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

Episode 5: “Coup”

In this episode, the media is criticizing Prime Minister Harold Wilson for the financial disaster Britain is currently in. The pound is in danger of being devalued and there is a trade gap of 107,000,00 pounds, which is the worst on record. Since the Labor Party is the majority in Parliament, having a Labor Party Prime Minister who changed nothing doesn’t look good, and members of Parliament know they had to save the reputation of their party.

One of the promises PM Wilson makes is to cut down on military spending. Parliament comes up with the idea of firing Lord Mountbatten, who is head of the military and doing a lot of spending. Members of Parliament think this will show Wilson took some action and fought against the establishment, things he also promised to do.

This angers Lord Mountbatten, and it doesn’t help that, after this very strong move, PM Wilson still has to devalue the pound. It angers Cecil Harmsworth King as well, the Chairman of The Daily Mirror newspaper, The International Publishing Corporation, and a Director of the Bank of England, who is nostalgic for the old conservative Great Britain. King decides to bring together some of his Bank of England associates and Lord Mountbatten to stage a coup and take Wilson out of his PM position and establish an emergency government.

While that’s happening, Queen Elizabeth is traveling across Europe and America with her close friend and horse racing manager, Porchey, to learn about new developments in horse breeding and horse racing. In season 1, we learned that there was some chemistry between Queen Elizabeth and Porchey, but since she fell in love with Prince Philip, nothing more came of it. Queen Elizabeth is at her happiest when she’s discussing horses and horse racing, and Porchey is the only person she can talk to about it.

During this trip, Queen Elizabeth imagines what her life would’ve looked like if she had married Porchey, never became Queen, and devoted her life to horse racing. She is interrupted from her fantasy life when she is given a call from the Prime Minister that Mountbatten and King were trying to overthrow the government. She is incredibly disappointed knowing she has to come home to Buckingham Palace. She does, however, stop the coup from happening.