The final moments of The Crown have a lot to accomplish. Creator Peter Morgan's decades-spanning love letter to Queen Elizabeth II has finally come to an end after six seasons, three casts, and dozens of iconic moments in the British royal family. For its last-ever episode, the series looked back over the queen's long legacy, as her fictionalized counterpart approaches 80 and considers where the future of the monarchy lies. Now that the end of an era of prestige television has arrived, let's look over how The Crown season 6 honored Queen Elizabeth's final years. (TL;DR: No, the show doesn't depict the queen's death.)
After part 1 of the final season employed ghosts to give Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed some final moments of closure, season 6 episode 10, titled "Sleep, Dearie Sleep," brings back the show's two prior versions of the queen, played by Claire Foy in seasons 1 and 2 and Olivia Colman in seasons 3 and 4. The big events of the installment are the early planning of the queen's funeral, and Prince Charles and Camilla's wedding, to which the queen gives her blessing. She even plans to abdicate the throne early, and announce to Charles on his wedding day that he would soon become king (a.k.a. his dream wedding present). Colman and Foy's queens serve as the avatars on her shoulders for this decision. First, the middle-aged Elizabeth tells her elder that it's time to step down for a rest, with Charles looking ready to lead and with the possibility that she would be less effective as she gets older. The present-day Elizabeth seems swayed, enough to ask for time during the reception and start writing a speech.
