needing a finish to his union with Diana so he can seek after his genuine affection, Camilla Parker-Bowles (Olivia Williams), Charles restlessly battled to become King.The Crown's scandalous Charles storylines include private meetings with both Prime Ministers that have been denied by John Major and Tony Blair as pure fiction. The Crown depicts Charles discussing the Queen's "early Abdication" with Major and commiserating with Blair as men of common age and outlook to the future. But Charles' posturing is for naught as he cannot become King until his mother dies. As the Queen reminded him in another dramatic confrontation, "This job is for life."
Albeit The Crown season 5 was created well before Sovereign Elizabeth's September 2022 demise and the climb of King Charles III, the series took a startlingly free perspective on the Sovereign of Grains in season 5. The Crown season 3 was sympathetic to the younger Prince Charles (Josh O'Connor) as he waited in vain to become King, but The Crown season 4 showed a nastier side of Charles when he wanted to end his marriage to Diana (Emma Corrin) in the 1980s. The Crown season 5 is far more complimentary of Charles, noting he is "impressive," has "a brain," "a beating heart," and a "genuine desire to engage." Yet even though The Crown is a pure dramatization, Charles' season 5 storylines feel especially fictional.
Divorce From Charles Left Diana Ostracized And Marginalized
The eventual fate of the Government is one of The Crown season 5's essential subjects, and the finale started with Diana casting a ballot for finishing the Government in a broadcast banter. Diana spent The Crown season 5 wanting to tear down the Royal Family. The Princess of Wales had few dealings with the other royals in The Crown season 5, with her Kensington Palace neighbor, Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville) noting to the Queen that she hardly ever sees Diana. Ostracized from the Windsors, Diana found comfort in her immense popularity and that the book she helped Andrew Morton write by secretly sending him recordings became a best-seller.
The Crown dedicated two or three episodes to Diana's Scene interview with Martin Bashir, which she said was at first generally welcomed, however feeling before long betrayed her. By The Crown season 5's finale, Diana's personal staff had quit, Prince William was matriculating at Eton and spending weekends with the Queen, and the Princess of Wales was feeling more lost and isolated than ever. Without a support system and increasingly marginalized, but still desperate for the love and sympathy that always eluded her from her husband and in-laws, Diana turned to the friend she made in The Crown season 5: Mohamed Al Fayed.
How The Crown Season 5's Ending Set Up Diana's Death In Season 6
The Crown season 5's finale unfavorably anticipated Princess Diana's future auto crash and demise in Paris on August 31, 1997. Diana goes to an exhibition of Swan Lake and runs into Mohamed Al Fayed, who she met at a polo match at the end of The Crown season 5, episode 3, "Mou Mou." Mohamed invites the lonely Diana and her sons to summer with the Al Fayed family on their yacht in Saint-Tropez. But en route to a restaurant after the ballet, Diana's car is relentlessly chased by paparazzi, setting up the tragedy that would befall Diana just months later.
Dodi Fayed finished The Crown season 5 proposing to American model Kelly Fisher (Erin Richards), yet, in actuality, he forsakes Kelly and starts seeing Diana once they meet again in Holy person Tropez that mid year. The Crown also juxtaposed Queen Elizabeth touring the Royal Yacht Britannia once last time before it was decommissioned with Mohamed Al Fayed comfortably lounging on his new, luxurious yacht in the glorious ocean and sunshine. But a dark cloud hangs over Princess Diana and Dodi and their inevitable deaths are still to come in The Crown season 6.