1x09 Assassins

[8.7/10] The title of this episode is “Assassins”. And what finally fells Winston Churchill from his post as Prime Minister is not a killer’s bullets. It is not the angry recriminations of his likely successor. It is not even the imploring of his sovereign. It is, instead, an uncompromising painter daring to reflect the man back as he truly is.

I suspect there’s a heavy degree of dramatization there. Real life is so rarely as neatly metaphorical like this. But frankly, I don’t care. Truth or fabrication, this episode is pathos-ridden, stunning rendition of what it’s like for a man so enamored with his own larger-than-life grandiosity that it’s become a protective shell, to have it punctured by truth, in a way that wounds him, but also frees him, however bitter that freedom may be.

It is John Lithgow’s finest hour on the show to date, no small feat. It is the writers at their most intimate and lyrical. And it is the series writ large at its most personal and poetic, depicting not the fall of a lion, but rather one forced to admit to himself that he’s already in winter.

However thickly the show lays on the metaphor, I like the idea that Churchill is a man who is very much concerned with symbolism, with projecting strength and dignity. It comes through in the advice he’s given to Elizabeth for her Commonwealth tour and beyond. It comes through in him lying to her about his illness. And naturally, it even comes through in something as small as his official portraiture on his eightieth birthday.

When Graham Sutherland comes for their posing sessions, Churchill bloviates on about omitting background factories from his own efforts on the canvas, about the artist representing the good and omitting the bad, about how Sutherland is not just painting a man but the office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and all that represents. Winston desperately wants to maintain the image of vigor, of pride, of the shining dignity through which he’s defined himself all these years, which gives him the confidence, and in his mind the right, to stay on as Prime Minister.

The Queen is clinging onto a certain image as well. I find the pairing of stories here interesting. Because what unites them is the sense of someone unassuming and low on the totem pole inadvertently throwing bombs into the lives of national figures. What poses trouble for Elizabeth’s domestic tranquility is not some dashing statesman or literal knight in shining armor. It is a paunchy, understated horse trainer who goes by the ridiculous nickname Porchey.

Credit where it’s due, while this story is a bit of an odd fit (did we really need to see the horse hump?) I appreciate the boldness of strongly gesturing toward Philip having affairs, and suggesting that for her part, the Queen at least had an emotional intimacy with someone other than her husband. The rockiness of the royal marriage is not something I expected a glossy show like The Crown to delve into, but it’s potent and, like so much this season, helps humanize a larger than life figure like Elizabeth.

What I appreciate about their story here is that it follows a certain trajectory. Philip is galavanting with his drinking buddy at all hours, doing god knows what. And it clearly affects Elizabeth. Whether she wants to admit it or not, it seems to lead her to seek a certain friendship and understanding with Porchey that suprasses his role as her friend and horse trainer. As with her actions toward Margaret a few episodes back, I’m not sure Elizabeth herself would recognize the cause of her change in course, but the juxtaposition suggests both she and Philip are seeking something they can’t find at home from other people, even if what they want is very different.

Somehow, Philip has the temerity to be jealous. I appreciate that his envy is what pierces the same protective shell the two have erected. This nice enough schmuck, who shares Elizabeth’s passion for horses and treats her like a friend rather than his boss, prompts Philip to act out and Elizabeht to call him on his bullshit. While a bit stagey, her declaration to Philip that it would in many ways be easier if she loved Porchey, but for good or for ill, she’s only loved him, with a dare for him to tell her the same, is a devastating moment and monologue. There and then, the real warts-and-all view of their marriage is thrown into the cold light of day for both of them, and it isn’t pretty.

Neither, frankly, is Churchill. I love Sutherland’s (and by extension, writer Peter Morgan’s) statement that most people are not good judges of themselves, because of the blindspots, conscious and unconscious, it takes a person to get through the day. Churchill wants a portrait that depicts him the way he sees himself. Sutherland wants to depict him as he is.

But through his art, he gets at certain truths about Churchill even the man himself may not see or acknowledge. The most poignant part of their verbal tet-a-tets during the sketching sessions centers on an unlikely tragedy that unites them -- the loss of a child. They correctly diagnose one another’s paintings as reflecting that loss. The difference being that Churchill was in denial. He thinks he returns to the goldfish pond near his home because of the technical challenge. Sutherland connects it to something more emotional, and Churchill, in a roundabout way, realizes that it’s connected to the death of his daughter.

It is a heartbreaking performance by John Lithgow, watching this bulldog of a man break down at the memory of a profound loss. And it ties into the central theme of this storyline. Whatever Churchill may project, there is a well of despair within him, a certain ache that goes unacknowledged but also untamed. He feels the losses he’s had, even if he won’t let himself countenance them, and it takes the piercing qualities of profound art to expose that to him.

So does the final portrait, which true to the man as he is, shows decay and frailty and suffering in a fashion that offends Winston. It gives him an accurate reflection of himself, but one he doesn’t want to be reminded of. And yet, seeing himself laid bare there, with the truth that comes from the artist’s hand, shakes him out of stupor.

He stands down as Prime Minister. He tells Elizabeth he has nothing left to teach her and gives her a sweet kiss on the forehead. He earnestly shakes the hand of the successor he was rebuking weeks earlier. He admits to his wife that he is tired and finished with it all. What is true can be denied no longer. To see ourselves as we are can be unmooring, but also spur us to take action in the light of that truth, rather than in the comfort of images and institutions we insulate ourselves with.

What takes down Winston Churchill is an artist, wielding only the truth. What takes down the Queen’s peace of mind is a humble horsman wielding only some simple warmth and basic empathy. The Prime Minister finally meets someone able to cut through his bluster and bombast, and see the wounded, aging man inside, and perhaps even grant him some much-needed rest. It is a harsh thing, but one that speaks to the power of great art to reach through to what’s real in something, however abstract its lens, much as this story does.