1x04 Act of God

[7.3/10] It’s hard to put my finger on why, but “Act of God” felt more melodramatic than *The Crown usually does. There’s been a prestige gloss to the series from the jump, and certainly dramatic things have happened to date. But they’ve all been rooted in the personal, with some showy but naturalistic reactions to the events.

By tackling a specific English historical event like this, “Act of God” seems more interested in the sweep of history than the personal. It feels more like a made-for-TV movie about the crisis du jour. The fractions are more wide-eyed, the tragedies more cloying, the themes ore on the nose. The craft of the show is still good, but the off-the-shelf quality of this one comes through in a way it hasn’t for prior episodes.

I’ll confess, as a ruddy Yank, I was not familiar with the 1952 Great Smog of London. So the sense of grim ominousness didn't quite land with me. The production design and effects work is good, because you feel the choking quality of this weather event. But I think the episode loses something in effect if you’re simply watching this unfold for the first time rather than watching it with the dramatic irony of knowing what horrors are coming.

To wit, this one feels a bit too like a fable. The apparently invented assistant to Churchill, Venetia, who dies after being struck by a bus in the fog, seems like too obvious a symbolic representation of those lost in the crisis. The whole quickfire sense of giving her a backstory and a dream and passion and connection to the Prime Minister too hamfistedly telegraphed that misfortune was to befall her in some way scientifically designed you be emotionally impactful for Churchill. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a fridging, but taking such a slight character, giving her a season’s worth of shading in five minutes of screen time, and then killing her off doesn't make for an effective sense of tragedy.

But maybe the vibe of a parable is appropriate given the episode’s themes. The title gives it away, but there’s a sense of God himself smiling down upon Winston and using this moment as a wake-up call for all. The cinematography certainly plays toward that idea, as he waits for an audience with the Queen, heading for his figurative execution, until the clouds part and a divine light shines in through the royal windows. Using traditional religious iconography makes a statement without the need for the heavy-handed dialogue that takes hold in the rest of the episode.

Even if I wrinkle my nose a bit at the bluntness of that, I appreciate the exploration of the divine right of kings that, somehow, persisted as an idea into the 1950s, apparently, in thought if not in official policy. As part of the Batman Begins-style origin story for Elizabeth in this episode, she has to decide whether to intervene or stay neutral. That’s tough enough under any circumstances, but magnified in difficulty with the sense, conveyed through Queen Mary, that the monarchy is a responsibility bestowed from God. If you have divine expectation, if you are answerable to none other than the creator, then shouldn’t you intervene for the good of your people in extreme circumstances?

Granted, as someone with no love for the idea of unelected heads of state, I’m not sympathetic to that view in real life. But it's good drama to have Elizabeth wrestling with what that idea means in the modern day, particularly when her nigh-sainted father deliberately stayed out of politics, in public and in private.

I have to admit, I think the show’s choice there, to have Elizabeth’s grandmother underscore the importance of divine duty while also declaring that duty is to remain impartial, is a bit of a cop out. But as the show goes on, the notion that violating neutrality would be an affront to God creates potentially interesting psychological challenges. More to the point, the vindication of how inhuman it is to stay impartial in matters of importance, in ways that erase the self, continues to help humanize Elizabeth, and show that her stiff-upper-lipped demeanor in public and in official audiences doesn’t necessarily reflect the stoicism and poise it takes to suppress what she's actually feeling.

That just leaves Churchill. Honestly, I don’t know what to do with the show's depiction of him here. You get the sense that he really did fall down on the job and not care about it. He had a chance to prevent this, or take steps to mitigate it, and then just rails on about the public blaming politicians for the weather. The fact that he gets a reprieve...doesn’t seem good? And I don’t know if the show knows that.

But I guess part of the idea here is that he has a change of heart thanks to the death of his assistant, so maybe this is the Lord himself acting to show him the error of his ways, at great cost? I guess we’re supposed to get a better Churchill out of this deal? It’s unclear to me. History is what it is. Unless you're going full Inglourious Basterds, it’s probably too much to have him toppled in your show before he’s toppled in real life. But framing this as a triumph for a man able to recapture the form of his wartime glories, rather than a timely bit of good publicity that spares him his just deserts, is a disappointment for me.

Overall, this is the kind of melodramatic crisis of the week that a show like The West Wing, (ironically, probably the closest American equivalent to this style) pulled off on a regular basis, but which, even in episode 4, feels somewhat off brand for The Crown, in concept and in execution.