We open with little Elizabeth taking private queen lessons at Eton.
She learns about the balancing act between the government and the monarchy, a.k.a.
“the efficient and dignified.”
Credit: Robert Viglasky/Netflix
“I know almost nothing,” she says.
The Queen Mother claims she thought she gave Elizabeth the education she needed.
Sidenote: We get a corgi sighting!
Can we yo have more corgi sightings?
In private secretary drama, Tommy is retiring and Elizabeth wants her old secretary Martin to take over.
Martin always seemed more warm and friendly when he was Elizabeth’s secretary before her ascension to the throne.
During their conversation, she asks Martin to find her a tutor.
That’s something I doubt she would have ever asked Tommy for.
Meanwhile both Eden and Churchill are in bad health.
Eden will have gallbladder surgery in Boston, which outrages a bedridden Winston.
It’s tickle-ishly funny.
Elizabeth has her first meeting with her new tutor, a flask swigging Professor Tonk.
Immediately Elizabeth goes and gets in another fight with her mother.
“How could you let me down like this?”
“We all have to accept our limitations in life,” she says.
Ouch, way harsh.
Churchill gets the palace to invite Eisenhower, which quickly sends the Buckingham Palace staff into a frenzy.
Elizabeth finds herself in a similar state of panic trying to read up with the help for her tutor.
NEXT: Elizabethrules
I rather enjoy the scenes between the Queen and Professor Tonk.
It’s one of the rare occasions where we see Elizabeth let her guard down.
Tommy is also not bowing out of his post gracefully.
Poor, sweet Martin gets told to decline the offer so Michael Adeane can take the job.
I was positively gleeful watching Claire Foy stomp through Buckingham Palace to go tell Tommy what’s what.
Elizabeth says her peace, but Tommy comes back with a rebuttal.
She has to accept Michael as her private secretaryfor the sake of the monarchy!
At first, it sounds completely ridiculous, but Tommy explains how he watched Elizabeth’s uncle as king.
He got what he wanted.
He would put his personal desires ahead of what was expected of him.
“It’s in the small thing the rot starts,” Tommy warns.
Elizabeth is resolute and an absolute QUEEN.
Watching Salsbury slink ashamed into the hallway without so much as a word to Churchill was so satisfying.
She showed him compassion.
She pulls out her notes from her childhood lesson and gently lectures him.
Philip is skating on such thin ice with Elizabeth.
Episode grade: A-
NEXT:Episode 8, “Pride & Joy”
