The Crown Season 5: Highlights
– Now streaming on Netflix
– Imelda Staunton, Elizabeth Debicki, Dominic West, Jonathan Pryce and more
– The plot of the series will take full swing into the monarchical chaos of the 1990s
– Production on Season 6 resumed after the death of Queen Elizabeth II
The Crown season 5, like previous seasons, blends real-life events with sublime drama and is brought to life by an outstanding cast that extends the show’s reach far beyond fans of the British royal family.
Seasons 1-4 of the hit show used anime-style time jumps to continue to mix things up, introducing new cast members – like Emma Corrin and Gillian Anderson – who took the show from strength to strength. The Crown season 5 continues that trend, with another cast shakeup that takes the proceedings to the 1990s as we head towards the show’s inevitable conclusion.
Below, we detail everything you need to know about The Crown season 5, including the cast list, backstory, and what it tells us about future seasons.
Spoilers follow…
Release date: The Crown season 5 was released on Netflix on November 9, 2022.
Plot: As Season 4 of The Crown ends on Christmas Day 1990, the next season will be about the end of Charles and Diana’s marriage, John Major’s time as Prime Minister and Queen. annus horribilis in 1992
Throw: Imelda Staunton plays Queen Elizabeth II, Jonathan Pryce plays Prince Philip, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, Dominic West as Prince Charles, Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret and Jonny Lee Miller as John Major.
Future: The Crown has already been renewed for a sixth and final season, which began filming in 2022. Shooting, however, was temporarily put on hold after the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September.
Crown season 5 release date
Season 5 of The Crown has started streaming on Netflix November 9, 2022.
The wait for new episodes has been longer than usual – but not surprisingly due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, the show was planning to take a gap year long before the virus began posing numerous challenges to the world of television and film.
Season 6 is already in production, although filming was temporarily halted in September amid a period of national mourning following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Crown season 5 cast
The Crown’s fifth season will see another major cast shake-up as the aging royal family enters the 90s – The Crown season 4 concluded in late 1990, which we’ll talk about next. Here’s who we know will be coming:
- Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II
- Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret
- Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip
- Elżbieta Debicki as Princess Diana
- Dominic West as Prince Charles
- Claudia Harrison as Princess Anne
- Jonny Lee Miller as John Major
- Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles
- Flora Montgomery as Norma Major
- Marcia Warren as the Queen Mother
- James Murray as Prince Andrew
- Sam Woolf as Prince Edward
- Bertie Carvel as Tony Blair
- Humayun Saeed as Dr. Hasnat Khan
- Timothy Dalton as Peter Townsend
- Lydia Leonard as Cherie Blair
- Natascha McElhone as Penelope Knatchbull
- Senan West and Timothee Sambor as Prince William
- Teddy Hawley and Will Powell as Prince Harry
We’ll be waving goodbye to Olivia Colman and hello Imelda Staunton for the role of Queen Elizabeth II. You may recognize Staunton from her time as the loathsome Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter. Likewise, Tobias Menzies will step aside to allow a Game of Thrones collaborator Jonathan Pryce take over the duties of Prince Philip.
In addition, we will see Phantom Thread’s Lesley Manville play the role of Princess Margaret and Elzbieta Dębicka, who you may know from Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, will play a slightly older version of Princess Diana. Following the 2020 Suggested Report Dominic West was scheduled to join the cast as Prince Charles, Netflix finally confirmed he was part of the series in August 2021.
Our new Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki). pic.twitter.com/2QIMohY1dEAugust 17, 2021
Season 4 also ended with Margaret Thatcher resigning, meaning we’ll see a new prime minister enter the fray. Season 5 will continue the tenure of John Major, played by Jonny Lee Millerand we’ll get a Tony Blair short series (Bertie Carvel), also in office at the time of Diana’s death.
Recently, it was announced that a prominent Pakistani star Humayun Saeed Hasnat Khan, a heart surgeon with whom Diana was allegedly in a relationship from 1995 to 1997.
Check out the list above for many more confirmed cast members, including details of who will play young Prince William and young Prince Harry.
Jonny Lee Miller will play John Major in season five of The Crown. pic.twitter.com/woMcTQtUmbJune 25, 2021
Crown season 5 trailer
Netflix released a full-length trailer for The Crown season 5 on September 20, which we’ve included below.
The Crown season 4 recap
Season 4 of The Crown began in 1977, but the first episode was refined in 1979 with the selection of Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson). The IRA-claimed murder of Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance) was also shown, which served as the show’s starting point to focus on the ongoing troubles in Northern Ireland. We also began to see the show move into what could be called recent history, focusing on working-class struggles, the breakup of apartheid, and Diana’s impact on audiences.
The Queen (Olivia Colman) also shone early on to Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) as the perfect bride-to-be for Charles (Josh O’Connor). After successfully passing the “balmoral test”, the royal family pressured Charles to marry Diana.
The Queen’s relationship with Thatcher also began for good reasons, but slowly neutralized over the course of the season as old Maggie’s rule grew more and more ruthless. The couple’s personal relationship soured, but ended in a dignified way, with mutual respect shown for common features.
Season 4 also did a fantastic job of making every cast member pretty unlikable. The significant age difference between Charles and Diana creates a tumultuous dynamic – Charles’ petulant reactions to Diana’s personal struggles coupled with his reluctance to let go of Camilla (Emerald Fennell) make him hard to watch in Season 4.
Throughout the season, the Queen has observed Thatcher’s weakness when it comes to her children, especially her son Mark, whom she cited as her favourite. Upon learning of this, the Queen embarks on a personal journey to reconnect with her own children, and discovers that they all carry indiscretions, emotional baggage, and personal struggles.
Season 4 of The Crown ended in 1990 with the resignation of the unpopular Thatcher and an exceptionally cold Christmas at Balmoral Castle. During the ceremony, both the Queen and Prince Philip are fed up with Charles and Diana’s marital complaints. While the Queen simply and coldly urged Charles to focus on his royal duties, Philip turned a darker corner, quietly warning of the consequences Diana would face if her marriage failed.
Hey, maybe that’s why some critics want to see a disclaimer before the show (opens in a new tab) reminding people that The Crown is a fictional drama, not a documentary (something Netflix has confirmed has no plans).
Crown season 5 story
With Thatcher gone and Charles and Diana’s unhappy relationship in full swing, we’ll be sailing full steam ahead into the 90s. That too was Confirmed (opens in a new tab) that there will be a sixth and final season of The Crown, ending in the early 2000s. Showrunner Peter Morgan said that “season six won’t bring us any closer to today – it’ll just enable us to cover the same time period in more detail.”
Season 5 of the Crown doesn’t have an official plot yet, but we can get a glimpse of what might happen based on its trailer (below) and real-life royal events given the additional season.
1992 was a particularly difficult year for the Windsor clan. He witnessed the dissolution of not one but two royal marriages – the separation of Prince Andrew from Sarah Ferguson and the official divorce of Princess Anne from her longtime husband, Captain Mark Phillips. Prince Andrew’s wedding made a brief appearance in Season 4 of The Crown, and we also get a glimpse of Anne’s marital struggles, suggesting they may play a more pivotal role in Season 5.
Of course, we have a further ride with the relationship of Charles and Diana, and this has not avoided the scandal. In June 1992, author Andrew Morton released Diana: Her True Story, a best-selling autobiographical book that details Diana’s struggles and turmoil in her marriage, with her own contributions. The book was published while she was still married to Charles. As you can imagine, it didn’t go over very well with the rest of the family, so we suspect he may be back next season.
And at the end of this year we will see a fiery, fictionalized spectacle based on the 1992 film. Windsor Castle fire. The real fire burned for about 15 hours and caused six minor injuries to personnel – and a big, big castle fire is a good old excuse for some first-class TV series, right?
In conclusion, in a famous speech, the Queen called 1992 her “annus horribilis”. This is certainly great material for the writers of the hit Netflix series.
We also have the field for many scandals within the British government in the 1990s. It is worth noting that we have John Major’s 1993 ‘Back to Basics’ campaign, designed to promote traditional family values, but ultimately fell into disrepair in a series of scandals within the Party Conservative.
The Weapons for Iraq the romance that took place in the 90s may also contribute to the development of a juicy plot in The Crown, as government-approved arms sales to Iraq made John Major quite unpopular in the run-up to Tony Blair’s election victory in 1997.
Finally, at the core of The Crown season 5 will be the breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage until their divorce in 1996. We all know there will be plenty of room for suspense and drama, and many of us remember the level of publicity surrounding the scandal. Judging by the first season 5 trailer, things are about to get suitably messy.
However, showrunner Peter Morgan confirmed that Season 5 will not cover Diana’s tragic death in 1997, as that event will be at the heart of Season 6. controversy over (opens in a new tab) how the series plans to deal with the tragedy, but those involved in its production have committed to approach the subject with the utmost delicacy.
In any case, we will have to wait until next year (or longer) for all this. Meanwhile, The Crown season 5 is now streaming on Netflix.