Recap / The Crown S 2 E 4 Beryl

• Armor-Piercing Question: When Margaret says that Cecil Beaton has been good for the Royal Family, Antony asks, "And have they been good to you?"
• Arson, Murder, and Admiration:
  • Among a montage of shocked responses to the Margaret photo, Wallis Simpson gives an approving, "Oh la la!"
  • After opening the paper and seeing the photograph, Philip has a rather appreciative smirk on his face which he immediately rearranges into a frown when Elizabeth glares at him.
• Artistic License – History: The duel between Colin Tennant and Billy Williams is, unfortunately, purely an invention.
• Awful Wedded Life: Harold Macmillan's wife has been cheating on him with Bob Boothby for thirty years. She promises to end the affair now he's Prime Minister, but he overhears a phone conversation she's having to her lover saying how much she loves Bob and despises her husband.
• Beneath the Mask:
  • Princess Margaret is shown having her official portrait taken by the royal photographer Cecil Beaton, who presents her as a Princess Classic. During his own shoot, Antony Armstrong-Jones deliberately Margaret puts off her stride to break down this Royal façade. He leaves the room without explanation and starts knocking things over in the room above her head, then during the shoot he asks Armor Piercing Questions about her relationship with Peter Townsend and the Royal Family.
  • Lampshaded in Philip's anniversary speech.
    "It's a funny business. One sees the whole of the other person. You see even that part of them that they don't see themselves, and presumably, they see that hidden part of you. One ends up knowing more about one's partner than they know about themselves. And it can be pretty tough to keep quiet about it. So you have to...you have to come to an accommodation, an arrangement, a deal, if you like, to take the rough with the smooth. But the extraordinary thing is, down there in the rough, in the long reeds of difficulty and pain, that is where you find the treasure."
• Book Ends:
  • After her intended marriage to Billy Williams goes pear-shaped, Margaret gets drunk and trashes her room while listening to Ella Fitzgerald's "Angel Eyes". Later she joyfully listens to "I Only Have Eyes For You" by The Flamingos after having fallen for Antony.
  • Elizabeth and Philip are shown in the same bed but reading rather than snuggling. Later on they're shown getting dressed and getting into their separate beds.
• Boring Religious Service: Billy is shown with his eyes closed, apparently asleep in the pews, as the priest drones on during the Tennant wedding.
• The Casanova: Margaret realises she's not the first beautiful woman that Antony has brought to his studio, as his seduction technique is too practiced. She turns down an offer to stay longer but does accept him giving her a lift home on his motorbike.
• Deadpan Snarker: The Prime Minister is pontificating on how the Anglo-American relationship is like a marriage with its ups and downs. He keeps butting in on the Queen every time she tries to put a word in, until she points out that listening to the other party is a requirement of any good marriage.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The patronizing and classist terms in which Cecil Beaton describes how the fairy tale princess look he's going for will give hope to the masses in their lives of drudgery.
• Disappointed in You: Weaponized by Margaret during "The Reason You Suck" Speech she gives to Billy Williams.
  Margaret: You pathetic, weak, contemptible fool. I never even wanted to marry you. You were only ever an act of charity. Or desperation. And now you insult me? You? People like you don't get to insult people like me. You get to be eternally grateful. You've quite the way with women. Take a look at this face. A picture of disappointment and disgust. This is the look that every woman you ever know will come to share. This is what the next forty years of your life will look like.
• Faux Horrific: The shocked reactions to the Margaret photograph. When the audience finally sees it, it's nowhere near as racy as they're thinking.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Kiss Diss Margaret gives Billy when he proposes marriage.
  • Macmillan's wife promises to stop cheating on him. A wide shot shows they're driving towards a storm.
  • Beryl, the nickname Antony thinks up for Margeret. "Rhymes with peril." He also disparages the idea of marriage.
  • John Profumo is one of the people attending the party that Margaret goes to.
• Hands-On Approach: Antony showing Margaret how to develop her photograph.
• Have We Met Yet?: Margaret doesn't remember where she met Antony before until he tells her he's a photographer; then she remembers him taking her photo at the Tennant wedding.
• Indirect Kiss: A subtle version when Antony gives his cigarette to Margaret.
• Marriage of Convenience: Billy Williams presents his marriage proposal to Margaret like this—they're both good friends, her family will approve the match and he knows how to act with the Palace. Unfortunately the sudden fame and subsequent female attention is more than he can cope with. Sometimes I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship really is the best thing.
• No Bisexuals: Margaret initially assumes Antony is queer, but then thinks this act is too calculated and it's a routine for seducing women. It doesn't occur to her that he might be into both men and women, and Antony notably avoids the subject.
• On the Rebound: Margaret is still distraught over the Townsend affair, and is shown looking uphappy during the marriage of Colin Tennant (once cited as a potential marriage partner). It's implied this is why she accepts Billy's offer of marriage, and when that goes pear-shaped she's open to Antony's advances, though she's Playing Hard to Get at this stage.
• Oh, Crap!: Billy William's response when his fiancée turns up to find him lying in bed, drunk, with a bullet hole in his leg instead of appearing for the formal announcement of their marriage.
• Powerful People Are Subs: Downplayed, but when Antony tells Margaret she has to do exactly what he wants at their photoshoot, she gives him a dubious look only for Antony to say that she'd enjoy being submissive for someone else for once.
• Red Scare: The launch of Sputnik encourages a rapprochement between Britain and the United States after the Suez Crisis.
• Romantic Ride Sharing: Margaret realises Antony is trying to seduce her and cuts things short. Undeterred, Antony gives her a ride back to Buckingham Palace on his motorbike, evading the Rolls Royce with her driver and bodyguard. He makes a point of telling her to keep her crash helmet, implying that more rides will follow.
• Sleazy Photoshoot: Played for laughs when Margaret's photograph appears in the newspaper. Cue a montage of shocked officials right up to the Queen because (due to careful cropping) it looks like Margaret was naked during the shoot, whereas all Antony did was pull down the straps of her dress.
• Ten Paces and Turn: After hearing Billy's drunken boast that he slept with an actress despite being engaged to Margaret, a group of her male friends force him into taking part in a Duel to the Death against Colin Tennant who puts a bullet in his leg.
• Unreliable Narrator: When Margaret discovers her fiancé Billy lying drunk in bed with a pistol wound to the leg after his disastrous duel, he boasts that he manfully accepted the challenge—however, his blusterous narration is overlaid with imagery of him screaming and crying like a baby, begging for his life as he's dragged out onto the field of honor.
• Uptown Girl: Margaret's lady-in-waiting invites her to a party where no-one is deferential to her, owns land or knows her sister. Despite being a wallflower at first, she quite enjoys the experience after Antony breaks the ice with her.