3x03 Aberfan

[7.7/10] The Crown can be an aloof institution. We’ve covered that pretty well already. (Most notably via Lord Altrincham’s critiques in “Marionettes”.) There is a Tommy Lascelles-esque sense that the monarch should be above temporal affairs, be more of a walking symbol of stability than a visible human being. And as a result, particularly amid a wave of changing mores and a more open society, that approach can make the royals seem callous, especially when a national tragedy strikes.

It’s a strong, if well-trodden concept on the show. So when addressing a historical event like a rockslide that killed more than a hundred children in Aberfan, Wales, it makes sense to use that idea as a throughline and source of conflict. The opening of the episode plays like a prelude to a disaster movie, but also gives us a chance to see children and their parents in their daily lives, to grow attached to them, if only in that generalized-yet-universal way that cinematic montages provide for.

The result is that when we see a room full of schoolchildren blanketed by rubble, we share in the sense of loss. When we see rows of tiny bodies covered in cloth in the mortuary, and grieving parents forced to identify them, we feel the same pain. And when we see Elizabeth repeatedly refusing to go lend the people of Aberfan her moral support, we feel the same disbelief and anger at her conspicuous absence amid such a palpable sense of tragedy.

Not for nothing, true to Prime Minister Wilson’s platform, there's a class-conscious element here too. The episode juxtaposes working class Welsh trudging through the rain, bathing their kids in crowded homes without running water, with Elizabeth barely noticing the sprinkling outside as she writes in her diary from her cavernous study. It’s a bit of a headfake, or at least something “Aberfan” doesn’t quite address head-on, but these moments give the sense that apart from decorum, the Queen can’t be bothered to concern herself with the effect of the disaster on such “ordinary lives” so far removed from her own experience.

The script sweeps it all up into a general theme here, of everyday people suffering under preventable crises and aiming their ire at the bigwigs who are insulated from the consequences and often the responsibility. The people’s questions of when and where help will come, why nobody stepped in to address their warnings, who’s going to be held accountable, are all valid. As the symbol of the nation, the Queen can be as much a magnet for frustration with the country’s shortcomings as she can be a regal representation of its aspirations.

And, of course, there's a political angle to all of this. I like The Crown in many modes, but one of my favorites is when the pristine world of the royals intersects with the muddy world of politics. Seeing Wilson’s instincts vindicated when the crisis turns political, having his aide recognize that their party could foot the blame as it happens on his watch, and the internal debate over whether to try to focus the anger on the Queen instead is the kind of practical strategizing that adds weight to when the characters make personal choices that cut against the pragmatic option.

Because at the end of the day, this is a more personal episode. It’s personal in the sense that, apart from the muck of politics and the mire of royal PR, “Aberfan” is focused first and foremost on depicting a community devastated and furious by an unspeakable tragedy. The frustration with the Queen, shared between the characters and the audience, works so well because the episode does an extraordinary job of conveying the way this preventable horror broke a community.

You feel the weight of the loss of those children, in the mundane joys of life they’ll never share again, in the heartbreaking row of tiny coffins, and in the wounded faces of those who survived and mourn them. You could honestly excise much of the world leader fumfering and still be left with a powerful rendition of the Aberfan disaster and its impact on the men, women, and children who suffered its worst consequences.

But it’s also personal in that it’s centered on the reactions of those at the top, and how much they can feel the pain of those who are ostensibly beneath them. I’ve hated Tony Armstrong-Jones from the minute he stepped into the show, but he’s the closest to being a commoner, and his immediate departure to help and unbridled empathy make this the most I’ve ever liked him. Margaret’s response to his reports show she’s not immune to the transposed grief, if only through how it affects her husband. And even Philip, well-trained in the expected monarchical stoicism, cannot help but be moved in the throes of a community mourning so many tiny lives snuffed out before they had a chance to really start.

And most of all, it’s personal to Elizabeth. In the end, this is not another episode about The Crown being too detached from earthly affairs, or even about the divisions of power and privilege that keep the Queen too far apart from her people. It is about a woman who feels there's something wrong with her, who cannot cry when the moment seems to demand it, and is afraid -- afraid of insulting the grieving by her inability to display the expected response and afraid of exposing what she feels is a deep pathology within herself.

I love that. If anything, Olivia Colman is too good in the role to support the text, giving the sense that she may break into tears at any moment faced with such overwhelming loss of her countrymen, but is striving to hold it together. But I think that actually works, a sign that The Crown’s Elizabeth feels these things, and feels them deeply, even if her expression of them doesn’t align with the typical reaction. To draw her decision not to appear in Aberfan back to that -- a personal insecurity and a worry of hurting a wounded people worse -- rather than arrogant callousness, is a welcome turn.

The common cause she finds with Harold Wilson, my favorite political scene partner for Elizabeth since Churchill, is another superb element. He absolves her, speaks of his own affectations to appear down-to-earth, and grants her the implicit allowance to be what they need, not what you are, without any sin or judgment. Despite the initial concerns, there is a harmony between the Queen and the former opposition leader, who continue to find themselves more alike than different despite their conflicting backgrounds and perspectives.

It’s enough to give Elizabeth time to reflect, and with that benediction, to hear the hymns of her people, and let loose a tear in the privacy of her own space. Colman plays the hell out of the moment, of a woman, a monarch, and an institution, each pierced by a loss that has no name and offers no quarter, even to those most protected from it.