‘The Crown’ Recap, Episode 9: “Assassins”

I must confess to having been pleasantly surprised by The Crown, Episode 9, “Assassins,” after having dismissed one of the subplots as hopelessly boring at the outset. We’ll return to said subplot (the infamous — and doomed — portrait of Winston Churchill painted by the great modernist Graham Sutherland) in due course, because we desperately need to discuss Porchie.

PORCHIE.

Porchie.

Before we get into it, it may amuse you to know that Porchie’s family seat is Highclere Castle, better known to TV viewers as the filming location of Downton Abbey. My other favorite Porchie-related detail is that his grandfather was one of those killed by the CURSE OF TUTANKHAMUN, or, more prosaically, an infected mosquito bite.

To us, of course, Porchie is our keyhole into Elizabeth’s romantic past. Porchie was her devoted friend (he remained so her entire life), and most of the show’s decisions around the character are quite fanciful. Elizabeth, by all accounts, was utterly besotted with Philip right out of the gate, and no one else really had a look-in, nor are we at all sure that Porchie himself wanted it any other way. It’s delightful, though, as imagined here: Porchie has such an open, happy face, an easy and playful air with Elizabeth, and a frank shared passion for horses that allows Elizabeth to flex happily in a sphere that does truly interest her, without any need to hire a tutor or feign expertise. The allure of being truly good at something, to have her advice be appreciated and sought for its own merits, as opposed to her status, is something she’s flailing for right now, and the slightly wind-swept Elizabeth who opines firmly on breeding choices and running out in front if the field is a bit mucky is a revelation and a delight. It reminded me so much of Bolt and Break-In, the lovely Dick Francis mystery novels that fictionalized bits of his longtime relationship with The Queen as her jockey. Her essential self gets an airing here, and it’s a pleasure.

Especially, of course, as Classic Prat Philip has taken his prat-ness and decided to dial it up to an 11 following the already IMPRESSIVE prat-itude that marked the royal tour. He’s out at the club all hours, returning drunk and bored and utterly disinterested in his wife. While at the same time, straight out of the cheaters’ playbook, becoming VERY suspicious of her own friendships and relationships. The screaming fight they have in the car following his unforgivable and insulting suggestion that Porchie might have fathered Charles or Anne is all the more powerful for being filmed silently from the back window.

It’s now that the portrait plot, which seemed like a distraction, gets a chance to shine. I go back and forth on John Lithgow’s Churchill; Lithgow is good, the writing less so. Churchill was so physically unique and his mannerisms and body so widely known, it’s hard for an actor to play him without doing an impression, and the Winston Churchill of The Crown is an impression. Harriet Walter’s Clementine Churchill, however, is uniformly superb. Theirs was a notoriously close and happy marriage of equals, whatever their failures as parents, and it’s wonderful in a show punctuated by unhappy or doomed relationships to see a good one that bolsters and uplifts both participants.

Stephen Dillane, for his part, is superb as Graham Sutherland, absolutely superb. He’s a brilliant actor, and he plays Sutherland with quiet power and intense cerebral concentration. Even as I was “ugh this thing with the dead kid and the pond is SO on the nose,” I found myself snivelling, and the tightness of his jaw as Churchill mocked the end result of their collaboration in public had me close to tears a second time. The painting itself, which was indeed burned at the Churchill home (by a servant, though not against the wishes of Clementine or Winston) shortly after its arrival, was a great achievement, as our photographs of the end result, as well as the surviving pencil and ink sketches, testify to.

It’s a relief to see Churchill begin to fade from the show, which never knew quite what to do with him, even though Jeremy Northam likes to chew the scenery too much to be a truly capable Anthony Eden. The dinner scene, where Elizabeth pays thoughtful tribute to his contributions to the nation and to her personal development as sovereign, is both touching and deft: the hairy eyeball she’s giving Philip sets us up to move into the season finale all guns blazing, all emotions on the table.

[Watch The Crown, Episode 9, “Assassins” on Netflix]

Nicole Cliffe used to run The Toast, a niche site for queer archivists which Hillary Clinton at least pretended to like, but is now mostly just dicking around on Twitter.