1x06 Gelignite

[8.0/10] At the risk of spoiling a fifty-year-old film, “Gelignite” feels like the English Royalty version of The Godfather. The famed arc of Michael Corleone from the 1972 classic is of a man who goes from resisting the institution he was born into and marrying outside of it, to consolidating power in a wave of high profile mob killings and telling his wife not to interfere.

Queen Elizabeth’s arc isn’t as dramatic as all that. But she has a steady progression too. She goes from giving her sister, Margaret, her blessing for a marriage with Peter Townsend, to actively trying to finagle a way for her to get married out of state to avoid the backwards strictures of the Church of England, to regretfully acquiescing to her mother’s scheme to have Margaret wait two years in deference to a bizarre statute on the subject and begging her sister’s forgiveness for the necessary concession, to acceding to the cancelation of Margaret and Peter’s trip to Rhodesia for appearances while still bringing Peter along for her trip to Northern Ireland as a public show of support and approval, to bristling a little at the attention Peter gets during the trip but demurring from Tommy’s suggestions to shunt him off to Belgium early, to basically making Tommy her gleeful hatchetman and all but saying to him “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome group captain?”

The call between Elizabeth and Margaret on the subject is cold and cruel. The move goes back on a promise made in the intimacy of the family. The Queen assured her sister that she and Peter would get some time together before their period of just-for-show separation and has gone back on it. Margaret feels understandably devastated and betrayed by all of this, and her barb refusing to protect Elizabeth since she's refused to protect her seems particularly sharp. But though Elizabeth’s reactions in this episode are mostly summed up in variations of the word “Oh,” you can practically hear her saying, “It’s just business.”

This is a story of someone who genuinely loves her sister, who genuinely thinks the rules against marrying who you want to marry are a nuisance, who plots how Margaret can pull it off without the meddling of state or religion.

And then, she is reminded, at home and at work, that she is not merely a sister. She is a sovereign. She is a steward of this grand edifice that must be maintained in the face of chips and scratches that could threaten to topple it over. So when leaned upon by her Private Secretary, by her own husband, and most of all, by her mother, who is still smarting from the consequences of her brother-in-law valuing his personal preferences over the needs of the royal institution, she gives in. She's willing to accept the blowback to herself, but doesn’t want the public to lose faith in the English Royalty on her watch.

Yet, that’s only half the story. It’s not until the trip to Northern Ireland that Elizabeth goes from living with an awkward compromise to pulling the plug on this burgeoning scandal. There’s a charitable way to read that. One is that Elizabeth believes this is a simple matter that can be contained with a little grace and extra latitude,and when she sees the fuss surrounding Peter on the trip, realizes it’s more than that, and by having him along, she's feeding the fire. The irony is, of course, that her listening to Tommy and sending him away seems to make things worse, only heightening the press’ fascination with the story. But at the most generous, you can see this as Elizabeth acting once she realizes this has gotten worse than she thought.

Only there’s another, more damning view of the act. Margaret accuses her sister of balking every time Margaret outshines her. It’s reasonable to ask whether she's settled into becoming Queen, or enjoying the crowds waving to her, of seeing herself spoken of fawningly on television, and resenting it when Peter stealing the focus and the attention. The moment that seems to turn the tide is when he calls her “Lilibet”, a sobriquet that speaks to familiarity, dare I say of equality, between Queen and commoner than even this ostensibly progressive, supportive young woman can brook no longer.

But wait, there’s more. The episode takes pains to show Prince Philip gallivanting at gentlemen’s social clubs, making eyes at young waitresses, blasting off with knucklehead buddies for weekends that he seemingly didn’t fully brief his wife on. He chides her for allowing Margaret’s affair to go on,with a condescending tone but one that’s in character for both his 1950s view of a man’s place in a marriage and his concerns about the stability of the monarchy as someone who’s seen it washed away in another country. This is all to say, this is not a happy time of marital bliss for Elizabeth and Philip.

So maybe that’s lurking in the back of Elizabeth’s mind as she's making this decision. Claire Foy is laudably subtle and at times inscrutable as to what’s going on behind Elizabeth’s eyes through all of this. But I’d dare say the script and the direction suggests there is a touch of jealousy, whether she would admit it or even realizes it, to seeing Margaret and her boyfriend desperate to stay together when she's in a much tougher place in her own relationship.

All that said, I really like how this episode pushes beyond what is, at heart, a bit of family drama for the royals, however much the threat of scandal and the stability of the institution may be at stake. I love that we see the literal game of telephone it takes to connect the Queen and her sister, the passage of newspapers from the local stand to the secretaries to the royals themselves, the protocols and hierarchies of newsmen, servants, and secretaries that keep the royal trains running on time despite whatever personal spats may be rippling through Buckingham Palace this week. Nothing conveys the sense that this is an institution better than showing the dirty work, the byzantine series of connections and intermediaries, necessary to make the water seem calm for the crowned gooses and ganders who float comfortably on its surface.

Despite that, the crown rests uneasily for Queen Elizabeth at this moment. She has, for the time being, lost both battles. Her sister is furious with her. Her husband seems cross and dismissive. And the press is no less rapacious for the story than they were before. But for good or for ill, she starts out acting for the good of her beloved sibling, and closes it acting on behalf of “the company” she heads, if not for herself.

The project of season 1 seems to be a story of metamorphosis from a junior royal possessed of her own life and connections to a head of state fulfilling her intricate and interwoven responsibilities to the Crown. Few vignettes seem to signify a turning point in that transformation more than how she responds to Margaret’s dalliance as a sister, and then as a queen.