The Crown‘s final chapter nearly had a very different ending. Creator Peter Morgan opened up to Variety about crafting the end to his long-standing, Emmy-winning drama, and revealed how the real-life death of Queen Elizabeth II caused him to shift gears when it came to the matriarch’s fictional departure.
“We’d all been through the experience of the funeral. So because of how deeply everybody will have felt that, I had to try and find a way in which the final episode dealt with the character’s death, even though she hadn’t died yet,” the 60-year-old showrunner tells the outlet in a recent interview.
Netflix boss Ted Sarandos tells Variety that the production team had contemplated ending the series with the queen’s death when they began developing the series, but then she “effectively outlived” the show.
“It was the cutoff to keep it historical, not journalistic,” Morgan says of ending the show in 2005. “I think by stopping almost 20 years before the present day, it’s dignified.”
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The Emmy-winning drama’s sixth and final season will tell its version of the final months leading up to the car crash in Paris that took the life of Princess Diana and tipped the royal family into mourning and controversy. The series will debut its final batch of episodes in a two-parter, with part 1 of season 6 airing on Thursday, Nov. 16, and the second portion being released on Dec. 14.
According to Netflix’s official synopsis, the season will close out the genre-defining prestige royal saga that has been on screens since 2016.
“In their first Summer as a divorced couple, Prince Charles and Princess Diana share very different holidays with their sons. Diana is being courted by the Fayeds in the South of France, giving the young Princes a taste of luxury yachts, video games and movie nights. Charles is sticking to tradition in Balmoral. The comparisons play out in the press, fuelled by a fervent paparazzi, and some of the Royal press team,” the synopsis reads.
“As yacht life and the constant media scrutiny lose its appeal, Diana longs to return to see her boys, who are back in Balmoral. A diversion to Paris sees matters come to a head — against the backdrop of an intensified and aggressive media pursuit.”
“After the news breaks of Diana and Dodi’s fatal car accident, a vast outpouring of public grief catches the Queen off-guard. With shockwaves resonating through the Palace, Al Fayed is also processing the loss of his cherished son. Hoping that the news will bring him and the Royal Family together in shared grief; he instead finds himself increasingly shunned,” the tease ends.
Elizabeth Debicki returns to reprise her role as Diana to document the final moments of the late Princess of Wales’ life. Khalid Abdalla is back at Dodi Fayed, Diana’s boyfriend who died in the crash as well, and Salim Daw will return to play his father, Mohamed Al Fayed.
The season will also feature the wedding of then-Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, who tied the knot in a smaller service in April 2005. Both had been previously married, and thus Queen Elizabeth II was not in attendance at the event. As the queen, she also served as the head of the Church of England, which takes an official stance discouraging divorce.
Part 2 of season 6 consists of six episodes and will chronicle the Prince and Princess of Wales’ relationship, beginning with their first meeting at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2001. According to the streamer, Prince William starts at St. Andrews, determined to lead as normal a life as possible while he still can. At the same time, Kate Middleton enrolls in the university. When they meet for the first time on campus, a new romance and a new future for The Crown begins.
Dominic West is back as Prince Charles, Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, and Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret. Newcomers Rufus Kampa and Fflyn Edwards will make their debuts as Prince William and Prince Harry, respectively. Then in part 2, they will be replaced by Ed McVey and Luther Ford. Meg Bellamy is also coming on to play William’s future wife, Kate Middleton, as Imelda Staunton makes her final turn as Queen Elizabeth II.
The Crown season 6 will premiere in two parts: Part 1 on Nov. 16 and Part 2 on Dec. 14.
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