The Crown “Marionettes” ….out with the old!

“Marionettes”, Episode 5 of Season 2 of The Crown on Netflix, is where it all comes to a head! The conservative backward nature of the queen and the court get called out and she is faced with having to get more involved in her public persona, with the job itself, and make decisions about her role in Britian’s every day life.

I knew, as soon as we saw the older gentleman punch the younger man who had written negative things about the Queen, that when the storyline arched back to this moment, that we would agree with what he had written.  But it left me very curious as it’s the most engaging story so far in a season of excellent episodes, as I am fully committed to the Queen as my gal: calm, measured, reasonable, progressive possibly, kind and thoughtful in everything she does.

The old farts in her cabinet are sabotaging her public persona by holding back from the people all of her awesome “cool girl” qualities like hunting and driving trucks.

She’s actually a fantastic individual, and charming, but the public doesn’t know this, because the traditional way of the monarchy is to paint her as stuffy and boring, and all the old white men managing her are just the same story as in the US government, behind the times.

(Let me just say this right here and now: fuck tradition!!!)

You can’t blame the Queen for not wanting to be in the lime light and meet 100 people in a night, if never being in it enough to be comfortable with it.  It would be terrifying, stressful, pure hell, being under that kind of scrutiny, even if you get to sleep in a princess bed and live in a mansion, it’s not worth it.  That being said, she was a little stuck up about it.

A fair amount of this is fiction of course, since we can’t know exactly how Elizabeth II acted in those situations. I do know she was a mechanic in the war, and other interesting facts that made me like her, and I want to know more.

In particular, I’m hoping The Crown will answer the one big question I have: What role did Elizabeth II have in dismantling the British Empire?  A lot, I hope, but I don’t know.  (Feel free to share any links if you have the answer.)

I love this show!

Jericho: nuclear blasts & nitty-gritty

Lately I’ve been fascinated by TV shows with societal collapse premises, like “Jericho” (2006 – CBS Paramount) and “Survivors” (2008 – BBC).

Jericho takes place as 10+ nuclear bombs go off in US cities.  The town of Jericho, which is out of the fallout zone, manages to survive.  Handsome Skeet Ulrich is the main character.  His acting is good and the acting by most of the rest of the cast is at least good enough.

But I’m not watching the show for the acting.  What draws me, and probably the rest of its viewing audience, is its gutsy content.  Rarely do nuclear war movies or TV shows get made at all.  I guess I can understand why… it’s hard to find an upside to nuclear war and “entertainment” has to have an upside.

Either way, the reason I watch is to see an example of what could happen after a societal collapse of any kind, be it natural disaster, nuclear war, or environmental catastrophe.  It’s as if it makes me feel just a little bit more prepared for the “it-probably-won’t-happen-but-you-never-know” type of event.  (Silly, I know.  It would be so much worse.)

We as members of a society are relatively comfortable in the knowledge that police or others will protect us from most outright assaults and crimes (or at least they will if we are middle or upper class… but that is another story).  “Jericho” lifts the curtain on our polite and measured persona.  End-of-the-world programing specializes in getting down to the nitty-gritty of human behavior and motive, and for some reason that’s what I want to see.

Example.  New Bern, a neighboring town, has animosity toward Jericho over some trumped up charges made by their leader, the sheriff.  He exploits the fear and stokes the anger of New Bern residents so they will not question his retaliation on Jericho.   I can’t help but put myself into the shoes of the scared angry people who are being promised food and a tad bit more security if they just turn a blind eye to the sheriff’s methods.

What a decent analogy for Americans and our government right?  We turn a blind eye to their methods (i.e. torture, drones) so that we will have a tad bit more security.  It comes down to base instinct and although I am a believer in good and effective government, I also acknowledge that the big guys have been doing some very bad things in my name.