The Season 5 finale of The Crown is a finale in name only. Though we already know some of what’s to come in season six (Dodi and Diana’s relationship and their deaths, mostly), the final episode of the season acts as pure setup for the tragic events that we know are going to unfold. It’s just a shame we’re going to have to wait who-knows-how-long for The Crown Season 6 to come out.
Dodi Al-Fayed, now a big-time Hollywood producer, is living the life in California, light years away from London where his father Mohamed lives with his second wife, Heini. Dodi’s in a bidding war with Michael Douglas for a Malibu mansion, and he’s found love with a model and aspiring actress named Kelly Fisher. Dodi wants the new house (which he needs his father’s money to buy) for him and Kelly, who he loves and wants to marry, but first, he wants to introduce her to Mohamed. Dodi and Kelly take the private jet to London while Seal’s cover of “Fly Like An Eagle” serves as a reminder that not everything about the ’90s deserves a second life.
When Mohamed meets Kelly, he declares, “She’s cute,” but coarsely asks Dodi, “Isn’t it enough just to fuck her?” This conversation happens in Arabic, Mohamed wouldn’t be so rude as to say this in front of her if she could actually understand him. But she finds the fact that the two men are carrying on in another language a little rude. Don’t worry, Kelly will be out of the picture soon enough! (It remains to be seen if she’ll actually appear next season, but it’s safe to say she’s not a long-term concern for anyone here.)
Around this time, a TV special about the merit of having a monarchy airs, with private citizens making a case for or against maintaining a British monarchy. (Watching Diana redial the “NO” phone number a hundred times is petty and also pure ’90s phone nostalgia at its finest.) Also pure ’90s nostalgia is the Big Mouth Billy Bass that Prince Andrew gives his mother for her birthday at a quiet family celebration. Though Charles has painted his mother a watercolor landscape, his mother is dismissive of his artistry and, upon opening Andrew’s gift of the singing fish, she tells him, “You always buy the best presents!” Resting Charles Face resets to angry once more. Over lunch, the family discusses the TV program about them. While the queen seems to have gotten the impression that the public still favors the monarchy, Charles saw things differently, telling his family that the polls on that show, coupled with the fact that Tony Blair and his Labour Party are a shoo-in for the upcoming elections, are an indicator that changes are coming in Britain.
Blair does win the election by a landslide, which means that this is the last we’ll be seeing of John Major. Major lamented in the first episode of the season that the royal family’s vision of themselves was deluded, saying, “It’s a situation that cannot help but to affect the stability of the country. What makes it worse is it feels it’s all about to erupt… on my watch.” And while the family did self-destruct in many ways, and confidence in Major did eventually wane (after seven years, so not a bad run), I’d say that Major still came out of it all intact, and with the respect of the queen, too. “You will always rank highly in my personal table of prime ministers,” she tells him after his defeat. “Very highly.”
“I am still frustrated that I was never able to resolve the issue of the royal yacht,” he tells her, bringing us all the way back to episode one when the queen asked Major for the funds to refit her most favorite royal residence, the HMY Britannia. But you’ll recall from that episode – and every other one this season – that everything is a metaphor, and the ship is perhaps the biggest, most heaving metaphor for the queen. And sadly, it’s ready to be decommissioned. Blair, this bright shining beacon of modernity and progressive values, has declared it so. In it’s place, he offers the queen a solution, that a new yacht, to be privately owned by a corporation, will be leased out anytime travel is required. (“Like a rental!?” Margaret says aghast. Worse still, Blair suggests that the name of the boat will be called “New Britain,” which is also the motto of the Labour Party. Charles doesn’t hate it. The rest of his family does.)
As Major hands the nation over to Blair, Britain readies itself to hand over Hong Kong to China. It has been decided that Charles will preside over the occasion, and while he’s there, he’ll travel on Britannia, in what will be her final voyage before it’s decommissioned and the SS New Britain replaces it. But on the flight over, Charles learns that he and Camilla have been bumped to business class, as all of the politicians attending have snatched all the first class plane tickets. (On the plane, Charles gives 100% “Elaine in coach class” vibes while Jerry pops champagne and smothers himself in hot towels in first class on Seinfeld. The flight attendant even goes so far as to close the curtain to avert pauper Charles’s snooping eyes.)
While Charles is halfway around the world, Diana is in London attending a performance of Swan Lake where she reunites with Mohamed, with whom she has had a long-term friendship since they met at the racetrack in episode 3. He insists she join him and Heini for a post-show meal, and she reluctantly agrees. On the drive to the restaurant, her car is assailed by paparazzi, whose flashbulbs are dangerously blinding. I understand foreshadowing, sometimes I wish this show was just more subtle about it, you know?
This being the beginning of the summer on 1997, Diana tells Mohamed that she’s longing to get out of the country, especially since Charles plans to throw Camilla a grand 50th birthday party that will no doubt be the talk of the town. Mohamed invites Diana to Saint Tropez to vacation with his family. Bring the boys, he tells her, “There will be speedboats and jet skis and movies and burgers and French fries!” Mohamed can be a real asshole sometimes, but Salim Daw’s delivery of this line is the greatest.
After Charles hands Hong Kong over to China, he’s given an audience with Tony Blair, with whom he finds a kinship. Blair, at 43, is the youngest Prime Minister the country has seen in a century, and with his relative youth and forward-thinking disposition, Charles finds kinship. Or so he hopes. They meet aboard Britannia, and Blair explains that only now that he’s seen the ship’s majesty does he regret decommissioning her. Charles scoffs, telling Blair that “there’s no point clinging to the past.” Are we talking about the ship or the queen? You decide the meaning, Blair!
Charles launches into a diatribe about how he wishes to renovate the royal family and its values, but he’s really a single-issue politician, and his campaign hinges on his own right to remarry. He asks for Blair’s help, to form a quiet alliance, and while Blair sees right through Charles’s agenda, he pities him, too. “Can’t be much fun being the Prince of Wales if you’re an impressive man,” he tells his wife.
Upon hearing about Charles using the yacht for a vacation with Camilla, the queen eviscerates him when he returns, insulting their relationship and asking Charles, “What good can ultimately come of it when the public is so against it?” Charles’s anger throughout the years is certainly justified when you consider moments like this. Charles tells his mother that she adheres to Victorian-era ideals – about marriage, about life, about all of it – which she thanks him for and takes as a compliment. But the lingering silence and staring into space that follows is the unspoken indicator that she’s willing to acknowledge that maybe she is a little old-fashioned.
No time to dwell on your kids though, when you’ve got a decommissioned yacht to bid farewell to! Off the queen goes to say one last goodbye to Britannia where she tearfully salutes every last sailor, mast, and porthole she can. Ah, the great metaphorical ship, it’s sad to see you go! This would all seem so much poignant if the queen were in fact, about to abdicate or die, but we all know she has 30 more years left, and it’s hard to get too lost in the metaphor of it all, honestly knowing that she’s just getting started.
While the queen is aboard her ship, Mohamed and Diana ready themselves for their trip to the South of France on his. As the episode ends, there are still so many stories that are only just getting ready to unfold, and so many looming questions about what’s in store for season six. In reality, the time frame between the Saint Tropez vacation and Diana and Dodi’s deaths was only three weeks, which means that even though we see Dodi propose to Kelly in the final moments of this episode, everything will change for everyone when he meets Diana. Every moment from here on out counts more than ever, and the rest of the story will become a thing of legend, a tragic fairy tale without a happy ending.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
