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The Crown Season 4: Best Moments from Each Episode The Crown Season 4: Best Moments from Each Episode

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‘The Crown’ Season 4 Recap: Most Important Moments from Each Episode

The Crown S4. Picture shows: Prince Charles (JOSH O CONNOR) and Princess Diana (EMMA CORRIN)

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Rivalry, jealousy, and personal affairs are at the forefront of The Crown season 4. 

The series delivered its best and most controversial season yet, which was to be expected with the arrival of two iconic figures: a young Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) and “The Iron Lady,” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (X-Files‘ Gillian Anderson).

We’re breaking down the biggest moments episode-by-episode! 

 

Season 4 Episode 1 – Gold Stick

Lord Mountbatten aka Dickie, Prince Charles’s closest confidant and mentor, and Prince Phillip’s surrogate father, was spending time in their holiday home in the Republic of Ireland when the boat he took out during their outing exploded into smithereens.  Two members of the IRA took credit for the assassination. The bombing took the lives of Mountbatten, 14-year-old Nicholas Brabourne (Dickie’s grandchild), and Paul Maxwell, a friend of the family who worked on the boat. Mountbatten’s daughter Patricia and her husband, Lord John Brabourne, survived along with one of their twins, Timothy. Lord Brabourne’s mother, the dowager Lady Doreen Brabourne, died of her injuries the next day. 

While the series sticks close to facts, it does sensationalize parts of the script. In the episode, Charles reads a letter from Mountbatten after his death, in which he’s scrutinized for continuing to have a relationship with Camila, a married woman. This is a pivotal moment because it convinces the heir to throne to follow his duty rather than his heart and pursue Diana, a sweet, innocent, well-tempered woman who will make a good Queen.

The Crown Season 4: Best Moments from Each Episode

The Crown S4. Picture shows: Princess Diana (EMMA CORRIN) and Prince Charles (JOSH O CONNOR). Filming Location: Kensington Town Hall

 

Season 4 Episode 2 – The Balmoral Test

Diana truly impresses Prince Phillip when she accompanies him on a morning hunt, spots the stag, and helps him put it outs of its misery with one shot. Phillip shares the joyous news with the rest of the family, who all give Charles the nod of approval to marry Diana. 
 
Charles tells Camila that Diana “passed with flying colors,” but doesn’t want to marry her because she’s just a child. There’s a 16-year-old age-gap between Diana and Charles. 
 
 
Season 4 Episode 3 – Fairytale
 
A royal engagement kicks off episode 3, though Prince Charles’s “it’s done, I did it” comment after the fact is far from romantic. 
 
Lady D, on the other hand, was ecstatic and celebrated with her friends soon after, which may have been the last moment of happiness and normalcy in her life. After picking out the ring, moving into the palace, starting her royal training, and announcing the engagement publicly, Diana soon learned that she was in for a life of loneliness and always being second-best to Camila.
 
She was quickly disillusioned from her “fairy tale” life when she discovered that Charles rang Camila every day during his six-week trip but didn’t even bother to contact her once. 
 
All of this culminated in Diana’s real-life battle with bulimia. The Crown, which had trigger-warnings ahead of the specific episodes, didn’t shy away from vividly showing her bingeing on food before throwing it all up in the bathroom.
 
When Charles returns from his trip, she confronts him about the cheating during their wedding rehearsal, which is witnessed by Princess Margaret. As someone who was denied her true love due to the family’s “duty,” she immediately called out the lack of love between Charles and Diana. “How many times can this family make the same mistake,” she questioned, but it fell on deaf ears as Prince Phillip, Queen Elizabeth, and the rest of the lot were convinced that the process was sound and with time, the two would learn to love each other. 
 
While we see Diana in the iconic wedding dress, the episode didn’t feature the wedding because Peter Morgan said you can just watch it on Youtube. And that, friends, is true. 
 
The Crown Season 4: Best Moments from Each Episode

The Crown S4. Picture shows: Princess Diana (EMMA CORRIN)

 
Season 4 Episode 4 – Favourites
 
At a time when Britain was facing rising unemployment and a struggling economy, the fourth episode focused heavily on the 1982 Paris-Dakar rally and showed Prime Minister Thatcher as a mother rather than a politician. Her “favorite son,” Mark Thatcher, his French co-driver, Anne-Charlotte Verney, and their mechanic went missing prompting a huge search and rescue mission. A plane spotted them roughly six days later and brought them back to safety. 
 
The Queen was taken aback by Thatcher’s comment about her “favorite” child, but Prince Phillip assured her she too had one. This prompted her to schedule lunches with each of her children to figure out which one she liked most, but instead, she learned that they were all lost and questioned whether she’d been a good mother. 
 
 
Season 4 Episode 5 – Fagan
 
It shouldn’t be easy to break into Buckingham Palace, let alone sneak into the Queen’s bedroom, but Michael Fagan, a disillusioned Brit with nothing to lose, successfully did so twice in 1982.
 
The episode paints the picture of what life was like in Britain for Fagan and many others as it juxtaposes the royals’ lavish parties and celebrations with the rest of the world dealing with soaring unemployment due to Thatcher’s war in the Falkland Islands. This showed just how far removed the royals were from reality and the struggles of the everyday people.
 
Fagan, specifically, lost his job as a painter/decorator, lost his wife, custody of his kids, and simply couldn’t get back on his feet again. 
 
When no one would listen to his grievances, he decided to facilitate a chit-chat with the Queen by breaking into the palace and waking her up around 7 a.m. While there are mixed reports about how the situation went down in real-life, according to the episode, Fagan got to express his dismay with the current state of Britain, which registered with the Queen. 
 
Fagan was committed for a psychiatric evaluation and spent three months in the psychiatric hospital. He still lives in London to this day. 
 
The Crown Season 4: Best Moments from Each Episode

PICTURE SHOWS: Queen Elizabeth II (OLIVIA COLMAN). Filming Location: Lyceum Theatre

 
Season 4 Episode 6 – Terra Nullius 
 
The royal family begins to learn just how unhappy Diana is in the marriage as rumors that she’s “doing things to herself” begin to circulate. 
 
Charles and Diana embark on a very important tour of Australia, but it’s a bumpy road as Diana fumbles an interview, refuses to be separated from her infant William, and looks “weak and fragile,” according to her husband, who is still phoning Camila from abroad. 
 
With tensions boiling over, the two realize they cannot continue on this path and have an honest heart-to-heart where they express their love for each other and vow to make this marriage work. Charles is so serious about it, he even ignores a call from Camila. 
 
But all of that goes right out the window when Diana steals the show and captures the heart of the nation. This was supposed to be Prince Charles’ big moment, but all eyes are on Lady D. Prince Charles is so jealous and resentful that he doesn’t even acknowledge that without Diana, they would have likely lost all support in Australia and New Zealand. Any and all love that they had for each other early on in the trip fizzles out entirely and he goes crawling back to Camila. 
 
Back at Buckingham Palace, Diana gets an audience with the Queen and tells her how Prince Charles resents her, but instead of support, the Queen informs her that she was milking the spotlight and overstepped. It’s not the first or last time the royal family makes Diana feel as if she’s solely responsible for her failed relationship or blames her for being loved by the people. 
 
 
Season 4 Episode 7 – The Hereditary Principle
 
The Crown tackles many tough subjects, but episode 7 focuses on Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret’s institutionalized family. At first, the scenes from inside a mental hospital may be confusing to audiences, but it all comes into focus after Princess Margaret has lung surgery in 1985 and loses yet another lover, Derek Jennings, aka Dazzle. 
 
While the duo has a fling in the episode before he breaks things off to join the priesthood, it’s unclear if the relationship happened in real life.
 
Margaret spirals into a bit of a depression, so Prince Charles convinces her to go see a therapist, who mentions that she’s heard through the grapevine that mental health may run in the family. 
 
That’s when Margaret learns of Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, her and Elizabeth’s cousins, who were hidden away to protect the monarchy from the shame of the disease.
 
The records show that both Katherine and Nerissa died in the 40s and 50s, but Margaret convinces Dazzle to visit the mental institute and check it out firsthand. He informs her that the women are still alive and fully aware of their familial ties to the crown. He also says that there are a total of 5 cousins institutionalized. 
 
Margaret confronts her mother, who explains that the idea of one family having blood rights to the throne was already so fragile that they couldn’t let the public know about the mental illness and question the integrity of the bloodline.
 
A follow-up therapy session reveals that the genetic fault came from Aunt Fenella, the wife of the Queen Mother’s brother John Herbert Bowes-Lyon, and thus, would never have directly impacted the bloodline of the crown. Margaret deems what her family did unforgivable, but despite feeling completely empty inside and broken by the system, she assures Dazzle that being apart of the royal family is her happiness. 
 
The Crown Season 4: Best Moments from Each Episode

The Crown S4. Picture shows: Margaret Thatcher (GILLIAN ANDERSON). Filming Location: Elstree (Stage 7)

 
Season 4 Episode 8 – 48:1
 
The episode sees Thatcher and the Queen clashing over apartheid in South Africa. 48 of the 49 of the commonwealth nations backed the sanctions, including the Queen, but Thatcher was opposed as she thought they’d damage Britain’s economic interests. This meant that the negotiations were brutal as Thatcher kept refusing to sign before eventually caving, which led to this great quote: “in the ring with the Queen, the Iron Lady melted.”
 
Michael Shea was the Queen’s press secretary, who came to warn the palace that “Today” was set on running a piece about the fraught relationship between Thatcher and the Queen. He advised that they put out a statement shutting the rumors down, but the Queen decided that she wanted to leak the story as she didn’t agree with Thatcher’s policies. 
 
As expected, when the news broke and detailed the ideological rift between the two leaders, it was scandalous, especially as it broke the Queen’s rule of never passing political comments on options. 
 
Despite the story running against the advice of Shea, the Queen’s private secretary made it very clear to him that he was to take responsibility for the leak. Shea was identified as the “palace mole” and forced to give up his position serving the royals. He started a new chapter as a novelist writing political thrillers. 
 
The tension between these two powerful women also overshadowed the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, and you know how the royals are about not getting their time in the spotlight. 
 
 
Season 4 Episode 9 – Avalanche
 
Speaking of the spotlight, Diana seemed to steal it again when she tried to surprise Prince Charles with a performance of “Uptown Girl” at a gala during his 37th birthday. As usual, it led to a pretty explosive fight between the couple, which caught the Queen’s attention. Princess Anne clued in her mother about Diana’s several affairs with her bodyguard and riding instructor. 
 
During a ski trip with friends soon after, Prince Charles gets swept up in an avalanche. Both Diana and Prince Charles made it out alive, but his close friend, Major Hugh Lindsay was killed. The avalanche puts plenty into perspective for the royals. 
 
When the Queen summons them for an audience, Prince Charles is ready to inform his mother that he wants to end the marriage and finally be with the woman he loves — Camila. But before he can even get a word in, Diana informs Elizabeth and Prince Phillip that almost losing Charles in the avalanche made her realize just how much she loves him. 
 
Princess Diana truly commits to making the marriage work — she cut off ties with her other lovers, moves into Highgrove, and plans a special surprise for her and Charles’ 7th wedding anniversary. The same cannot be said for Charles, who continues his dalliance with Camila and found himself repulsed with Diana’s gift for their anniversary, a video of her singing a ballad from “Phantom of the Opera.”
 
Anne tries to convince Charles that Camila will never leave Andrew for him and that their relationship is nothing more than a fantasy, but Camila assures him that she loves him.
 
So, Charles begins ignoring all of Diana’s calls eventually pushing how towards solitude and loneliness. He hopes he’ll get her to slip up and have another affair, which she does as she runs back to Major Hewitt.
 
 
Season 4 Episode 10 – War
 
After learning about the affair, Charles immediately ran to his mother to tattle on Diana in hopes that it would finally lead to a separation, but the Queen was having none of it. 
 
He also made sure that everyone believed Diana wasn’t mentally stable enough to go on a trip to New York by herself. The family made Diana doubt herself and feel like she couldn’t do anything right. 
 
However, her trip was a smashing success. She received even more love from the people in America than she did in the U.K. She visited many low-income places that weren’t on the radar of American politicians and made the front page after treating aids patients like actual human beings. Of course, this didn’t sit well with Charles, who assumed the whole trip was Diana’s way of once again stealing all the thunder. 
 
Even worse, the coverage made Camila realize that she could never compete with Diana or be as loved as the Princess of Wales, which made Charles lash out at Diana for upsetting his mistress. 
 
Margaret Thatcher was betrayed by her longest-serving Cabinet minister,  Sir Geoffrey Howe, when he gave a scathing speech during his resignation. This was later seen as the catalyst for a leadership challenge that found her withdrawing from the position after 11.5 years. 
 
The Queen, who grew to respect Thatcher as a woman and a politician, awarded her the Order of Merit for getting England back on track. 
 
Phillip had a brutally honest conversation with Princess Diana about getting her priorities in order and explained that they all feel like outcasts in the royal family. 
 

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Lizzy Buczak is the founder of CraveYouTV. What started off as a silly blog in her sophomore year at Columbia College Chicago turned her passion for watching TV into an opportunity! She has been in charge of CraveYou since 2011, writing reviews and news content for a wide variety of shows. Lizzy is a Music Business and Journalism major who has written for RADIO.COM, TV Fanatic, Time Out Chicago, Innerview, Pop’stache and Family Time.

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When Is Season 3 of ‘Ginny and Georgia’ Coming Out?

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When Will Season 3 of Ginny and Georgia Premiere

Ginny and Georgia centers on the heartwarming yet extremely complicated bond between a mother and her daughter after they put down roots in a New England town. 

With so many compelling storylines and incredible characters of all ages, it’s no wonder that the coming-of-age drama has become a fan favorite among Netflix audiences. 

The second season of Ginny and Georgia premiered on Jan. 5, 2023, which means that a third season is likely far off, especially considering Brianne Howey, who plays Georgia, just announced her first pregnancy, which will possibly delay filming.

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Brianne Howey (@briannehowey)


Of course, Netflix has to renew the series for a third season. As of March 28, 2023, it has not given the show a green light for additional episodes. 

Fans shouldn’t be too worried, however, as a renewal is very likely considering the show’s performance, the rabid fan base, and the fact that season 3 ended on such a cliffhanger—Netflix knows that fans will be clamoring for another season to see how the situation resolves itself. 

As for a premiere date, well, there isn’t one just yet. Until the series is renewed and production begins, it’s a bit too difficult to come up with a date for new episodes. The season could likely arrive in February 2024 if we’re looking at the previous premieres for both seasons 1 and 2, which both debuted at the start of 2021 and 2023, respectively.

But with Howey’s pregnancy thrown into the mix, that could delay things a bit, and it wouldn’t be the worst thing if the series returned during the summer when there’s a lull in content and fans are seeking out something to binge-watch and get invested in. 

Either way, when Netflix makes an official decision, you’ll be the first to know as we’ll update this article accordingly! 

Until then, you can gear up for the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Riverdale, and Firefly Lane

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Who Is Rhys Montrose on ‘YOU’ Season 4?

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You Season 4 Episode 6 Review Best of Friends

YOU Season 4 introduced a plethora of new characters as it revamped the series with a murder mystery format. 

*Warning – stop reading if you haven’t finished YOU Season 4 – Spoilers Ahead *

The shakeup made sense considering Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) uprooted his life following the fiery events in Madre Linda that killed Love Quinn and started over in London, assuming the identity of Professor Jonathan Moore. 

Rather quickly, he got pulled into an elite group thanks to his co-worker and neighbor, Malcolm Harding (Stephen Hagan), who was the season’s first victim. Joe/Jonathan naturally despised Malcolm’s group, though he did find Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers), an author running for Mayor of London, to be a bit of a kindred spirit. They came from the same broken background and shared many of the same views.  

As the first half of the season unraveled, Joe sought out advice from Rhys on a handful of occasions, engaging in plenty of long heart-to-hearts with him, so it was kind of shocking when it was revealed that Rhys, as audiences have come to know him, was never real.

Rhys Montrose existed, yes, but he was never friends with Joe, nor was he the Eat the Rich Killer. The version of Rhys that Joe bonded with was a hallucination conjured up by his subconscious to protect himself and eliminate his darker, more deranged thoughts. 

YOU Season 4 Finale Episode 10 Review The Death of Jonathan Moore

You. (L-R) Ed Speleers as Rhys, Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg in episode 410 of You. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

For much of the season, we saw Joe desperately trying to set himself free from Rhys’ grasp. At first, he saw him as public enemy #1, who somehow figured out Joe’s real identity and roped him into a murder spree by threatening to frame him for the deaths if Joe refused to participate. 

However, once Joe realized that Rhys was a figment of his imagination, he began to look for ways to silence the evil little voice forever, while also trying to figure out a plan to cover up the death of the real Rhys Montrose. 

Joe was tasked with killing the mayoral candidate, who he assumed at the time was the Eat the Rich Killer, by Kate’s (Charlotte Ritchie) father, Tom Lockwood. When he arrived at Rhys’ secret countryside hideout and tied him up, he was infuriated that Rhys claimed not to know who he was, nor would he admit to kidnapping Marienne (Tati Gabrielle). Eventually, Joe’s rage and anger took over, and he “accidentally” killed Rhys, which is when fake Rhys showed up and revealed that Joe was having a semi-psychotic break. 

In the end, Joe’s suicide attempt ensured that his hallucinations were forever gone, though he did embrace the darkness he was trying so hard to snuff out, making him more dangerous than ever.

As for the real Rhys Montrose’s killer, he pinned it all on poor Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman), a fan of Rhys’s from the beginning, who flew too close to the sun in her attempts to bring down Joe Goldberg. If only she just listened to Marienne’s advice.

A huge congrats to the YOU team for pulling off yet another jaw-dropping twist, and to both Badgley and Speleers for completely immersing themselves in their dual characters. 

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YOU Review – Best of Friends (406)

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You Season 4 Episode 6 Review Best of Friends

Just when you thought you figured out where the season was headed, YOU pulls out the rug from under you yet again.  

I’m definitely starting to feel the whiplash that Joe/Jonathan must be feeling right about now. 

Things have gone from crazy to crazier rather quickly, as Rhys unveiled his true plan—along with how Joe is involved—while Joe came out victorious in front of the elite group once again, and all while a new suspect started piecing things together and realizing that Joe knows way more than he’s led on. 

While Joe spent numerous hours trying to figure out a plan to get close to Rhys, Rhys just appeared at Joe’s place one night without so much as lifting a finger. Joe may think he’s the invisible one in the city, but for a man who’s so well-known and loved, Rhys seems to get around without anyone noticing. 

And he made the rules of the game very clear—either Joe finds someone to frame for all the deaths or he goes down as the Eat-the-Rich killer, which isn’t exactly ideal. A little incentive goes a long way, so while Joe tried to distance himself initially, he couldn’t shake the desire for self-preservation and took the bait. He took the task rather seriously as it was either kill or be killed; he knew someone had to go down for it, but it had to be the right person.

With time running out, he genuinely began to consider Connie, but despite being an irrelevant character, he couldn’t justify pinning it on someone who was struggling with addiction and trying to turn their life around.  Connie wasn’t a threat to anyone, except for maybe himself, so Joe couldn’t justify destroying his life. 

But Dawn, well, she fell right into his lap. The few times we saw her snapping photos of the elite, and focusing on Joe–including when she spotted him at Rhys’ mayoral rally—I was convinced that she recognized him from his previous life. And that seems to be what the series wanted me to think so that they could pull a fast one on us because when Dawn pulled Phoebe aside to a “safe room” to keep her protected from the killer, it was revealed that Dawn was just an obsessive stalker who was connived that she was friends with the elite, Phoebe in particular. Dawn was a threat to a lot of people, so Joe took advantage of it. He framed her by planting Simon’s ear in her belongings, and since no one would ever believe a word she said over Phoebe’s accounts of what happened, Dawn couldn’t prove her innocence. Plus, she made an ideal suspect since she was at nearly every single event where a murder occurred as she was stalking the group. I mean, it couldn’t have been any more perfect if Joe had tried to plan it himself. 

You Season 4 Episode 6 Review Best of Friends

You. Ed Speleers as Rhys in episode 406 of You. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

However, his heroics did raise some questions from Nadia, his student and the lover of all murder mysteries. She noticed that Jonathan seemed to be at the center of every single scenario, oftentimes being championed as a hero, though he’s not actually connected to any of these people in any meaningful way. It’s a dangerous thing to play detective, especially when you’re setting your sights on Joe Goldberg.  Jonathan seems to like Nadia, but if she threatened him, I don’t think Joe would hesitate to take her down. Self-preservation is his M.O., remember?

Once Joe thought he finally got Rhys off of his back by framing Dawn, he decided to give into his desires and pursue a relationship with Kate. Honestly, Kate makes some really poor decisions, starting with just accepting Jonathan for who he is now and promising never to ask questions about his past. She wants someone to see her for who she is in the moment so badly that she’s letting logic take a backseat. Why would someone want to deny their past so badly unless they did something truly unforgivable? Kate wants to shed her past because of her connection to her father and she thinks that makes her and Jonathan equal, but they are not the same. 

By the time she realizes the truth about who Joe is, it might be too late.

As for Rhys, did Joe think he was really going to get rid of him that easily? Rhys has always wanted a friend to help him get to the finish line so to speak. He believes that they are the same, so he wasn’t going to just let Joe slip away.

And while his motive wasn’t evident at first, he seems hellbent on taking out those who don’t deserve their success and wealth. The three victims, Malcolm, Simon, and Gemma, all threatened his mayoral run in some way, so they were taken care of, and now, he’s setting his sights on the ultimate villain–Kate’s father. She may have a complicated relationship with her tycoon dad, but I don’t think Kate would ever want to see anything bad happen to him, let alone at the hands of the man she’s in love with. 

However, Rhys doesn’t seem to give Joe much of a choice as he still holds all of the cards. One might think that Joe could just handle this in the same way he always does, but well, you can’t just try to kill a killer. He’d see that coming from miles away. Joe needs to be strategic and deliberate in his plan, so for now, he has to play along. I, for one, am curious to see what all the hubbub is about Kate’s father–is he really as terrible as she makes him out to be?

As for Rhys, what is the catch? Fans were disappointed with the first half of the season since his reveal as the killer was obvious—and his motives, including his desire to kill Kate’s father–are exactly shocking or game-changing. What are we missing?

What did you think of the episode?

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