Don’t worry: you don’t actually see the death of Diana. The crux of season six of The Crown happens offstage. At the start of the first episode, we find an amiable Parisian taking his dog for a walk by the Pont d’Alma … then he hears a crash. He calls emergency services: there’s been an accident in the tunnel. It’s not exactly a spoiler, is it?
It’s Diana who dominates The Crown, as she did in life. Indeed, Elizabeth Debicki goes one better than the original; she reappears posthumously to tell Charles – on the plane returning home with her body – how he’ll find things easier without her, and then she turns up on the sofa at Balmoral to tell the Queen it’s time to show a bit of emotion. Shades of Blithe Spirit here, and to do Charles and the Queen justice, they take the apparition in their stride.
