Netflix released the official trailer for the fourth season of its British royals drama, The Crown, via The Hollywood Reporter. For almost two and a half minutes, viewers are previewed to a season that highlights the development of two groundbreaking relationships. The first, between Olivia Coleman’s (Fleabag, Broadchurch) Queen Elizabeth and Gillian Anderson’s (Sex Education, The Fall) Margaret Thatcher. And second, the budding romance of Prince Charles, played by Josh O’Connor (God’s Own Country, Only You), and Emma Corrin’s (Pennyworth, Misbehaviour) Princess Diana.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, season four finds the royal family entering the 1980s as Queen Elizabeth works with the U.K.’s first female prime minister in Thatcher. The two women, roughly around the same age, have similar characteristics. But their similarities cause the two diplomats to bump heads. In the trailer, with The Smith’s “How Soon Is Now?” remixed in the background, Queen Elizabeth questions Thatcher’s strategy, stating “It’s dangerous game to make enemies left, right and center,” via The Hollywood Reporter. Thatcher welcomes the challenge retorting she’s “comfortable with having enemies.”
Elsewhere, the trailer hints at Princess Diana being welcomed into the Royal Family, via The Hollywood Reporter. But what seems like a fairy tale romance from the outside looking in, is something totally different as Diana is met with indifference from family members. Marion Bailey’s (Mr. Turner, Vera Drake) Queen Mother and Helena Bonham Carter’s (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Fight Club) Princess Margeret both sense if the new royal-to-be cannot bend to this new life, she will eventually be broken.
“It could be said that they are two very similar women, born only months apart,” creator Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Last King of Scotland) said regarding Thatcher and the Queen, via The Hollywood Reporter. “They are very much defined by the Second World War, by sense of…a sense of frugality, hard work, commitment, Christianity and so much more. It was a commonly held piece of wisdom that the queen and Thatcher didn’t get on. I think there was probably a lot of respect. But they also had many differences, it was really fun exploring their differences and their similarities. I also get a chance to explore them both as mothers. Writing Thatcher and the queen as mothers was probably an angle that no one has explored before. It yielded one of my favorite episodes in the season,” Morgan said via The Hollywood Reporter.
The fourth season finished taping prior to the coronavirus outbreak, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This pushes season five, with the series final cast change, to begin taping sometime next year. It will not air until 2022. Morgan previously had the series ending with season five, but recently decided to add the sixth season that will bring the show’s conclusion somewhere in the 2000s.
Season four of The Crown airs November 15 on Netflix.