"The Crown" explores filiation, parenthood and heredity

Olivia Colman, Josh O'Connor and Emma Corrin in season 4 of "The Crown".

-

• The Crown 

  is back on Netflix this Sunday.

• This season 4 is marked by the arrival of two new characters, Lady Diana and Margaret Thatcher.

• If season 3 examined the midlife crisis, this season 4, which spans the Thatcher years, explores parentage, inheritance, and parenthood.

Netflix's majestic series

returns this Sunday with a salvo of 10 new episodes.

A fourth season marked by the arrival of two women alongside Elizabeth (Olivia Colman), the long-awaited Lady Di (aptly embodied by the revelation Emma Corrin), and Margaret Thatcher (played by Gillian Anderson, the eternal agent Scully from

).

If unsurprisingly, Peter Morgan's blockbuster shows the backdrop of the fairy tale of young Diana (her loneliness, her bulimia, the jealousy that her popularity arouses, etc.) it is the more human portrait and unexpected experience of the Iron Lady which sharpens the viewer's attention.

Fortunately,

does not give in completely to the sirens of the Charles and Diana show, and reconnects with what makes it brilliant, namely to articulate this spectacle of the monarchy with the daily life of the Palace and universal intimate questions.

If season 3 examined the midlife crisis, this season 4, which spans the Thatcher years, explores parentage, inheritance, and parenthood.

Lord Mountbatten and the question of the father figure

The Crown

always puts the history of the UK and that of the Royal Family in perspective.

This season opens in 1979 when Lord Mountbatten, the beloved cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, the uncle of Prince Philip and the mentor of Prince Charles, is killed in an attack by the IRA.

The opportunity to explore the theme of the father figure.

“I barely knew my own father,” Prince Philip told Prince Charles.

“Dickie understood this and stepped in as a substitute,” he continues.

Lord Mountbatten then held this role with Prince Charles, much to the chagrin of Philip, who never managed to position himself as a father to his elder brother.

A huge paternal failure ironically dealt with in a sequence where father and son talk to each other while a majestic stag is butchered in episode 2. This father figure, Prince Philip nevertheless embodies it without difficulty with the daughters, the princess Anne and her future daughter-in-law Lady Di.

A point in common that he shares with Denis Thatcher, Margaret's husband.

Margaret Thatcher and the question of origins

The "Prime Minister" Margaret Thatcher arrives at 10 Downing Street at the start of the season and her weekly exchanges, or rather her games, with Queen Elizabeth II are probably the tastiest of this season 4 of

.

What is really playing out between the two women of power is the class struggle between a fighter, presented as the daughter of a grocer (a father to whom she has boundless admiration), who has climbed the ranks to strength of hard work and the other, and a privileged heiress, daughter of King George VI.

"I find it hard to find the slightest positive trait in these people," said Margaret Thatcher to her husband during a memorable weekend at Balmoral.

"Like the condescending brutes in my cabinet, all members of the same class you will notice," she continued.

Elisabeth II and the question of motherhood

When Margaret Thatcher's son went missing in the desert during the 1982 Paris-Dakar race, Margaret Thatcher did not hide from the queen that she preferred the latter to her daughter.

This confidence leads Elizabeth II to wonder about the links she has with her own children.

While she has never shown much affection for them, she will, in a strangely funny way, attempt to emotionally connect with these children, in order to find out which one is her favorite.

Lady Di and the figure of the good mother

The question of motherhood is also addressed through Lady Di.

While she must make a crucial tour for the monarchy in Australia, she refuses to leave - unlike Elizabeth II in the first season of

- her child, Prince William, in the United Kingdom, hoping to find " the balance ”between her role as mother and that of princess.

The young princess, in difficulty in her marriage, is also in search of a mother figure, whom she hopes to find with the queen.

" Mum.

You told me to call you like that, ”she says to Elizabeth II, somewhat taken aback.

"He is angry with me for receiving so much attention," she explains.

" Why ?

», Asks the queen.

" I do not know.

I was hoping you would know.

He's your son, ”said the princess.

"Did you come to tell me I'm a bad mother?"

Elizabeth II replied curtly.

Princess Margaret and the question of heredity

Season 4 of

unfortunately does not leave much room for Princess Margaret, who had shone in the excellent "Margaretology" and in "A cry from the heart" in season 3. If Princess Margaret, that Helena Bonham Carter seems born to play, is still sassy, ​​she's adrift this season and sinks deeper into depression and alcoholism every time she loses a place in the protocol order.

Plagued by mental health problems, the princess wonders about a possible hereditary problem.

In the episode, titled "The Hereditary Principle", she will play private detectives and discover dark secrets concerning the family of her mother Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

Nothing that does not imply his lineage.

Symbolic and hereditary transmission, isn't that the real theme of

 ?

(Although all spectators will only have eyes for Princess Diana's wedding dress)

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