Netflix’s The Crown is a brilliant and emotional series about the reign of Elizabeth II and her influence on her family, the government, and the people. The writer of this high-quality series is Peter Morgan, and he wants to film six seasons in total, but we will take one step at the time and reveal everything we know about season 2.
The Crown Season 2 Release Date
The first season of the Crown became available in November last year which means that we expect the new one to hit the screens in the same month this year.
The Crown Season 2 Cast
The core actors and actress from the first season will return. These include Claire Foy, who plays Queen Elizabeth, Matt Smith as Prince Philip, Vanessa Kirby in the role of Princess Margaret, Victoria Hamilton as the Queen Mother and Jeremy Northam who will play Antony Eden. Also Matthew Good comes back as Lord Snowdon/Antony Armstrong-Jones who married Princess Margaret.
Michael C Hall from Dexter and Jodi Balfour from Quarry will appear in season 2 as John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy respectively. JFK will be portrayed as “a natural leader and excellent public speaker, who feels unmanned by his wife’s popularity and lets his jealousy surface behind closed doors,” whereas his spouse will be “a shy woman who loathes public life behind a charming exterior of confidence and glamor.”
However, John Lithgow, who played Winston Churchill and won numerous awards for his performance may not return – Claire Foy herself said that Lithgow was “not on set” for the new episodes.
She told Vulture: “It’s awful! Me and Matt [Smith] did a Skype chat the other day and John was there on the end in LA. It was so amazing just to see his face! I just love and miss him so much. But saying that, I can’t be unfaithful. I do have some amazing new prime ministers — Jeremy Northam, who plays Antony Eden, and then Harold Macmillan – so I’m a very lucky girl.”
The Plot
The first season talks about events between the Queen’s marriage to Philip in 1947 to the disintegration of Princess Margaret’s engagement to Peter Townsend in 1955. This means that the season 2 of The Crown should start in 1957 and go on until 1964. What this means is that we are going to see Prince Andrew and Edward that were born in 1960 and 1964 respectively.
According to the rumors, we will watch the British soldiers fighting an illegal war in Egypt and the downfall of Harold Macmillan as PM. Furthermore, Philip will receive more spotlight in the new season and how his childhood “might have impacted him as a man, a father and as Prince Consort” but we will also see his relationship with Prince Charles.
Based on history books, Philip left his family in order to go on a tour around the world, and he went to open the Sydney Olympics with the tabloids rambling about his soon to be failed marriage – so this may get some screen time. Furthermore, the fans will watch Margaret’s “exciting, dangerous, volatile, dysfunctional relationship” with Snowden.
This is what Kirby told Vanity Fair: “Tony starts this whole trail of a more bohemian life outside. Margaret was best friends with Elizabeth Taylor, and she had loads of American actress friends and singers. You see these two worlds collide – her’s and Tony’s, who is a member of the public and was a creative, liberal, dark horse. Meanwhile, she is this epitome of the establishment.”
Also, the couple married in 1960, and she gave birth to David in 1961 and Sarah in 1964, so this will also be a part of The Crown season 2. Churchill is out of the picture at that time which means that we will be watching Eden at 10 Downing Street, but his run will be a short one – he was mishandling the Suez crisis, so he was fiercely criticized by the public which forced him to resign. After him, the Queen controversially chooses Harold Macmillan as Eden’s successor, and this will be covered as well.
“It has a different flavor,” producer Suzanne Mackie said of season two. “It feels like the ’60s are with us and it has a slight shock of the new.”
Philip Martin, series director, added: “The first season happened in a bubble; I think that Elizabeth and Phillip and Margaret are all in a world and everybody is in some ways supportive of them. And I think in the second season the world comes crashing in.”
What happens later on?
The whole story about Queen Elizabeth II will be told in six seasons, and there will be a time-jump between seasons two and three as well as seasons four and five. This means that most of the stars will be replaced with older ones after the second season who will be once again replaced with even older actors.
“If everyone can pull it off in the way that we hope they can, I think it could be a real televisual feat,” Smith told Digital Spy of the planned revamp.
