‘The Crown’ Season 4 Episode 4 Recap: “Favourites”

Despite both their tendencies toward appearing cold and stiff, Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II come from vastly different backgrounds which have molded this aspect of their personality in different ways.

Margaret’s stiffness is an effort to convey strength – if one is not stiff, then that means they might actually budge which Margaret does not do, ever.

Elizabeth’s comes from a lifelong habit of diplomacy – she, like Prince Charles’ new gardens, is a tabula rasa, a blank slate that would remain blank, were it not for the feelings and experiences projected onto her by others. In “Favourites” (Season 4, Episode 4), The Crown explores the way these traits have affected not just matters of state, but their motherhood as well.

1982 might just be the year that Margaret Thatcher cried, just the once. During one of her weekly meetings with the Queen, Thatcher can’t help but reveal her one weakness, the love she has for her son, Mark. Mark’s car has gone missing during the Dakar Rally, an annual off-road rally that runs from Paris, France, through the desert of Africa, ending in Dakar, Senegal. Last seen in Algeria, Mark’s team hadn’t been heard from in days. Thatcher explains that of her two children, twins Mark and Carol, Mark is her favorite.

Her tears shock the Queen, but not as much as Thatcher’s description of her son. “The Prime Minister said something interesting today about her son,” the Queen tells Prince Philip. “She described him as her favorite child. Who would do that, openly admit to preferring one child to another?” “Any honest parent?” Philip quips.

The scene is easily the most comedically performed moment of the season so far, but it also exhibits a warmth and a kind rapport between the Queen and her Prince. It’s clear that Philip’s speech in Season 4 Episode 3 prior to Charles and Diana’s wedding, in which he explains that Diana will only become more beautiful and confident as the years go by, is a reflection on his own marriage. Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies are relishing this moment, especially when he reveals without missing a beat that his favorite is Anne. The Queen is flummoxed about who her own favorite is, though the Prince says it’s obvious to everyone around them who she prefers, and he walks off taunting her with this secret that everyone else seems to know but her.

Thus begins the sitcom episode of The Crown, wherein the Queen sets up appointments with each of her children in order to see them for the first time as humans and ultimately decide who is her favorite. When she meets with Edward, her youngest, she learns he’s so matter-of-fact about his entitlement, it’s off-putting, but that’s tempered by the fact that he’s bullied at school. She truly has no idea who this person is but she’s not sure she likes him.

When she meets with Charles, she sees that he’s so obsessed with Camilla that he moved 15 minutes away from her, and she’s taken aback by how easy it is for him to ignore a very pregnant, very depressed Diana because he’s so wrapped up with tending to his newly constructed gardens.

When it’s Andrew’s turn, he choppers in on a Navy helicopter, garnering everyone’s attention. Unlike his siblings, Andrew actually appears happy. He regales his mother with details of his latest relationship with American actress Koo Stark, whose appearance in the film The Awakening of Emily was considered by some to be pornographic which, knowing all we know about Andrew these days, tracks. The Queen delights in Andrew’s antics, even supporting him when he asks her not to recuse him from service should he be called to the frontlines of the looming Falklands War.

It’s Anne who describes the Queen’s absent mothering style best. After Anne admits that she’s cheating on her husband, Mark, and is angry and depressed at the way the press reveres Diana and ignores her, the Queen’s only suggestion is “These things usually pass if you have the patience to wait.”

“Is that the advice? Stick it out? Grin and bear it? Persevere?” Anne asks. “Is doing nothing your solution to everything?”

Contrast that to Thatcher, whose solution to anything is to intensely, passionately do everything. As she hovers over the news about Mark, sending search parties and waiting by the phone for any form of communication, her emotions heightened by his absence, she aggressively launches a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Though the Falklands contain fewer than 4,000 residents, they are part of the British Empire, and a recent attempt by Argentina to overtake the islands has created an outrage at 10 Downing Street. The idea of war is unpopular with the public; unemployment is at a record-high, and this is what the Prime Minister is focused on? But owing to her decisive nature, she chose a path and refused to stray from it.

Once Mark’s rally car team was located in Africa and and he returned home, Thatcher showered him with affection and a celebratory dinner. Mark’s twin sister Carol, ever the Jan Brady, goes full “Marcia, Marcia Marcia!” on her mother, asking why Mark is the only child she loves, is it because he’s a man? Is it because Thatcher’s relationship with her own mother was so strained that she has such disregard for all women?

Thatcher explains that it’s just because she favors strength over weakness and Carol is weak. Thatcher’s hate of weakness is such a part of her legacy that if you Google image search “weak,” this picture is one of the first to pop up.

Thatcher is far from weak when she demands the Argentinians who have invaded the Falklands be dealt with at once, and the war escalates quickly, thousands of troops deployed to the South Atlantic.

After all of the Queen’s luncheons with her children, she realizes that perhaps her detached style of parenting might have led them to their depression, despair, and inability to connect with others in a meaningful way. “It’s our children who are lost, not the Prime Minister’s. Each in their own deserts, ” she acknowledges. She sees it now, and sadly tells Philip that she was so busy being a mother to the country that she was hardly a mother to her own children.

And as for her favorite? Well, that honor is Andrew’s.

This is the point in the episode where it feels like it must be a commentary on current events, because up until now, Andrew has never been a going concern on this show, but the only brush he’s being painted with is the vice-laden one that will become his legacy. Philip knew all along who the Queen preferred, but the Queen is a little disgusted by the fact that her favorite is… that guy?

It’s the stark contrast against Thatcher that seems to be softening the Queen this season. It took four seasons, but thanks to her relationship with Thatcher, we are finally getting to see a human side to her and, it seems, she is starting to see that side of her too.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Brooklyn. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.

Watch The Crown Season 4 Episode 4 ("Favourites") on Netflix