The Crown season 2 reviews round-up: what did the critics think?
The first reviews are in for the second season of Netflix's ￡100 million historical saga The Crown. Claire Foy's performance as Queen Elizabeth II has met with a royal flush of positive reviews – but the show itself has received a more mixed reception.
Though otherwise complimentary, The Telegraph found this instalment less hard-hitting than the stellar first series, a view shared by Entertainment Weekly. Pop culture website IndieWire called it "too dreary and cold", while for Metro this "patchy follow-up" was only saved by Foy's remarkable performance. Here's what the critics are saying:
The Telegraph: ★★★★☆
"It is tasteful, emotionally rich and teeming with smart historical observations [but] series two has slightly less to say than the first, even if it is covering rather more tumultuous times [...] As with series one, though, it is Claire Foy’s consistently sympathetic portrait of the Queen that is at the centre of The Crown [...] Foy’s Queen is a character you root for at every stage of the drama." Read the full review
The Independent
"The Crown [is] a series which sets out to capture the portrait of a sovereign, but consistently relegates her to the role of mere pawn in the lives of others. It’s a move that becomes increasingly frustrating with this second outing [...] In the end, Elizabeth occasionally breathes life, but it’s hard not to feel within The Crown a general sense of limpness." Read the full review
Radio Times:★★★☆☆
"Who knew [writer Peter Morgan would] be able to make even Charles into such a sympathetic character? This is a storyline with the power to reduce even hardened republicans to tears. [...] The real tragedy is the chasm between [Charles and Philip]: a father who fails to love his child for the boy he is, and a son who will never live up to his father’s expectations." Read the full review
Metro: ★★★☆☆
"A particularly rocky first episode doesn’t help quell doubts the show is struggling to find its footing after completing Elizabeth’s rise to reluctant power [...] While it lacks cohesion, Claire Foy’s career-best performance is a enough to carry you through the rough patches." Read the full review
The Hindustan Times
"For the Crown to succeed in its second season, after what we can all agree was a knockout debut, all it had to do was to keep doing what it was doing [...] what makes The Crown so addictive – and you’ll all be pleased to know, this is something that it does even better in Season 2 – is its seemingly effortless ability to tear away the ornate fa?ade that these people shroud themselves in, and to portray them as just that: people." Read the full review
Entertainment Weekly: A-
"Peter Morgan’s creation works so well as a whole because it’s consistently well written and lushly filmed – so lush it almost shames a small screen – but its greatest strength once again is in the casting." Read the full review
The Crown cast and characters
Collider: ★★★★★
"Foy is again superb as Elizabeth, imbuing the unknowable Queen with a rich inner life that is often conveyed through the slightest flicker of the eyes or change of expression. [...] The Crown’s second season is, like Elizabeth, more sure of itself this time around [...] It’s another exceptionally strong season of television, full of compelling drama and sweeping grandeur." Read the full review
Indiewire
"In a darker second season about the most personal problems of Queen Elizabeth’s life, [The Crown's] voiceless neutrality breeds an even colder, more distant, and altogether less engaging set of historical accounts. [...] Some viewers may look for exactly this in their television: a beautiful recreation of historical events, connected by safe assumptions about the people who lived through them. But television is capable of so much more, and whether you like The Crown or not, its medium evokes stronger, richer feelings elsewhere." Read the full review