In Paris, a car pursued by paparazzi speeds into the Pont de l'Alma tunnel and crashes. Eight weeks earlier, Diana lobbies for an official role in the royal family through Prime Minister Blair, but the Queen rejects the idea. Diana takes her two sons on a yachting holiday in the South of France, at the invitation of Mohamed Fayed. Meanwhile, Charles prepares to throw a party for Camilla's 50th birthday; he petitions the Queen to attend, knowing it will win approval for Camilla, but she refuses. Dodi travels to France at the insistence of Mohamed, leaving behind Kelly (his fiancée), and is shocked to see Diana, who gets the photographers to leave by posing in a bathing suit, upstaging Camilla's party in the newspapers and infuriating Charles. Dodi invites Kelly to Saint-Tropez but keeps her in a smaller yacht, away from Diana. Dodi confides to Diana that he is unsure about marrying Kelly, and they bond over the difficult relationships they've had with their fathers. After hearing of the party from Margaret, the Queen tells Charles that she is happy that he is happy. Dodi tells Diana that she will always be welcome. Returning to Kensington Palace, Diana finds a note from Dodi inviting her to join him in Paris.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: Partly in order to get them to go away, Diana poses for the press photographers in her swimsuit and promises one of them, who she appears to know by name, that there will be "a big surprise" with the next thing she does. Quite what that is is unclear. So too is the question of whether the Real Life Diana was in the habit of tipping the press off about her movements, a claim that has been made by more than one journalist in the years since her death.
- Artistic Licence – History: In Real Life, Princess Margaret did not attend Camilla Parker-Bowles's fiftieth birthday party. Nor was the Queen invited to it, probably because it was reckoned she would have refused.
- As You Know: Blair is keen to stress to the Queen that when he talks of his family having played five-a-side with Diana and William when they visited Chequers, he's talking about football. While football is by no means the Queen's favourite sport, she probably didn't need him to explain that.
- Call-Forward: Prince William enjoying a kick-around with his mother and the Blairs becomes this when you factor in that in Real Life, he became the President of the Football Association in 2006.
- Celebrity Paradox: Invoked when Dodi, presumably in an attempt to impress William and Harry, claims that he can take them to "meet James Bond". He, being a film producer, presumably means he can pull some strings to arrange for them to go to see the filming of Tomorrow Never Dies which was released in December 1997. In that film, the villain was played by Jonathan Pryce, who plays Prince Philip in the fifth and sixth series of this show note .
- The Chessmaster: Mohamed Fayed inviting Diana and the boys to spend some time on his yacht in the South of France seems like a friendly gesture, but he has an ulterior motive — he wants to set his son Dodi up with Diana. Dodi is therefore ordered to come to France, wedding preparations be damned.
- Cold Opening: The episode begins with a man walking his dog in Paris at night. A black Mercedes speeds past him and into a tunnel; seconds later, he hears a crash. He calls the emergency services, and the credits roll. We will return to this scene at the end of "Dis Moi Oui".
- Cool Aunt: Margaret attends Camilla's birthday party and seems to enjoy herself. Struck by the obvious and genuine affection between Charles and Camilla, she puts in a good word for them with the Queen.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The "hard to be half in" conversation could be seen as being as much about Prince Harry stepping back from full-time Royal duties in 2020 as it is about his mother in 1997.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: The Eiffel Tower is shown at the start, to ensure that we know it's Paris.
- Gold Digger: Kelly Fisher is seen as one of these by Mohamed Fayed, who would rather have his son romance Diana and goes to some lengths to make this come about.
- Ms. Fanservice: Diana in a swimming costume, to the delight of the paparazzi.
- Out of Focus: The Queen herself. For the first time in the show, a series opens with an event at which Elizabeth is not a major player.
- Paparazzi: Photographers follow Diana wherever she goes, to the point where she seems to be on first-name terms with at least one of them.
- Parental Issues: Diana and Dodi bond over the fact that they've both had issues with their fathers — hers more or less ignored her, while his is a control-freak.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The main reason for Diana accepting Fayed's invitation to his place in France is that it gets her out of the country at the time of Camilla's birthday party.
- Shout-Out: On the (big) yacht, everyone watches Jumanji.
- Two-Timer Date: A variant; Dodi entertains and courts Diana (the woman his father wants him to romance) on the big yacht by day, and spends the nights will Kelly (his fiancée) on the smaller yacht. Both women are well aware of the other's existence, and Kelly, who initially bought Dodi's lie about him having to go to France "on business" only to find out from the papers that he was partying with Diana, is not happy.
- Variable Mix: The well-lit, colourful scenes with Diana in them are set to then-contemporary pop music ("Tubthumping", "Walkin' on the Sun", etc). By contrast, the less-well-lit scenes of Charles at home in Highgrove are set to classical music, although he goes for some Seventies Disco at Camilla's birthday party.
