The 8 Most Pivotal Episodes of ‘The Crown’ to Look Back on Queen Elizabeth’s Life

How did Princess Elizabeth of York become the Queen of England? She was never really meant to be queen, after all. Episode 3 of The Crown explains exactly how Elizabeth’s coronation came to be. Toggling between a series of flashbacks, the episode tells the story of her uncle, King Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne in order to marry his love, Wallis Simpson. The shocking decision from Edward to leave his royal title behind meant that his brother George (played in The Crown by Jared Harris) would inherit the title. George held the role for only 15 years, and his heir apparent, Elizabeth, would succeed him at the age of 25.

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Elizabeth’s coronation was assumed from the moment that her father took his last breath in February, 1952, but she wasn’t coronated until June 2, 1953. (The reason for such delay is because, one, it allows time for the nation to grieve their former monarch, George, and two, it takes a long-ass time to plan a coronation.) Elizabeth’s Coronation Committee was spear-headed by her husband, Philip, who wanted her coronation to reflect what a modern queen looks like, and as a result it was the first ever to be televised. It was also full of family and political conflict, as it marked the return of the exiled King Edward to England, and a bit of a marital ordeal in which Philip had to kneel to his Queen, and men in the 1950s were just not into kneeling before their wives.

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“Assassins” is an episode that shows Elizabeth as a woman with a conflicted heart, something she wasn’t ever allowed to have, at least not publicly. The episode shows her complicated marriage with Philip, who has his moments of caddish, drunken behavior that Elizabeth obviously resents, but we also see Elizabeth fully at ease when she’s with her longtime friend (and possible former crush) Lord Porchester, a.k.a. Porchy, with whom she shares a love of horses. Are Elizabeth and Porchy unrequited lovers? Is there some deep, dark secret about their relationship that’s never come to light? The show seems to think not, because while Porchy does seem like the one person in the world Elizabeth is most comfortable with, she’ll never forget that she’s bound by law, by duty, by religion, by everything, to be Philip’s wife, in good times and in bad.

This episode also marks the final meeting that Elizabeth has with Winston Churchill (John Lithgow) before his resignation. Much of this season set up the fact that these obligatory meetings with the Prime Minister often made Elizabeth feel uneducated or not up to the task of sitting with the world’s most powerful leaders, but this episode pulls that storyline together and makes it clear that despite her youth, despite her lack of education in matters of the world, Elizabeth brought other things, a warmth and an openness, to the table that were perhaps even more valuable.

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If there’s one major flaw in the monarchy, it’s that these stars are NOT just like us. The air with which the Queen speaks, the general out-of-touch-ness with commoners, it’s all very much on display and it makes the Queen an easy target for criticism. This is the groundwork upon which “Marionettes” is laid. Elizabeth, in an effort to boost worker morale, gave a speech at a Jaguar factory in 1956. The speech, in which she called England’s working class “average” and droned on about finding meaning in their “monotonous” lives was roundly criticized and mocked, and the Queen was called out by a real journalist, Lord Altrincham, who declared that she was out of touch with the people she ruled. Watching the episode is pretty cringey, but it marks a clear turning point in the monarchy as Elizabeth and Philip realize that if they really want to modernize things, they need to start with the way they address their subjects.

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There’s a lot to be said for a man like the Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VII), who romantically gave up everything in his life, including his role as the King of England, to marry the woman he loved. But that man was complicated, and this is the episode where all his dirty laundry is aired – and we address the way Elizabeth chose to deal with it. Edward was King just as the Nazis were taking control in Germany, and it turns out, he was… well, if not a Nazi sympathizer, then someone who was willing to befriend the Nazis for his own personal gain and safety, regardless of the position of England’s government and military who were fighting to defeat Hitler. When all of this came to light thanks to the Marburg Files, a batch of war documents made public in 1957, Elizabeth had no choice but to kick her uncle out of the palace and the country (in a very Emmy-worthy speech) with no intention of ever inviting him back.

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In this episode, directed by Stephen Daldry, Elizabeth faces off against the more beautiful and glamorous Jackie Kennedy. The women met in real life in 1961 when the Queen hosted Kennedy and her husband, Pres. John F. Kennedy at Buckingham Palace. The episode positions Elizabeth as feeling dowdy in comparison to the always perfectly-dressed Jackie (doesn’t help that Philip is also enchanted by her), and devastated by Jackie’s harsh criticism of the palace and the Queen herself.

The episode also tells the story of the Queen’s visit to Ghana. While the trip was a political one, to ensure the country wouldn’t leave the British Commonwealth despite their independence, it was made iconic when Elizabeth danced with President Kwame Nkrumah. As the years go on, the weight of the crown is starting to take its toll on Elizabeth and (despite the fact that she lived to the age of 96), it’s impossible not to feel that the stress of being a royal rapidly aged her during this period.

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In 1966, a landslide in the Welsh village of Aberfan killed over 140 people. The disaster shocked the nation, but the situation was made worse when Queen Elizabeth, unable to decide how to respond to it, waited eight days to visit the site of the disaster, prompting public outcry. (The Queen has reportedly called this delay the greatest regret of her reign, and she has consistently made visits to the site of the accident in the decades since.) As the UK grapples with the Aberfan tragedy and who is to blame for it, this episode points out that Elizabeth is often stuck between her role as a steady leader, and a human with emotions she isn’t sure how to display.

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The first two seasons of The Crown focused primarily on the Queen herself, her rise to power, and the bumps along the way. The third and fourth seasons focused much more on her children (Charles in particular, and his relationship with young Diana). But in the season 4 episode “Favourites,” the spotlight is on the Queen and her mothering. A lot of this episode is speculative, to be sure, but it’s a fascinating version of what it’s like to be the most famous woman in the world, and to mother four children while you’re at it.

When Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) remarks that she has a favorite child, it prompts Elizabeth to consider the same thing. As the episode unfolds, it turns out that all of her children are generally terrible for many reasons, and the worst thing of all is that her favorite is – spoiler alert – the sex criminal, Andrew. (The show slyly acknowledges how problematic Andrew was/is, but it also acknowledges that Elizabeth knows she’s raised a real problem child.)

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