The Crown (season 2)


The second season of The Crown follows the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It consists of ten episodes and was released on Netflix on December 8, 2017.
Claire Foy stars as Elizabeth, along with main cast members Matt Smith, Vanessa Kirby, Jeremy Northam, Anton Lesser, Greg Wise, Victoria Hamilton, Matthew Goode, Alex Jennings, and Lia Williams. Original main cast members Jared Harris, John Lithgow, and Ben Miles also return in cameo appearances.

Premise

The Crown traces the life of Queen Elizabeth II from her wedding in 1947 through to the present day. Season two covers the time period between 1956 and 1964. Claire Foy continues to portray the Queen in the earlier part of her reign, and the season covers the Suez Crisis in 1956, the retirement of the Queen's third Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, in 1963 following the Profumo affair political scandal, and the births of Prince Andrew in 1960 and Prince Edward in 1964. The season also introduces John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy and Lord Altrincham.

Cast

Main

The below actors are credited in the opening titles of single episodes in which they play a significant role.

Release

The second season was released on Netflix worldwide in its entirety on December 8, 2017. Season 2 was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2018 and worldwide on November 13, 2018.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes reported a 89% approval rating for the second season based on 83 reviews, with an average rating of 8.35/10. The website's critical consensus read "The Crown continues its reign with a self-assured sophomore season that indulges in high drama and sumptuous costumes." On Metacritic, the second season holds a score of 87 out of 100, based on 27 critics, retaining the first season's indication of "universal acclaim".
Foy and Smith both earned significant praise from critics. Chancellor Agard of Entertainment Weekly wrote "As always, Claire Foy turns in an amazingly restrained performance." Reviewing the first episode, Gabriel Tate of The Daily Telegraph wrote that Foy and Smith have "seldom been better". Hugo Rifkind of The Times said "While ardent monarchists might bristle at the way this is going, for the rest of us it's getting better and better."
Alison Keene of Collider said "each new episode makes its mark and tells its own complete story... It's another exceptionally strong season of television, full of compelling drama and sweeping grandeur." Krutika Malikarjuna of TV Guide argued that the public is attracted to the royals' celebrity and star power, and said: "The brilliance of this framing becomes clear as the show evolves into The Real Housewives of Buckingham." Sophie Gilbert wrote for The Atlantic that the portrayal of a monarch who "would rather be living any other life" is "riveting", and that it is "gorgeously shot, with flawless re-creations of everything from the Throne Room in Buckingham Palace to a 1950s hospital ward. And it's surprisingly funny."
The Wall Street Journal critic John Anderson said "The Crown attains genuine sexiness without sex. Margaret, à la Ms. Kirby's interpretation, smolders, as does Elizabeth, at least on occasion." Meghan O'Keefe of Decider wrote that the season "continues to romanticize the British royal family, but the romance comes from how they're normal, not divine".
Less complimentary reviews saw the season criticised for what some regarded as failing to meet the emotional intensity of the first. John Doyle wrote for Globe and Mail that despite being "lavishly made" and "breathtaking", it "now leans toward a three-hanky weeper about marriage. It is less than it was, like the monarchy itself, and of interest to monarchy fans only." Alan Sepinwall of Uproxx added "Many of the season's wounds are self-inflicted" and that Prince Philip "still comes across as a whiny man-child". Phil Owen of The Wrap described the season as "trashy" and saw dry comedy in Northam's portrayal of Prime Minister Anthony Eden: "I'm assuming that creator Peter Morgan meant for it to be comedy. There's really no other explanation for why Jeremy Northam played Prime Minister Anthony Eden like he's having a nervous breakdown in every scene."