What WILL the Netflix-loving Duke and Duchess of Despair say? In The Crown’s grand finale, Harry is reduced to a pot-smoking, bitter, hopeless also-ran dressed as a Nazi – as MAUREEN CALLAHAN reveals in her royally acerbic TV verdict

The Crown comes out with class and sass, giving us a fitting farewell to the Queen while going all-in on William v. Harry, reimagining Charles, Camilla, and a young Kate Middleton, injecting it all with the perfect amount of camp. .

Harry, pardon the pun, there was some humiliation here.

He is portrayed as an angry, bitter, hopeless and rebellious loser whose simmering resentment towards William will only ever lead to his downfall.

To make matters worse, he was given a Three Stooges haircut with tiny bangs. It’s the look and effect of a goofball. He is shown twice in or near the toilet, drinking heavily and mourning his red hood.

“I’m just jealous,” he tells William in the first episode of Episode 6, Part 2, entitled Willsmania. “In the history of mankind, no one has ever called a man with red hair.”

This dialogue is the first of many cuts. Harry exists here as a mere contrast to William, the outcast, pitiable number two, whose energy is always dark and unsettling.

William informs the Queen (Imelda Staunton) that Harry is developing a problem with marijuana, while Harry counters that Charles is threatening a one-day visit to rehab—Harry is excited not by the consequences, but by the optics and media, which he calls “bastards” , they are all the scum of the earth.”

Thin!

Bitter words to Harry William: “I know my job is to be the asshole of this family… I know my purpose in life: to screw up so you look good. In this family, number two is just for fun. So this is Willie’s gold star, Harry’s black sheep. Willie Saint, Harry the Sinner. Willie is solid, Harry lost. Bloody hell – oh, it’s the work of Harry Wales.”

You can imagine the furious calls and text messages immediately flowing from the House of Sussex to Netflix. But the streamer has already worked his pound of flesh, and viewers will be grateful to him for that.

And how nice that it coincided with a week in which The Hollywood Reporter named Harry and Meghan two of the year’s “biggest losers” and their charity Archewell recorded an $11 million drop in donations.

“Be kind to (Harry),” the Queen tells William. “In many ways it’s harder to be number two than number one… Number two tends to…

‘Go crazy’? William counters.

“I was going to say that extra care and attention is needed.”

Ha!

Apart from such amazing dialogue, from the last six episodes, keep in mind that the second and fourth episodes are minor.

Memories of the hours after World War II and the rise of Mohamed Al-Fayed are agonizing. An entire episode dedicated to Princess Margaret, for all its pathos, seems out of place.

One might wonder why these well-travelled eras and characters are revived while later dramas – such as Camilla’s nerve-wracking first meeting with William, after which she famously said, “I really need a gin and tonic” – were allegedly left on the floor of the writers’ room.

Of course, showrunner Peter Morgan, as is his wont, rewrote the story significantly: Charles (Dominic West) was given a hero’s edit. Camilla (Olivia Williams) is selfless and supportive, thinking only and always about “the boys” and their well-being, here she is in a messy knee-length wig. Her big moment with Charles, his long-awaited proposal on her knees, Camilla working in the garden with a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth. It’s great.

Carole Middleton—the actress, like the actor who plays William, is a physical counterpart—is portrayed as a slightly pushy, well-meaning stage mom, less a Kris Jenner and more an aspiring upper-middle-class woman.

Dishy, ​​however, provided details of Carole’s machinations to put her daughter in William’s path – the timing of the break between Kate and William, her participation in the same South American expedition program, her enrollment at St. Andrews after William announced his plans to enroll there to the university – they are kept silent.

The most we get is Kate telling her mother that she is “worse than Mrs. Bennet (Jane Austen).”

As for Kate: Well, Waity Katie is gone.

This Kate Middleton is shy and unimpressed with William, who pines after her from the start.

Following the infamous fashion show where Kate showed off a sheer dress – the moment when William is said to have first spotted his friend as a potential love interest – the future king is portrayed as a stalker.

“I’ve always been interested, almost obsessively,” he tells Kate. “To the point where I thought if I couldn’t have you, I wouldn’t even be here.”

Please. We all know that Kate suffered during this long courtship. But such revisionist history is a small price to pay for Morgan’s demanding take on the Brothers Windsor and the show’s apparent fealty to the monarchy, the service and the crown.

We see the Queen inviting William and Harry to a private conversation in which she asks their feelings about Charles and Camilla’s marriage. Harry immediately raises an objection; The Queen waves him off.

“William”?

“I guess it’s reality,” he says. “And she seems to make him happy.”

Harry’s opinion doesn’t matter. He then confronts William, spewing bile.

“You’re such a damn sociable person,” he says. This is wild dialogue straight out of Scobie and The Spare.

“I’m just trying to be an adult,” William replies. “I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like.”

Cut to Harry dressing up as a Nazi (Kate gently advises against it, contrary to Harry’s blame-shifting in “The Spare”) and the ensuing media storm.

Here’s poor Harold, naked in the toilet except for his boxers, going crazy and screaming “F**k”!

His self-imposed failures contrast with William’s growing seriousness, Charles’s happy ending, and the Queen’s reckoning with her own mortality and the strange temptation to abdicate (a complete fabrication).

Claire Foy and Olivia Colman, who played Queen Elizabeth in previous seasons, return to advise Staunton’s QEII.

Foy delivers a thesis that is also a sharp rebuke to the two unhappinesses of Montecito: “Monarchy is what you are, not what you do… If you resign, you will become a symbol of instability and impermanence. You will also point out the luxury of choice, which is the one thing we cannot have if we claim that the crown is also our birthright.

Boom!

In one of our final moments with William and Harry, the younger brother offers a grim omen. As they sit alone on the street in the evening, Harry tells his brother the story of King William II – details altered and invented by Morgan for dramatic effect.

“He was killed by his own brother,” says Harry.

William: “He was”?

Harry: “Who, would you believe, was also called Prince Henry. He killed William in an accident and then rode off… to claim the throne. Don’t worry mate, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

It’s a poetic, perfect parting shot to Harry: The Crown may be over, but the world knows exactly who won this fratricidal war of words.

Indeed, a spare one.