One of the most disappointing aspects of The Crown has been “the rehabilitation of Camilla Parker Bowles.” Camilla was up to some disgustingly shady stuff in the 1980s, ‘90s and ‘00s. Arguably, she still is up to a lot of bullsh-t, but now it’s at a different level. The Crown glossed over Camilla’s role in gaslighting and emotionally abusing Diana, how often Camilla was the one briefing friendly royal reporters about Diana and Charles’s marriage, and how Camilla basically wouldn’t leave Charles alone even in the first years of his marriage. While I’m not giving Charles a pass – he was a grown man who chose to use a teenager as a broodmare – but Camilla bears a responsibility equally. Just not in The Crown. For some reason (??) Peter Morgan is really tiptoeing around everything to do with Camilla, and the final season will be no different. In fact, the final season is probably going to be all about “a fully rehabilitated Camilla.”

There has been much speculation about why The Crown will end with the events of 2005 rather than raking over more recent – and perhaps most controversial – royal dramas. But one well-placed insider insisted there was no need for writer Peter Morgan to go any further because the sixth and final series, which begins next month, neatly links viewers with the present day. By ending with the wedding of Charles and Camilla, The Crown encapsulates the newly crowned Queen’s completed rehabilitation.

“People are always asking Peter if he’s going to write a sequel,” the source said. “He doesn’t need to because those last five or six episodes bring you right up to the present day. You’re actually watching this rehabilitated Queen Camilla figure.”

The forthcoming series will be split into two parts, the first largely dealing with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and the second, its aftermath. It depicts Charles’ efforts to win around his mother so he is able to marry the then Camilla Parker-Bowles with the help of PR supremo Mark Bolland. The final episodes will show the late Queen’s initial refusal to meet her son’s partner, including her notable absence from Charles’ star-studded 50th birthday party at Highgrove in November 1997, three months after Diana died.

However, she was eventually won over and Mr Bolland carefully choreographed the first steps towards public acceptance, including a much-publicised first appearance together as they left a party at The Ritz in 1999.

As The Crown draws to a close, the late Queen, who once allegedly referred to her future daughter-in-law as “that wicked woman”, will be shown toasting the happy couple at their wedding, where she compared their relationship to her beloved Grand National. Welcoming her son and his bride to the “winners enclosure”, she said: “They have come through and I’m very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.”

On bringing the story full circle, one Netflix source said the late 1990s and early 2000s were “crucial years” for the King and Queen’s tumultuous relationship. When Camilla became Queen, it marked the culmination of the job that Mr Bolland started. Referring to the Coronation, the source added: “The marriage in 2005 was the seed of everything that’s just happened in the last few months.” The next series will cover Charles’s 50th birthday party – which in real life had an Arabian Nights theme – complete with a 1970s disco band.

[From The Telegraph]

I guess I totally blanked out the timeline and that birthday party gossip, but did Charles honestly throw himself a huge “Arabian Nights” themed birthday party just three months after Diana’s death? Holy f–k, that’s in poor taste. Yes, they were divorced when Diana died, but still, wait six months to a year before you throw yourself a giant party? As for the Rehabbed Camilla, again, Charles has spent thirty years and millions of dollars/pounds to rehabilitate this gin-soaked horse. All of that time, money and effort, and Camilla is still a deeply unpopular queen who is only being propped up by her chummy relationships with the literal dregs of the British media. Peter Morgan got roped into Camilla’s circle too, at least that’s what it sounds like.

Photos courtesy of Netflix/The Crown and Cover Images.