The Crown: Recapping every episode from the show’s third season

Episode 1: ”Olding”

The year is 1964,  and the first episode opens with Queen Elizabeth, now played by Olivia Colman, looking at her old and new postage stamps. The old stamp has an image of her in her 20s, when she was a young queen, and the new stamp reflects her current middle age. While the men who introduce the stamp to her approach the subject carefully, she just cuts straight to the chase and calls herself an “old bat.”

A new Prime Minister from the Labor Party, Harold Wilson, is sworn in, and there’s some suspicion that he might be a spy for the KGB mole, a part of the Cambridge Spy Ring. While everyone was suspecting Wilson, no one at Buckingham Palace guessed that it was the Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures, Sir Anthony Blunt. Instead of alerting the media and putting this man behind bars, the palace is encouraged by the head of MI5 to keep this a secret.

Sir Blunt was a KGB mole for about 15 years while working and living in Buckingham Palace. If news got out that British intelligence services couldn’t keep Buckingham Palace safe from spies, it could destroy their credibility and relationship with the Americans.

When Prince Philip tries to threaten Sir Blunt so he that leaves Buckingham Palace, Sir Blunt reveals he has evidence on Prince Philip that connects him to the sex scandal involving his osteopath Stephen Ward — a scandal that unraveled in season 2. Sir Blunt remains living in Buckingham Palace and working on the Queen’s art collections. Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth keep a watchful eye on him.