Will ‘The Crown’ season 6 cover Queen Elizabeth’s death?

The first half of The Crown’s sixth and final season dropped on Netflix yesterday, with its final episode of part one stopping just shy of the 21st century. Episode four, titled “Aftermath,” chronicles the immediate days following Princess Diana’s death in 1997, and Queen Elizabeth’s address to a nation that has become increasingly disenchanted by the monarchy.

Ahead of part two, which is set to release next month on December 14th, there have been some notable casting announcements, which give fans a clue about the direction of the drama series’ final chapter. Back in September 2022, Deadline confirmed the casting of Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy to play adult Prince William and Kate Middleton, respectively. The now-Prince and Princess of Wales met in 2001, when the two were studying at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland.

After that, the timeline isn’t so clear. The series will most likely cover the deaths of The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, as both died in 2002, a month apart. The year also marks The Golden Jubilee — the Queen’s 50th anniversary on the throne. According to RadioX, the series is set to conclude around 2005, which would be the same year that the then-Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles finally marry, setting the stage for King Charles and Queen Camilla.

Will ‘The Crown’ season 6 cover Queen Elizabeth’s death?

Season 6 of The Crown is the first and only season of the show to be produced following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022. The Crown, from its first episode, has only ever covered the reign of Elizabeth following her father’s sudden death in 1952. As the series had always intended to be around six seasons, the show was always meant to end around the same time as Elizabeth’s reign, several years into the new millennium.

So will the series finish its timeline in the present day, the same year as King Charles III takes the throne? Not according to The Crown’s creator, Peter Morgan. “We’d all been through the experience of the funeral,” Morgan told Variety, referring to writing the final season in the wake of Queen Elizabeth’s historic funeral service. “So because of how deeply everybody will have felt that, I had to try and find a way in which the final episode dealt with the character’s death, even though she hadn’t died yet.”

While Morgan’s quote confirms the series won’t show Queen Elizabeth’s death directly, the series will invoke her passing, without literally depicting it. Events that happened shortly before Elizabeth II’s death — such as Prince Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle, and the couple’s subsequent exit from royal duties, or Prince Andrew’s sexual misconduct allegations — may be referenced in some manner, without attempting to recreate them for the series.

Morgan, along with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, went on to confirm 2005 would be the stopping point. “It was the cutoff to keep it historical, not journalistic,” Sarandos said. “I think by stopping almost 20 years before the present day, it’s dignified.”