The Crown delivers what we’ve all been waiting for: Tampongate

[Editor’s note: The A.V. Club will publish episode recaps of The Crown’s fifth season every weekday at 1 a.m. Eastern through November 22. The following details episode five.]

Everything happens! The revenge dress! Tampon! After laying the dominoes of the War of the Waleses for almost half a season, The crown finally got to the good stuff. Let’s dive in.

The Way Ahead is the episode of Charles (Dominic West) from start to finish, having been on the sidelines for most of the time since the premiere. We start with him whining ad nauseam about his role as the Prince of Wales, initially in voiceover – but then it’s revealed he’s speaking to a whole dinner party of friends. “What am I? I’m just a useless ornament. Stuck in a waiting room gathering dust.” There’s an awkward silence as they all stare at him, and then someone says, “You’re a criminally wasted resource, sir.”

This man loves the sound of his own voice and that gets him in trouble. It’s 1989 and he retreats to his room to call Camilla (Olivia Williams), who finds herself in a completely different world: a cozy home, celebrating the holidays and playing wild cards with her family. Her husband takes Charles’ call and they have an awkward chat while Camilla gives up the deck of cards to take the call.

He wants to give her a speech he’s giving at Oxford, and while she’s less than thrilled (“Is it very long?”), she lets him do his thing. As he speaks we hear the crackle of radio chatter and the camera leaves Charles’ window to glide across English countryside, lingering on radio towers and telephone lines. A man in a van – an “amateur radio enthusiast,” as we later learn – stumbles upon their conversation and stops a recording.

He takes the pictures The daily mirrorand the tabloid doesn’t want to run the transcript and break up a royal marriage, so they pay the guy and decide to keep the tapes for another day.

Another day comes a few years later when Charles and Diana announce their formal separation. The palace’s official statement states that they have no plans for divorce and will continue their royal duties separately. Understood.

After finally getting what he asked for, Charles is delighted. He’s part of a task force put together to “ensure the survival of the monarchy in a rapidly changing world,” and he’s pushing the envelope. Instead of making meaningless baby steps like admitting the public to the Albert Hall or bowing optional for some members of the royal family, what if they considered taking action on education and the environment, or allowing the eldest daughter to take the throne climb? Charles argues that monarchy “should be less about mysteries and magic and divine rights and more about our practical role in contemporary society”.

It’s quite a feat for the future King of England, and everyone, including Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton), is noticing it. “Being separated from Diana freed him. It energized him,” she says. “The solution we’re looking for could be right under our noses.” It’s definitely the nicest thing she’s ever said about her son.

Unfortunately, everything threatens to collapse. Charles learns that due to the formal separation The daily mirror feels free to publish his recorded phone conversation with Camilla. The aide informs him that the call is “intimate.” Very intimate.”

whoops We flash back to see the end of this conversation where Charles, while talking about how much they miss each other, says he’d love to live in her pants. Also as a tampon. It’s terribly embarrassing and soon the whole world will know about it. It has reportedly “raised doubts as to whether the Prince of Wales can ever become king”.

Anne (Claudia Harrison) visits Charles, who is surviving a cold and utter humiliation in bed. The crown did a great job of building the sibling dynamic between these two who give each other a hard time but always seem to have each other’s backs in a family where that rarely happens. “You have encountered many problems in your life. But nobody deserves that,” Anne tells him.

Philip (Jonathan Pryce) sees it differently. Before their task force, he charges Charles with essentially pressing the monarchy’s self-destruct button. He asks him to recite the Welsh Regiment’s motto (Charles begins in Welsh – a nice reminder of his time learning the language in Season 3 – but Philip barks, “In English!”). “Better death than dishonor,” Charles mutters, and I have to point out that no matter the size of the asshole, this guy doesn’t deserve his father basically telling him to kill himself.

Especially not… for that? We’ve seen Charles humiliate and abuse Diana, but people don’t react to the fact that he’s having an affair with Camilla. They respond to the cringe factor by saying you’d like to be reincarnated as a tampon. This was a private phone call, Charles and Anne protest. If transcripts of my most embarrassing phone call were published, I’m sure my parents would have a few choice words for me, but that’s not a character flaw.

After Philip caning, Charles tells Camilla that he needs to protect himself. So he starts setting up his own advisory board and they pair him up with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby to do a ‘hit-hit’ interview and documentary on his role as the Prince of Wales so people can get to know him and his true beliefs.

Does the public want “someone who makes mistakes but learns from their mistakes? Who recognizes the need for change? Or someone who is content with making the same mistakes over and over again and leaving things as they are?” asks Charles in his interview.

Reaction to the special has been mixed, but as the Prime Minister (Jonny Lee Miller) told the Queen, the public was particularly struck by his response that he did not see himself as a defender of the Church of England but as a defender of all faiths, since he would also be king for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs etc. Elizabeth sniffs it. “The crown is an inanimate object. Charles prefers to be animated.”

For her part, Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) responds to the interview by attending a summer party in her infamous “revenge dress,” ushering in “a more volatile phase” of their breakup. And Anne arrives to confront Charles for criticizing Elizabeth in his interview, but he’s unimpressed, confident in the reaction he’s getting and the direction he wants to go.

Anne tells the family, “For years I doubted Charles, that he wasn’t tough enough, that he wasn’t strong enough. Look what he just went through. He’s not as weak as everyone thinks. The Charles I saw today was strong.”

Did Charles write this episode? For all the hand wringing about how upset Buckingham Palace was about the new season of The crown“The Way Ahead” is essentially oa big dandelion to support the new king. What an incredible edit he got. In the credits, young people draw him in a circle and he break dances (To be fair, that actually happened). Dominic West delivers an authoritative, charismatic performance from a man I’ve never seen so authoritative or charismatic. But because this episode stayed right in the drama of the main actors, it ended up being the most compelling of the season so far.

Stray Observations

• If you are wondering whether phone call recording is illegal or not, The crown has an answer for you: It’s illegal only if you mean to, and the ham radio operator supposedly ran into Charles and Camilla by accident. Seems… to be a bad law.
• A good dose of humor: when Anne visits Charles in bed, she brings him cold medicine “that actually works” instead of elderberry and other herbs she knows he takes.
• In season four’s War, Camilla is rocked by Diana’s successful tour of America and how much the public loves her. She tells Charles that if she goes up against Diana in the press, she will lose, and that comes into play here. After the recording, reporters stand in front of her house and ask her opinion about people who call her “Plain Jane”.