My Life Watching the Crown

Sadly I have watched the last episode of The Crown. The eight year journey to watch the fictionalized life of Queen Elizabeth has been a joy to go on. The first episode aired on November 4, 2016 before the election that year, which turned us up on our end. It was a moment before the loss of innocence.

I have faithfully followed, consumed, watched, rewatched the episodes of The Crown, preferring to live through the life of Elizabeth. Waiting long stretches of time for new episodes to be released. Waiting to learn who would play the ever aging Queen. Loving learning history, if even just slightly fictionalized.

Having lived in London twice, the first time from 1979-1981 and second from 1994-1998 I recognized the changes in Britain as an ex-pat. I felt how the love/hate relationship for the monarchy ebbed and flowed. Russ and I were there the day Diana died. Watching The Crown was like going back in time for some of my own life because we all knew where we were when major things happened in the royal family, life Charles and Diana’s wedding or the death of the queen mother.

So I am very sad to have no future new Crown episodes to take me away from my commoner life. They were a great escape from the reality of what was going on in this country.

I feel the last episode was a great work of art (spoiler alerts) to foreshadow the Queens future death without getting close to it and to bring back Olivia Coleman and Claire Foy as the younger versions of the Queen to close out this last episode.

Unless you are a Queen you will never know how accurate the depiction of daily life was, but I feel that The Crown did a great service to the Monarchy to give us the feel of the weight of the Crown. It was a job well done.