The Crown: Recapping every episode from the show’s third season
Episode 4: “Bubbikins”
The year is 1967, and the episode starts with Prince Philip wanting to convince the British government that the Royal family needs more financial support to be fairly compensated for what they do for the country. Unsurprisingly, he receives criticism from the media, but Prince Philip’s motivation is to help the British monarchy survive.
Since Prince Philip witnesses the separation of his family due to the revolution in Greece, the duty he gives himself is to protect the Windsor family by making sure citizens of Great Britain see that the royals are relevant. To emphasize this, Prince Phillip requests to have a documentary of the royal family created to boost their public image.
While this is happening, Prince Philip’s mom, Princess Alice, who is head of a nun order called the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary in Greece at the time, has to leave Greece because of a military coup, which causes the closing of the nun order. Once Queen Elizabeth found out, she requests to have Princess Alice brought to Buckingham palace to stay, despite her husband’s disagreement.
Because of Princess Alice’s mental health issues, she is institutionalized and barely around in Philip’s life. His anger for her laid dormant for years, and it raises to the surface again when he realizes she’s moving to Buckingham Palace. Her nun habit and the fact that she’s foreign probably embarasses him as well, since he had to prove himself British and royal enough in the early years of his marriage to the Queen.
The documentary doesn’t have positive results, so to solve the matter, Prince Philip asks his daughter, Princess Ann, to give an interview on behalf of the royal family to a reporter who is brutally criticizing them. What Prince Phillip doesn’t know is that Princess Ann is going to arrange for the reporter to interview her grandmother, Princess Alice, instead. Princess Alice talks about her difficult life and represents a royal who is a hardworking survivor. T
o Prince Philip’s surprise, this works and restores faith in the royal family. Once he reads the article, he truly begins to understand what his mother went through after their family’s banishment. “Bubbikins” is a nickname Princess Alice calls Prince Philip, and throughout the episode, he was visibly annoyed by it. By the end of the episode, it doesn’t seem to bother him anymore.