‘The Crown’ Season 4 Episode 2 Recap: Prime Time

Knowing the manner of Princess Diana’s death, hunted by paparazzi as she tried to flee them, the final shot of episode two of The Crown feels dark and tragic as Diana walks down the sidewalk of her London neighborhood, hounded for her very first time by photographers after they catch wind of her budding relationship with Prince Charles. She smiles (always shyly, Emma Corrin has mastered Diana’s coy, averting-the-eyes expression), unable to know that this first taste of attention would be the beginning and the end for her.

Diana has just returned from a weekend hunt at Balmoral, the royal estate in Scotland, where she impressed Prince Charles’ entire family with not just her wit and beauty, but her hunting prowess, helping Prince Philip kill an imperial stag. The stag, later mounted like a trophy within the castle walls,  yet another symbol for Diana’s trajectory; the once-majestic creature, admired for its beauty and stature, hunted down, gawked at, killed for sport. While on the hunt, we came to appreciate not only Diana’s ability to tell which direction the wind blows, but the secure wig glue that prevents her feathered ‘do from taking flight.

Diana’s time at Balmoral was a test, on a grand scale. Many families rib the son’s new girlfriend, initiating her into their quirks and routines, but the royal family goes one better, inviting all who dare become a part of their lives to their Scottish home for an emotional sort of hazing that even the cruelest fraternities could learn from. For Diana, this test signified not just whether she was compatible with Prince Charles, but whether she’d be be a good candidate for his wife. As Charles tells his actual true love, the now-married Camilla Parker Bowles, over the phone after Diana’s visit, “In the history of Balmoral, no one has ever passed a test with such flying colours.” Camilla’s like…

You know who didn’t pass the Balmoral test? Margaret Thatcher. The Queen eagerly awaits the arrival of Thatcher and her husband Denis to Balmoral, again as a test, but also, it’s a bank holiday, surely the head of state would enjoy a bit of fun? But alas, no one told Thatcher that royal fun included stag-stalking through fields of mud, and here she is without her Wellies. Thatcher excuses herself from the hunt, and later sulks through some Highland Games because watching men in kilts throw logs is not her cup of PG Tips. “I’m struggling to find any redeeming features in these people at all,” she tells Denis as she realizes that the royals come to represent the thing she hates most: upper class entitlement.

When Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter, finally getting a moment to speak this season) spots Thatcher in the castle, sitting in Queen Victoria’s chair catching up on work rather than joining the family on the hunt, she senses the Prime Minister’s discomfort at being asked to, you know, have fun and join in, and she’s nothing short of savage. “One learns, when one has the benefit of experience, that sometimes time off is the most sensible course of action,” the Princess tells Thatcher.

“I’m not best suited to time off, it gives me no pleasure,” Thatcher tells her.

“It might give you something more important than that: perspective,” the Princess retorts. When we consider that most of Margaret’s life is time off, I guess you can take that with a grain of salt, but nevertheless, it’s a solid burn.

As Thatcher packs up and drives off, Diana arrives, shifting the tone in the castle considerably. To draw an Aqua-Net-inspired metaphor, Diana allows herself to accept the goings-on at Balmoral and let that wind blow through her hair on a stag hunt. Thatcher is unable to allow for even one thing to be out of step, one hair to be out of place, even while on vacation.

Thatcher may have failed miserably in the eyes of the royals, but the weekend away was a moment of clarity for her. After her aggressive new fiscal policies were publicly scorned by members of her own cabinet, she returned to London to eliminate anyone who comes from that old, stodgy era, any of the “patronizing bullies” who stand in her way.

She goes on to fire three cabinet members who were most critical of her agenda, and pointedly tells the Queen at their weekly meeting that she replaced these men because they lacked grit, as a result of their privilege. Understanding that this is a direct commentary on the weekend at Balmoral, the Queen tells her, “Always a mistake to assume just because people are privileged they lack grit.” Just when we thought the Queen’s disposition was colder than a January day in Shropshire, Thatcher makes the Queen feel warm as a holiday in Mallorca.

As Thatcher secured her political position as an uncompromising and, at times, ruthless leader, Diana too secured her position as the beloved English rose, ready to blossom into an icon.  Diana, full of street smarts and an apt pupil of the world around her, passed the Balmoral test, ready to enroll in Royal U. Thatcher on the other hand, while clever in her own way, just seemed to be one of those students who just doesn’t test well. Yet despite their different methods, both of them were, without realizing it, vying to become the most famous woman in the world.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Brooklyn. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.

Watch The Crown Season 4 Episode 2 ("The Balmoral Test") on Netflix