Recap / The Crown S 2 E 9 Paterfamilias

• Alas, Poor Villain: To a modern audience's sensibilities, Nazis are beyond the pale, but from the way Cecilie is presented as a supportive, caring character, it's difficult not to feel sorry for her, as her death is nothing short of horrific in every way possible.
• Bittersweet Ending: The final scenes show how much closer Charles is to his parents' employees than he is to his own parents and as he stares out his window, the epilogue states how he disliked Gordonstoun and decided to send his own sons to Eton like he had wanted to.
• Generation Xerox: Philip's father is distant and cold towards him and, despite his best efforts, he finds himself being distant and cold towards Charles.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark. In Real Life he was overjoyed to have a son, played a large part in spoiling The Baby of the Bunch, and due to exile spent more time with Philip in Paris than most royal parents ever did. The story about Prince Andrew blaming his son for his sister's death is Based on a Great Big Lie—they were actually flying to Britain to attend the wedding of her brother-in-law Prince Louis. Both Philip and Alice maintained positive thoughts and feelings about their father for the rest of his life — and Philip likely wore his signet ring afterwards for the rest of his own.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Philip dearly loves Charles but is frequently frustrated by his son's sensitive nature. He decides to enroll Charles in Gordonstoun, a notoriously tough boarding school ^note Charles would later bitterly describe the place as "Colditz with kilts", in an attempt to prepare Charles for the harsh realities of the real world.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: Young Philip isn't happy about how his sister's funeral is turned into a propaganda event by the Nazi regime.
• Maternity Crisis: Cecilie goes into labour while the plane she’s travelling in barrels along out of control in dense fog but manages to give birth minutes before the plane crashes. There's a brief moment where she proudly smiles, holding her baby in her arms, amid the screaming and flashing before the plane finally goes down.
• Nightmare Sequence: Young Philip has an Imagine Spot where he sees himself walking among the wreckage, seeing the bodies of his nephews and eventually finding Cecilie's body inside the plane.
• Tough Love: Young Phillip gets this big time when he starts at Gordonstoun, with his classmates and teachers making it clear he won't get special treatment but rather pushed to hard places to become stronger. Unfortunately Philip thinks the same will apply to Charles, whereas Elizabeth thinks he would be more suited to Eton. Philip threatens divorce over the issue if he doesn't get his way.
• The Un Favourite: Philip's father blames him for getting his favourite offspring killed. At the end of the episode, Philip is shown enthusiastically going off to play with Anne while leaving his son to get greeted by his nanny.
• Widow's Weeds: Cecilie explains to her brother Philip, who years later relays it to Charles, that she always wears funeral-black when flying as “you may as well dress for your own funeral”. It sadly proves to be an apposite decision.
• Wrong Insult Offence: During the flashback to his time at Gordonstoun one of the other boys sneers at him for being a mongrel European noble whose sisters all married Nazis, whose mother is in an asylum, and whose father left the family to live with his “whore” in Paris. "It’s Monaco," quips Philip with unfazed condescension.