The Crown, a historical drama, has reached the 2000s. Feel old yet? The upcoming sixth season is arriving in two parts with the first half arriving on November 16, in case you want to escape into another dysfunctional family during the holidays. Much like a teen section in a department store, season five was all about the ’90s, following Princess Diana’s marriage ending and Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and culminating in the Queen saying good-bye to her yacht. The final season shall see the end of the 20th century into the early aughts. While it’s confirmed the show will dive into Prince William and Kate Middleton’s college-days romance, it’s unclear how the series will end. We hope it’ll at least dive into that famous Tumblr photo of a look-alike William covered in Kate’s lipstick. We want answers!
How do William and Kate look?
British Vogue shared a first look at the actors in character as Prince William and Kate Middleton during Will’s University of St. Andrews days (where the real-life couple met in 2001). Played by Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy, The Crown season six’s versions of William and Kate are dead ringers for the real royals beyond personal looks alone (his hair!); this photo resembles an extremely accurate pastiche of a WB-drama promotional still from the historical time period it’s portraying, or maybe a preppy back-to-school catalogue from back when we all used catalogues.
Truly indistinguishable:
Netflix shared further photos of the characters on April 27, and they are all definitely photographs of young, attractive British people!
In addition to the stills, the official Crown Twitter account shared a behind-the-scenes photo of McVey and Bellamy in Edinburgh in front of a café that alleges it’s “where Kate met Wills (for coffee).” Also, Netflix is using that dumb Twitter feature where you get a little organization emoji to denote that your organization (a TV show) is part of a larger organization (Netflix). It all looks too busy. Anyway.
How much Diana is there in the trailer?
The trailer features Princess Di during her exodus from the royal family, with a hint of looming danger in the form of paparazzi. “All one wants is for that girl to find peace,” the Queen says. Sure, Jan.
We get some visuals of Diana entering the car in France and a close-up of flowers on the gates of Buckingham Palace, as well as a re-creation of that one photo of Diana on the diving board. You know, the SZA one?
What about the rest of the cast?
The royals for the first half of this season that surround the events around Diana’s death are as follows: Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw), Prince Charles (Dominic West), and Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton). The teaser trailer above follows every version of the Queen leading up to the final season and possibly touching upon her death in 2022.
Coming in to finish off the series introduces the college-aged Prince William (Ed McVey) and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy), plus teenage Prince Harry (Luther Ford). Since this is in the last half of the season, you’ll have to wait a few weeks before you get into the full picture of their steamy drama.
When does it come out?
The first four episodes that center around Diana’s death premieres on November 16, with the last six episode surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s legacy finishes off the series on December 14.
This post has been updated.
