What I’m Watching: The Crown

The Crown: Season 2, Episode 3 “Lisbon” (B+)

There is such a distance that exists now between Elizabeth and Philip, and it was evident from the start of this episode when Elizabeth was narrating the video footage with Philip’s letter and seemed to digest so much of what he wrote incredulously. She laughed with her children when she noticed that they all had grown beards, but I think there was something about the independent experience that he was having away from all them that got to her. Their reunion was extremely unpleasant, and she was even colder than he was, telling him they’d talk later as she didn’t even bother to embrace him or pretend that she was happy to see him. I got confused for a moment because I recognized the scene that was playing out where she said that his complaining had to stop, but it made more sense once I realized that it was part of the whole theme of this season. Philip wouldn’t dream of having an affair because being with another woman isn’t what he wants; it’s a freedom to be able to be the person he used to be. Needing to have a ceremony where they actually crowned him Prince Phillip for his ego to be boosted is ridiculous, and something tells me it’s not going to be nearly enough. While Mike had to be summarily dismissed from his post via immediate resignation, he got the out that Philip never will, in servitude to the crown whose importance and grandeur only his wife seems to understand.