When Season 5 of The Crown premieres, there will be one arc in particular that viewers will be most curious to watch. As the Netflix hit drama series approaches the late 90s timeline in its new episodes, the story is about to cover events that a good number of us were alive to see unfold through news outlets. One of those events is, of course, the highly publicized divorce of Princess Diana and the (then) Prince Charles, which started a paparazzi frenzy that resulted in her tragic death.
The way showrunner, Peter Morgan, chooses to depict the Royal Family’s behavior during this turmoil may generate some negative response, since Diana is a delicate and fairly recent subject that still sparks passionate debates. To series actor Dominic West, however, a more biased approach was necessary since he plays King Charles at a time he felt he was wronged. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he stated:
"In any divorce there are two sides and very much so in this divorce. If you read the side that comes from Diana's people, [Charles is] the villain, and I think Peter [Morgan, series creator]'s script reflected that in part, and reflected also what was coming out of Charles' side. I just wanted to play the emotional truth of it, what happens when a marriage breaks down. I think in this case you could see where both sides are coming from and that neither and both were to blame."
It’s true that there are two sides to every story, but we can’t deny the fact that Diana was put in the center of a scandal and her life became heavily scrutinized after she made the “unacceptable” decision to divorce the Prince. Even though the Netflix series frequently depicts the Royal Family with equal doses of reverence and critique, the misogynistic reality of the 90s that permeated every news story is something that definitely would make a difference if factored in – but we’ll soon know how it goes down when the season premieres.
In the new season of The Crown, Elizabeth Debicki takes on the role of Diana in her later years, while Academy Award nominee Imelda Staunton steps in to embody the late Queen Elizabeth II. The cast also features Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret, Claudia Harrison as Princess Anne, Jonny Lee Miller as John Major, Salim Daw as Mohamed Al Fayed, and Khalid Abdalla as Dodi Fayed.
Netflix premieres Season 5 of The Crown on November 9. A trailer for the new episodes is yet to be released by the streamer. Check out the trailer for the most recent season of the show, Season 4, below: