The Crown season 5 trailer is King Charles’ nightmare come true

The most famous thing in the UK this week was salad. The Daily Starbrilliant tabloid newspaper, was iceberg live streamingdonning a blonde wig to see if it would outlast embattled and now ousted Prime Minister Liz Truss.

She finally fell on her sword on Friday, going down in the history books as Britain’s shortest-serving leader, managing just a miserable 45 days. (Descendants of George Canning, who served only 119 days, can breathe a sigh of relief that it was tuberculosis that brought him down, not idiotic economic policies and arrogance.)

But she may not be the only victim in London, with King Charles only 43 days into his reign, and already it looks like he too may be dangerously close to going under.

His Majesty got the shortest honeymoon since him joining in Septemberand here he was this week in the suburban wilds of Walthamstow, doing not-so-terrible work on adorable teenagers.

But to be a little Macbethian, after the trailer for the next season, something sinister awaits Charles Crownlanded on friday.

Maybe someone needs to start streaming Duchy Originals Oatmeal Cookies to find out this or Charles’s approval numbers start collapsing first.

There’s never been any mystery as to what the fifth season of Netflix’s popular royal soap would include, given that we knew it would cover the tumultuous tabloid years of the ’90s, especially the breakdown of the marriage of Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

When it comes to thinking about the union of Wales, we arrive at that rarest of moments – consensus. Popular culture, collective memory, and public consciousness generally agree that Charles was a jerk and Diana was a victim not only of the marriage but of an institution for which she was a fruitful means to an end.

All of this has largely been consigned to history books and yellowed copies A new ideauntil showrunner Peter Morgan came along.

Now the events between, roughly, Charles and Diana’s separation in 1992 and her death in 1997 will be reanimated like a tabloid zombie, landing on the world’s biggest streaming service the moment poor old Charles sinks under the royal table. (Notice when he cleans up all the corgi chew toys.)

What a way to start his reign, when the world is about to be treated to 10 hours of big-budget drama that paints him as a selfish man who can’t get enough of Camilla’s fur-covered hugs.

But here’s what’s really interesting: It looks like Charles won’t go down without a fight, and there have been a number of signs this week that suggest Buckingham Palace is gearing up to fight the streak.

To begin with, there is a growing chorus of angry and very prominent voices screaming Crown.

First Prince William has accused Netflix of “cashing in” on his mother’s life-changing efforts Panorama the interview that was exposed last year as illegally anchored by the BBC’s Martin Bashir (he actually cheated on the princess).

Then former Prime Minister John Major, played by Jonny Lee Miller in the new series, took to the field, criticizing Crown and calling it a “barrel of nonsense.”

He was hot on his heels Dame Judi Dench, who just happens to be Queen Camilla’s partner; she wrote a letter to Times charging that the hit show was “gross sensationalism” and “cruelly unfair”.

It all looks suspiciously like a well-staged pushback.

Meanwhile, there was other royal personnel news with potentially significant implications. It emerged on Tuesday that Charles had hired former barrister and law lecturer Dr John Sorabjee as an assistant personal secretary to “strengthen” his team.

And why-oh-why would a king suddenly want to have a brilliant legal mind at hand?

The king appears to be falling in line, suggesting that, unlike his mother, Queen Elizabeth, his approach to further PR crises may be far more combative.

When the Queen was portrayed by Netflix as a bad mother, a common cold fish and a woman whose husband was a weak lightning rod, she responded by completely ignoring the helpless mess and getting on with her day job of handing out OBEs to aging Olympians.

Likewise, when Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, sat down with Oprah Winfrey to portray the royal family as racist, the late monarch responded by… going to bed.

It took the Palace more than two days to finally release a legendarily spare 61-word statement, thus gifting the world with the phrase “memories may differ.”

But King Charles? The way things are going, it looks like he has no intention of facing the coming one Storm and pressure calling for a cup of Horlicks and trying to drink Camila with all the Jack Russells in between.

Because it’s not easy, of course Crown what the 72-year-old king has to worry about is that Harry’s autobiography is in the works and the Sussexes are making some kind of documentary for Netflix.

In a new interview with Diversity this week, Megan briefly mentioned the production (“It’s nice to be able to entrust our story to someone—an experienced director whose work I’ve long admired—even if it means it might not be the way we would have told it”), which otherwise has been shrouded in secrecy usually reserved for clandestine nuclear operations or the new iPhone.

Although the show was originally rumored to debut this year, this week Deadline Netflix has reportedly been left “devastated” after “coming under fire” and has delayed its release until next year. But then Page six it is reported that the documentary will be released before Christmas, according to various sources.

Really, does it matter when it comes out? Until now, the Duke has accused his family of cutting him off financially, of “complete neglect” and spoke of “genetic pain”.

Based on Harry and Meghan’s track record on TV, Charles should have sent a footman down to the Clarence House basement right now to check if the bomb shelter was still there. (And that it’s not just full of empty Queen Mothers.)

Just imagine how much damage Harry could do to his father and stepmother with an entire TV series and several hundred pages of a book?

(Don’t lose sight of the fact that Netflix is ​​reportedly paying the pair about $140 million, and Penguin Random House collected $65 million for a three-book deal. You’d think that for those kinds of checks, its payers would expect it will air a veritable laundry of dirty laundry.)

So if that scenario plays out and say Keeping Up with the Sussexes and Harry: From Duke to Dude both contain a juicy assortment of unflattering, if not downright negative, revelations about the House of Windsor, and especially the King, Queen or his brother the Prince William, then how might the palace react?

Dr. Sorabji’s appointment has already been noted on this front, with Telegraph reporting that his “legal expertise will no doubt also prove useful when it comes to the publication of the Duke of Sussex’s forthcoming memoir – and other potentially incendiary matters relating to Harry and Meghan”.

Given that, and the success Crownistas fans have had this week after the streamer disclaimed responsibility under the Emmy-winning trailer, calling it a “fictionalized production,” I don’t think it’s outrageous to think we’ll be seeing a more brutal one in the future. struggle with the palace.

Charles has been waiting his whole life to get to the throne – will he really be willing to let his royal plans be derailed in the name of prime time entertainment?

For both the billion-dollar streaming giant and the Sussexes, their anti-palace content has so far been met with a tweedy, imperious silence, but that script could be flipped.

That is, they never faced any concerted opposition, a bit like a one-sided tennis match.

But a royal house armed to the teeth with serious legal brains, righteous indignation and a new king with so much to prove? It can be a completely different matter.

Or in other words, KABUUUM.

Unlike Queen Elizabeth, who has enjoyed decades of respect and public support, the king is on far less solid ground and must know he cannot rely on her firm lips to weather the coming storm.

There is one more thing that King Charles could have done differently with his mother. Actor Matt Smith, the series’ original Prince Philip, revealed earlier this month that Her Majesty watched some of Crown on the projector that was set up for Sunday evening. Somehow I think Charles, Camilla and the dogs might miss out on this fun.

Daniela Elzer is a writer and royal commentator with over 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media outlets.

Originally published as King Charles’ nightmare comes true with the release of The Crown trailer.