The fifth season of The Crown has examined one of the most explosive decades for the British royal family, focusing heavily on the deteriorating relationship between Princess Diana and Prince Charles.
Australian star Elizabeth Debicki, who plays the late Diana, Princess of Wales, has opened up on what it was like to play out the last scene in the season finale.
For fans who’ve yet to view episode 10, aptly titled Decommissioned, look away now.
Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatisation now sees Diana officially divorced and lonely, when she bumps into Egyptian billionaire Mohamed al-Fayed at the London ballet. He offers his hospitality in Saint-Tropez aboard his mega-yacht with his son Dodi, as a holiday for her, William and Harry.
After some deliberate coaxing, Diana accepts. and her last scene of the season shows her smiling as she packs for the trip, dreamily flirting about what lies ahead.
The scene is “a really hopeful beat”, Debicki tells Netflix’s fandom website, Tulum.
“Often there are moments where Peter [Morgan] will write a scene where he leaves a lot of space for the actor and the director [Alex Gabassi] to decide exactly how it lands,” says Debicki.
“[In this case] I just think it said, ‘Diana is packing.’”
“There’s a huge amount of sadness, but also this sense of making a choice to move through something and create a new chapter, a new experience.
“For me it was about packing [her] kids’ clothes to go on vacation. It’s very simple, but moving. Sometimes the simplest things are the things that get us the hardest.”
The finale also sets up a narrative that will unfold when The Crown returns for its sixth and final season, most likely in November next year.
So what happens in season six?
Despite a mixed reaction to season five – including the explosive ‘Tampongate’ episode, and the BBC Panorama interview to the future of the monarchy – the streaming giant will no doubt be happy.
In numbers just released, The Crown was Netflix’s global No.1 show between November 14 and 20 last week, and was watched for an astonishing 84.3 million hours.
Add that to the 107.4m viewing hours it managed in its first week after all 10 episodes were released on November 9, and this season all up has amassed 191.7m hours viewed.
The big-budget show about the British royal family appeared in the top 10 in 86 countries around the world.
Its closest rival was historical thriller, 1899, a multi-language German series with 79.27 million hours viewed.
There’s much speculation about what the focus of the final season will be, given so much of season five has been devoted to the increasing unpopularity of the royal family throughout the 1990s and its relevance to Britain.
What we do know is that the relationship between Dodi al-Fayed (played by Khalid Abdalla) and Diana, will end with their shocking deaths after a high-speed car crash in Paris’ Pont de l’Alma tunnel in August, 1997.
How will these scenes will play out, especially for the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry and their families?
Imelda Staunton (who plays the Queen), Debicki and Dominic West (who plays Charles) will reprise their roles.
Two actors have been cast as a young Prince William: Sixteen-year-old Rufus Kampa, and Ed McVey, 21, while a casting calls went out for a young Harry in October. Meg Bellamy will play Kate Middleton.
Will the 2005 wedding of Charles and Camilla get an episode?
Mr Morgan told Deadline “series six will not bring us any closer to present-day – it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail”.
He more recently told Tulum when it comes to writing the storylines, he draws on his “own conscience as responsibly and as sensitively” as he can, acknowledging the effect it has on real people seeing their lives dramatised on screen.
“I don’t take the responsibility for that lightly,” he says.
Judging by the audience numbers for season five, everyone will continue to love this particular family drama.
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