One key royal is missing from The Crowns final series -and its full of twaddle

TV & Movies

Great news! It’s safe to come out from behind the sofa. The final six episodes of The Crown, arriving today on Netflix, contain not even a mention of Meghan Markle. No disrespect, but hallelujah!

By wrapping up the story in 2005, at the wedding of Charles and Camilla (Dominic West and Olivia Williams), creator Peter Morgan has spared us that sorry sideshow.

We still see plenty of Harry (played with magnificent charmlessness by Luther Ford) but at this point he’s just an angry, bitter young prince.

He’s yet to find that special someone who’ll repeatedly assure him, and indeed the rest of us, that he has every right to be so, and that there’s bound to be at least a book deal in it.

We do, of course, meet a young Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy), who’s arrived on the scene in 2001.

We follow her initial awkward encounters with William (Ed McVey), whom she meets at St Andrews University, then watch the pair grow closer. Hilariously, Kate’s mum Carole (Eve Best) is portrayed as the pushiest of mothers, desperate for her daughter to wed the future King.

Morgan, I’m sure, thought long and hard about where to round off this final season. The Crown, after all, is a soap, and soaps go and on.

But he’s picked a good time. He’s on record as saying he likes at least 20 years to have elapsed before writing about a particular period, and 2005 is, well, near enough.

It also allows these final episodes to cover seismic events, such as the deaths of Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville) and the Queen Mother (Marcia Warren) within seven weeks of one another, in early 2002.

Besides being too recent, the passing of Her Majesty (Imelda Staunton) would have been too raw a note on which to end.

Of course, The Crown wouldn’t be The Crown without a generous helping of twaddle.

Scoring highest in that regard this time is the suggestion that, in her speech at Charles and Camilla’s reception, the Queen planned to announce her abdication.

Having been persuaded to do so during a conversation with her younger self (the returning Olivia Colman), it seems she needed a further chat, this time with, golly me, her even younger self (the returning Claire Foy), to talk her out of it.

That said, Windsor does provide the setting for a touching final scene, featuring just the Queen and Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce).

READ MORE The events of The Crown season 6 part 2 explained

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Her Majesty, aware she’ll turn 80 the following year, is in a reflective mood, but Philip insists: “Those that come after you are not remotely ready to take over.” He has a point.

Charles, for all the happiness he’s now found, has a pair of sons we see growing further apart.

“Will you stop bickering?!” he yells at them one night over supper.

Sadly, I think we know the answer to that one.

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