(Warning: Spoilers follow for the final episode of The Crown.)
Attempting to watch the end credits on a Netflix series requires the reflexes of a Squid Game: The Challenge contestant, as the window to find your remote is never long enough. Even clicking the box on a phone screen feels like a speed test.
Despite often wanting to keep the credits rolling—whether to look up a name or enjoy whatever specifically chosen song is playing—I forget time and time again to be ready for this annoying auto-play feature of the streaming age. I was reminded of this the hard way just as my silent tears turned to sobs upon realizing the significance of the “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” song choice at the end of the brilliant eighth episode of The Crown’s final outing. Just as the moving link between the song and a sequence in a Season 1 episode of the series began to sink in, the series’ next episode started to play, immediately snapping me out of the emotionally charged moment that tied one Princess Margaret portrayal to another.
It is no shock that the best episode of the final season focuses on Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville), who has lit up the screen across all three iterations of this character—four including Beau Gadsdon’s turn as teenage Margaret. Last year, I wrote about Manville’s terrific performance, depicting Margaret’s melancholy and regret-filled later years. It would be easy to wax lyrical all over again.
Don’t worry; this is not going to be a repeat of that piece—though Manville is reliably sensational. Instead, I want to focus on how Netflix cutting to the next episode instantly undermined the poignant nod to Vanessa Kirby’s star-making turn as the younger Princess Margaret and the parallels the closing moments of this episode, “The Ritz,” has with the portrayal of the passing of King George VI (Jared Harris) early in the first season.
Music is Margaret’s lifeblood
From the jump, death looms large over this series. How else does Elizabeth (Claire Foy) become queen without her father dying first? There is no mystery about who makes it to the end of the narrative, with 2005 as the year the show ends and no alt-history twists to be found—though I am now imagining The Crown creating an alternate timeline where Diana doesn’t die. Splitting the final season into two allowed space to focus on Princess Diana’s (Elizabeth Dibicki) tragic demise in Paris, which reverberates throughout the remaining chapters. While the remaining episodes are heavy on plot involving Prince William (Ed McVey), some other characters get a fair amount of attention as well.
Thankfully, one of those is Princess Margaret, whose spotlight episodes are a heady mix of yearning, exuberance, romance, and sorrow. Each version of the character across the six seasons has a different weighting of these elements to play with, after the youthful naivete of the Peter Townsend affair wears off and the years start to take their toll. In their portrayals, Kirby, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Manville showcase a Margaret who doesn’t keep her feelings or urge to dazzle to herself.
Now, in what we know is the twilight of her life, Margaret’s soul-of-the-party persona is cut short by several strokes. Her diet of Chesterfield cigarettes, whisky, and sweet treats is prohibited (not that this stops the princess), and she struggles to put lipstick on. As Margaret’s 70th birthday approaches, she wants to revisit the Ritz Hotel in London, as it represents one of her happiest memories with her older sister.
Music is Margaret’s lifeblood throughout the series. She is always the first to get up and blast out a song, whether at a refined family gathering or a booze-soaked bash among her artsy friends. Last season, Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” acts as a pulsating bittersweet memory, illuminating Margaret’s ultimately doomed romance with Townsend. In the closing moments of Margaret’s final episode, the audio that plays of that Season 1 duet with her father—that would turn out to be their last—is a gut punch, from the very first notes of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” Unfortunately, the Netflix credits-skipping feature means that if you aren’t quick enough, you won’t even hear Harris sing his part as King George. Talk about a mood killer.
Flashing back and skipping credits
Parents are absent in “The Ritz’s” opening scene flashback to May 1945, when a 14-year-old Margaret convinces her sister to sneak out of Buckingham Palace to join the other revelers celebrating VE Day. It is a familiar story if you have seen the fluffy 2015 movie A Royal Night Out, featuring the reliably charming Bel Powley in a long line of fabulous actresses who have taken on Margaret. Meanwhile, The Crown uses this night as a framing device to get to the heart of the sisterly connection, their differences, and their shared experience. Morgan’s historical drama is at its most incisive when it looks back, and while it isn’t always the most subtle in how it ties themes together, this unbreakable bond offers a rich tapestry of memories—ones we have and haven’t seen.
Rather than smash straight to the opening credits after this flashback, the scene cuts to a wistful Margaret playing gin with her sister and bringing up this VE Day recollection. It is a layered cold open that follows Margaret jetting off to the private island of Mustique in the Caribbean. Wearing a divine caftan, Margaret, with a cigarette holder in one hand and a martini in the other, holds court with her friends before she has the first of what will end up being several strokes. Only then does it go to the opening titles.
Here, you can partake in the pomp and circumstance of a title sequence that undoubtedly owes some of its aesthetic to Game of Thrones. Or not, if you wish. The “skip intro” option appears on the screen, and if you don’t opt out, you are left watching—which is the reverse of the end credits.
I am a purist when it comes to these things and will gladly keep the end credits on every time. But even if a person wanted to skip them, it would be great if Netflix could give the viewer more time before the next episode auto-plays and kills the mood the song over those credits is meant to evoke. Disney+ has a 20-second buffer, which is more than enough time to soak up the song choice. It is also rude and presumptuous to think that no one cares about the hundreds of people who worked on a series, or wants to hear the song or piece of music chosen explicitly by the music supervisor or director to close out the episode to reflect the mood, whether somber or uplifting—or a combination of both.
A duet from beyond the grave
In the case of “The Ritz,” as soon as I heard the piano’s opening notes for “Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered,” the emotional significance was undeniable, even if I couldn’t place it until the vocals kicked in. VE Day flashbacks bookend the episode, and the rare unfettered freedom of dancing the night away is something only one of these sisters will get to experience again.
As teenage Elizabeth (Viola Prettejohn) and Margaret walk home from their all-night adventure, the scene veers toward cheesy territory, though it avoids too much schmaltz because of the actresses’ grounded performances. Elizabeth turns back, saying, “Aren’t you coming? We can join mummy and papa for breakfast?” Manville has replaced Gadsdon, answering, “I’m afraid not, but I will always be by your side. No matter what.” As the camera lingers on her face, the sound of the first bars of the song from Season 1 immediately turned my watery eyes into actual tears. The title card notes that Margaret died peacefully in her sleep at 6.30 am on Feb. 9, 2002, at the age of 71.
It has been a long time since I saw Season 1, but I immediately recognized Kirby’s Margaret singing “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.” Given that Season 1 debuted in November 2016 (yep, that November), you might need reminding of the context of the duet in the second episode, “Hyde Park Corner.” Due to King George’s ill health, Elizabeth and Phillip (Matt Smith) take his place on an official tour of the Commonwealth. While they are away, the king is still well enough to go hunting, and that evening, he joins his youngest child, singing the song made famous by Ella Fitzgerald. It is a stirring sequence capturing the closeness between father and daughter that is lacking in other parent-child dynamics in this family. At some point in the night, he passes away asleep in bed.
Of all the musical performances, calling back to this duet when Margaret dies, to me, suggests Margaret is reunited with her father. I found these mystical shenanigans heartwarming on this occasion, but I couldn’t take the Diana scenes in Episode 4 seriously. Perhaps it is because there isn’t the same baggage attached, and the original scene between Kirby and Harris is so affecting.
This wisp of Season 1 nostalgia indicates how restrained Morgan has been in utilizing the series’ original cast, which comes as a surprise from the man who gave us Ghost Diana. (Okay, Foy and Olivia Colman showing up in the finale to debate with the oldest Elizabeth is doing the most.) However, it doesn’t matter the creative intention, when the streaming platform doesn’t adjust its screening format to let the moment sink in. Netflix needs to update its opting-in/opting-out process for watching credits, as it ruins the majesty of an elegant link to the past.
In this case, I am not bewitched, only bothered and bewildered that this song is cut short.
