The episode of The Crown with the unemployed guy who sees his life destroyed by Thatcher isn't perfect, but it's a really surprising thing for the show to include, given the extent to which the show is otherwise basically rightwing apologia for royalty

At the same time, having him complain to the Queen about how Thatcher is wasting money on bullshit instead of social welfare is a clever bit of narrative jiu jitsu, since the major anti-monarchist argument is: stop spending money on the royalty instead of social welfare

More generally, it's interesting that the show draws such sharp lines between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher, from exaggerating a conflict that is mostly speculation to using Thatcher as a kind of foil to the Queen throughout the season

(On the show's politics more generally, I say it's an apologia for royalty because our sympathies will always be with protagonists, and it's a show that forces us to invest great time and care into these people as protagonists (and makes them more interesting than they are).

This is a variation of the "no such thing as an anti-war war movie" thing, and the "antihero shows can never criticize their protagonists enough." The Crown makes the royal family *interesting* and that's the problem.

I put it to you that The Crown is more in Charles' camp than Diana's, not because it DEFENDS his behavior, but because it spends a lot more time with him; because he's closer to the crown, he's more interesting. They all treat Diana like shit, but she's a shallower character.

What is Diana like when she's not married to Charles? We have no idea; we only see her in the context of her marriage. Whereas Charles has a complex, multi-season story that makes him more real as a character. So no matter how much shittier he is, he's still more sympathetic.

(As shitty as Charles is in the show, we have a complex sympathy-inducing backstory explaining exactly how he got that way, from the brutal boarding school stuff to all the horrible parenting to Montbattan's death letter bullying him into doing the wrong thing and marrying Di.)

Whereas with Diana, you have only to listen to the 5 part @yourewrongabout series on her to see what an actually sympathetic portrayal would look like. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yb3R0ZW5pbmRlbm1hcmsub3JnL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BvZGNhc3QvZmVlZC8/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC01NjMxMDk0?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjg7f7Sv4ztAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw&hl=en

Anyway, the brilliance of the show is that it TELLS you The Queen mainly dislikes Thatcher because she's vulgar and low-class and threatens her power, but you still kind of come away thinking the fight was over working people and South Africa https://twitter.com/zunguzungu/status/1329098519345459200

As a sidenote, I really admire the skill of this show's writers; it's a very absorbing drama, given that every episode ends with the tacit admission that nothing that happened for the last hour mattered in any way.

The plot of literally every episode: A Historical Event happens! The queen... considers doing something! WILL SHE? WILL SHE? Oh, no, she won't. Ah! Well. Nevertheless,