After six incredible seasons, The Crown officially came to an end this past weekend. The series has received critical acclaim since it debuted in 2016, and earned Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Gillian Anderson, and others Emmy Awards for their work.
The Crown, which began by depicting Queen Elizabeth II's ascension to the throne in 1952, ended with then-Prince Charles and Camilla's wedding in 2005.
The final season explored the events following Princess Diana's death in 1997, including when Prince William and Kate Middleton met and the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth in 2002, which marked the 50th anniversary of her ascension to the throne.
However, one of the biggest moments in the final season was Princess Margaret's death and how much it affected Elizabeth.
As seen in the show, Margaret had several strokes before her death in 2002, leaving her partly paralyzed — and thus her public engagements largely stopped in her later years.
For her obituary, the New York Times wrote, "To many people, Princess Margaret was the black sheep of her generation of royals. But that reputation did not necessarily trouble her. According to a biographer, Theo Aronson, she once told the French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, 'Disobedience is my joy.'"
The episode of The Crown depicting Margaret's final years, which is titled "Ritz," allows Lesley Manville, the third actor to play Margaret, to give one of the best performances in the final season.
While "Ritz" shows how close Margaret and Elizabeth remained up until Margaret's death, what fans really can't stop talking about is the flashback storyline the episode includes too.
The episode features Elizabeth and Margaret sneaking out for V-E Day (which marked the official end of World War II in Europe) celebrations at London's Ritz Hotel in 1945.
In real life, Elizabeth and Margaret were reportedly given special permission to join the crowds outside Buckingham Palace to celebrate the end of the war. In a 2015 documentary, their cousin Margaret Rhodes recalled, "It was like a wonderful escape for the girls. I don't think they'd ever been out among millions of people. It was just freedom — to be an ordinary person."
"We were terrified of being recognized — so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes," Queen Elizabeth recalled in an interview with the BBC. "A grenadier officer among our party of about 16 people said he refused to be seen in the company of another officer improperly dressed. So I had to put my cap on normally."
Elizabeth and Margaret, alongside their cousin and a few others, reportedly did make it to the Ritz to party that night before returning to the palace, where they got to watch their father, King George VI, make a second public appearance on the balcony.
It's a great story — and pretty unknown until now — that shows Elizabeth and Margaret's sisterly bond. It also required The Crown to cast young versions of the royals, which is what fans can't stop talking about.
Instead of casting two younger actors who look like Lesley and Imelda Staunton — who played Margaret and Elizabeth, respectively, in the final two seasons — the casting department went out and found actors who looked like Vanessa Kirby and Claire, who played the sisters in the first two seasons.
So, first, here's Claire as Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown:
And now, here's Viola Prettejohn as young Princess Elizabeth in "Ritz":
And here they are side by side:
Here's Vanessa as Princess Margaret in The Crown:
And now, here's Beau Gadsdon as young Princess Margaret in "Ritz":
And here they are side by side:
Also, here's the real young Margaret and Elizabeth alongside Viola and Beau:
It's honestly so amazing, and might be one of the best pieces of casting The Crown has done. The resemblance is so incredible, a lot of people thought they had just aged down Claire and Vanessa using CGI.
The uncanny resemblance between Viola and Claire and Beau and Vanessa only makes Princess Margaret's final scene in The Crown all the more heartbreaking, too.
At the end of the day, I loved that The Crown was ultimately about Elizabeth and Margaret and how important their relationship was. It made for a perfect start and finish to this story about the royal family.
