<em>The Crown</em> Takes the Shine Off Queen Elizabeth’s Reign

Early in its fourth season, The Crown finds Britain at a low. It’s 1982, and the so-called Winter of Discontent still lingers over the country as unemployment numbers soar and a war brews in the Falklands. But inside Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II (played by Olivia Colman) has a more personal catastrophe on her mind: She’s not sure which of her four children is her favorite.

And so Her Majesty invites each of them to lunch, hoping one will impress her more than the others. It’s a frivolous but revealing endeavor—the four meetings show the gaping emotional distance between Elizabeth and her royal progeny, who all look stunned to be spending time alone with “mummy.”, as if she were a bank teller. Andrew (Tom Byrne) boasts of a young “actress” he met, a tawdry subject that shocks the sovereign. Charles (Josh O’Connor) and Anne (Erin Doherty) rue their marriages, talking over her advice. Colman plays Elizabeth with a dignified embarrassment, forcing smiles through her obvious disappointment. Later, she vents her frustrations to Philip (Tobias Menzies), who tells her not to fret—their children are all adults, and she needs to concentrate on being a mother to a nation. Still, the damage has been done. Philip reveals that all of their children had been “perplexed” by their lunches, and Elizabeth is convinced they’re lost. In the meantime, the country remains in decline.