WiC Watches: The Crown season 3
The Crown
Episode 303: “Aberfan”
In one of The Crown’s most heartbreaking hours to date, “Aberfan” takes us through another real-life tragedy, with gut-wrenching results. The titular village in South Wales suffered a mining accident in 1966 that resulted in the deaths of dozens of schoolchildren and adults. Frequent Crown director Benjamin Caron opens the episode with a nearly 10-minute segment comprised of images of daily life in Aberfan that draws the viewer into the world of the victims and their families. The effect is reminiscent of the montage that began Game of Thrones’ celebrated episode “The Winds of Winter,” with a series of relatively mundane images preceding a scene of unthinkable horror. Caron invests enough attention in each scene to build a palpable sense of dread before the world gets turned upside down.
This is one of several Crown installments that feels as though the story could have sustained an entire feature film. In some ways, the episode is thematically similar to showrunner Peter Morgan’s screenplay for The Queen (2006). Disaster strikes and Queen Elizabeth finds herself unable to performatively emote to the satisfaction of her subjects. When the Queen is confronted with the news of the tragedy, she resists getting directly involved and going to the disaster site because she doesn’t see that as part of her role as sovereign.
Eventually, the Queen is forced by external pressure to relent and visit Aberfan, ostensibly to comfort her people. Soon after, in a rare moment of candor with her new Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, Queen Elizabeth admits that she couldn’t invoke tears on command as expected and faked her way through her appearances. When she allows herself to become completely vulnerable and admit to Wilson that she didn’t cry at other key moments in her life, including the birth of her first child, she gets an unexpected reward. Wilson divulges to her in confidence that he is a poseur as a man of the people, and enjoys such posh pleasures as fine cigars in private that would damage his political career if made public. The Prime Minister helps remind the Queen that all public figures are faking it to a degree.
The real Queen Elizabeth would probably cringe to be diagnosed with anything as millennial as “imposter syndrome,” but that’s exactly what we’re seeing from her here. In “Aberfan,” The Crown continues to expertly investigate the paradox of a woman who is meant to present a dignified and unflappable visage for currency and postage stamps while also providing warmth and relatability on cue. Try to imagine George Washington or Abraham Lincoln giving a teary confessional interview on a daytime talk show, if you can. That’s the kind of tightrope that this season finds our heroine walking as she tries to figure out how to be both a symbol and a real person in an increasingly turbulent world.