The shocked look on Churchill's face when the King casually mentions he had a lung removed, knowing that the King has cancer and doesn't realise it because his own doctors won't tell him.
On Christmas Day 1951, carollers come to Sandringham House to present a makeshift crown to King George VI. He then decides to stand up and sing along with them before being overcome with tears as he looks around at his family and realises that this will be his last Christmas with them.
"Hyde Park Corner": The aftermath of King George's death. Queen Mary is told while she's having her breakfast; she forgets the tablet she was about to take and sits frozen, staring straight ahead. The Queen Mother runs sobbing to the King's bedroom. Princess Margaret stands in the hallway, shaking her head and on the verge of tears. And Princess Elizabeth, now the Queen, is in Kenya and thinks her father is recovering. She's one of the last people to hear about it.
Although not mentioned in the show, Queen Mary's reaction to George VI's death becomes even sadder when you realise that he was the third son she had outlived: her youngest, Prince John, having died of epilepsy at 13 and another, Prince George, having been killed in the war.
Just a few hours before his death, King George watches a television programme recapping the beginning of Elizabeth's Commonwealth tour. He gets teary-eyed, clearly aware he won't live long enough to see his daughter again.
Elizabeth and Philip's departure from their homestead in Kenya. After a peaceful stay in the Treetops Hotel with nothing but animals and kindhearted guides for company, and then a further stay at another house, the shock of King George's death drags Elizabeth and Philip into a cold, shocking, and depressing new reality. The two leave their Kenyan home, with all of the African servants and press reporters seeing them off with solemn dignity. The eager journalists remove their hats and opt not to photograph the new queen as she departs. The warmth, kindness, and hospitality the couple found in rural Kenya is replaced with dreary British pomp and ceremony, as personified by the Queen's new private secretary and British Stuffiness incarnate Tommy Lascelles, who is the first person they meet upon landing back in Britain. And this is all made even gloomier by Queen Mary's letter instructing Elizabeth to sacrifice her sense of identity to personify the British crown, and the dismissal of her secretary Martin Charteris by Lascelles.
Philip moves to escort his wife off the plane, but is stopped by Lascelles, who tells him that he must walk behind her because “the Crown takes precedent”. This is the first sign that Philip will spend the rest of his marriage feeling that he has no control over his wife. Made even sadder when you realise that in real life, the only time the Queen ever walked behind Philip was at his funeral when he was in his coffin.
The overall tone of the King's passing. Not that a Great Man has died, but a Good Man. Which makes it even more tragic.
"Act of God"
Churchill's secretary Venetia is up most of the night reading Churchill's book about his younger days. The next day she's enthusing about how much it inspired her while Churchill can only quietly beg her to stop, aware that he's not that man anymore.
The sudden death of Venetia; hit by a bus during the severe smog of 1952 — and serving as a Sacrificial Lamb for Churchill to finally address the catastrophe.
At the end of "Smoke and Mirrors", after he has given mocking and spiteful commentary on Elizabeth's coronation to some friends, the Duke of Windsor (now alone without anyone to impress) sadly plays his bagpipes outside his house and reflects on what he gave up when he abdicated.
The end of "Pride & Joy" where the Queen Mother, after enjoying her trip to Scotland and contemplating living there, feels her duty is to take care of her wayward youngest daughter and assist both her daughters in London. The final shot of her standing on a rock watching the sea pound the Scottish coast around her is beautiful and very heart-breaking.
She is also in a limbo of how she is no longer the Queen but she will never achieve the life she had before her late husband was crowned. She made a good friend without him knowing who she is exactly only to see his demeanor change when she is outed.
From the same episode, Elizabeth's utterly shocking explosion at Philip for mocking her trying to impress her dead father, even going so far as cruelly imitating King George's stutter. It's not just anger or exhaustion, but sheer betrayal that he would stoop so low as to drag her beloved Papa into their argument.
Jared Harris's entire performance as King George VI, particularly his description of how he was "murdered" by his brother.
In "Gloriana", Elizabeth goes back on her word and vetoes Princess Margaret's marriage to Peter Townsend, going back on the pledge they made to their father to always put family first. Her sister is naturally torn apart.
Season 2
"Matrimonium".
Princess Margaret learning that Townsend is marrying again, to a woman even younger than her. It's clear that she hasn't moved on at all.
Queen Elizabeth is briefed on Antony's many affairs while he's engaged to Margaret, including a married woman that's he's gotten pregnant. She breaks down in tears knowing that her sister is heading for another romantic disaster and she's helpless to stop it, as Margaret no longer trusts her after the Townsend affair.
In "Hello, Mrs. Kennedy" Elizabeth learning of the assassination of JFK. Only shortly before, she didn't comfort Jackie Kennedy, a deeply unhappy woman who just apologized to her, out of sheer jealousy. Now, in addition to being horrified at the murder, she has to wrestle with a guilty consciousness, and her face shows it.
The whole of "Paterfamilias" for both Philip and Charles.
After hearing about his sister's death and unable to cope, Phillip throws himself into his work on an earlier punishment detail of building a new gate for the school drive. All night and day he works with manic fervor, mixing mortar, laying it on the wall, lifting large stone blocks to build the wall. The headmaster and his classmates leave him to it; at one point one of the boys asks whether they should help him. The headmaster tells him that he has to ask for it* One of the school's aesops and core principals is in teaching students that it is okay to rely on others to overcome what you cannot do alone.. Finally, Phillip has to hang the enormous wrought-metal gate, but whatever he does, he can't hook it in by himself. He walks in on the school hall while the school is having lunch.
Phillip:(quietly) Help. Headmaster: Speak up, boy. Phillip:(louder, on the verge of tears) Please. I-I need help. Headmaster: (beat) Now we help.
From Elizabeth's point of view, the fact that Philip threatened divorce to her face when she objected to Charles being sent to a school he didn't want to go to. The woman has been dealing with her marriage the whole season and even felt her husband was no longer faithful and respectful to her.
The flashback to Philip learning about the death of his beloved sister Cecilie and her entire family including her baby who was unexpectedly born during the fatal flight. Young Philip is clearly devastated to learn the news and imagines himself walking through the wreckage, seeing the bodies of his nephews and eventually finding Cecilie's body inside the plane.
It was heartbreaking where Philip tried and failed to connect with Charles, only to dismiss him. To wit, while flying home during a school break, Phillip invites Charles to the cockpit where Phillip is flying the plane. He tries to talk to his son, but Charles is distracted and so very much afraid of the creaking, the rattling, and the turbulence that he jumps at every shudder and Phillip dismisses it as "just air, boy!". He tries to talk, but is more and more frustrated with Charles jumping at every noise and not paying attention that he finally yells at him to get out with "Don't be so bloody weak!".
"Margaretology" where it's confessed Margaret feels useless as the background to her sister and when she as a girl suggests Elizabeth give her Succession role to her, Tommy Lascelles reads her the riot act causing her to start tearing up. This cuts to a melancholy Margaret as an adult in front of her mirror taking off her false lashes.
The entirety of "Aberfan," which recounts the 1966 Aberfan disaster when a dangerously large coal tip spilled over the eponymous Welsh village. Especially when Margaret tells Elizabeth and their mother about Tony's visit to the village after the disaster, describing the unimaginable grief of the townspeople.
Now I never heard him like that. And I hope I never do again.
Just the build-up to the tragic day, as we watch the schoolchildren go home to their families as they sing a hymnal they were expected to perform on Friday.
Elizabeth laments privately to Harold Wilson that she feels there is something wrong with her because she cannot really cry, not even at the funeral of her grandmother or the births of her children.
The episode's closing credits: An overhead shot of the schoolyard filled with children playing during recess.
Dedicated to the people of Aberfan.
Princess Alice's backstory in "Bubbikins" and when you look at her whole story: driven out of Greece when her son was a baby, endured a terrible marriage, was born deaf and with mental health issues, dealt with an invasion of Greece from the Nazis, been kicked out to a dictatorship set up in her country, been institutionalized and tortured with then-trendy psychiatry treatments, loses one daughter and a few grandchildren to a plane crash, separated from her son when he was young and he tries to avoid her as an adult. Even the reporter from The Guardian, who seems to have a vendetta against the Royal Family, is moved by her story and interview.
Edward Millward invites Charles home for dinner. Silvia, his wife and an outspoken republican, objects to having a member of the royal family in her home despite Edward asking her to take pity on the friendless prince. She softens considerably when Charles appears completely unfamiliar with the parental affection she and Edward show their son, and realizes that Charles is actually a profoundly damaged soul who means no harm.
The story of Capel Celyn where Edward and Silvia met at a protest, which by 1969 was made into a reservoir only to resurface in 2006 due to a drought with all the headstones having been wiped away.
Also he invited Charles at his home when he realizes that he has made no friends there, and he's used to being alone because people are intimidated by him.
All the circumstances of the episode. While studying at university and getting a chance to develop his own interests, Charles is told that because government officials say so, he has to put his life on hold and spend a semester in Wales to be tutored in the Welsh language. He does so, although begrudgingly. His tutor is a curmudgeonly bitter Welsh nationalist who thinks British royalty has no place in his country. Charles works on his own for weeks at a time in the language crash course, even doing extra study in famous Welsh figures to gain an appreciation for Welsh history. This all leads up to a highly publicized speech during his formal investiture as Prince of Wales, which he performs entirely in Welsh. His work done, he comes home expecting, if not congratulations, then at least appreciation. But there is no one there to see him when he walks into the cavernously empty palace, no one to tell him that he did well, that his efforts are recognized. Months of work went into him doing exactly what was expected of him. Nothing more, nothing less. And because he had the temerity to go off script in sneak in a few lines expressing his own personal newfound appreciation for Wales and its people, his mother the Queen goes on to tear him a new one, repeating what her own grandmother told her when she took the throne, that there are two people on the throne: The person wearing the crown and the Crown itself, and the Crown wins every time. There is no room for a monarch to voice their own opinions to the public and Charles, who has just spent months learning how to speak to people only now to be told that he is not allowed to have anything of his own to say, chafes at it.
Charles: I have a voice! Elizabeth: Let me let you into a secret: No one wants to hear it. Charles: Are you talking about the country or my own family? Elizabeth: No one.
David aka The Duke of Windsor in "Dangling Man". A once proud man has now been reduced to coughing fits and struggles in moving. He then asks Elizabeth for his forgiveness in everything and dozes off while she admits that the abdication, while changing her life forever, turned out to be a blessing sometimes. Then, he dies in sleep while Wallis breaks down in tears at his side.
Margaret attempts suicide with a drug overdose when her marriage falls apart, which her mother dismisses as just trying for attention. But Elizabeth privately meets her for perhaps the most sincere conversation they've ever had, admitting that for all their troubled relationship over the decades, going on without her would be unbearable. And we know that's just what happens in twenty-five years, forcing Elizabeth to go on alone for twenty more.
The Silver Jubilee can count as a Bittersweet Ending as well. Here is Elizabeth all nervous, knowing that confidence in her nation has sunken, her family has endured several traumas and her own two eldest children are distant from her, her sister almost killed herself, members of her family haven't gotten along, the previous administrations were failures, and now there are more troubles to come: her working relationship with Margaret Thatcher, The Sex Pistols will release their own critical God Save the Queen, there is less confidence in the monarchy, more family strife and tragedy to come.
Season 4
Dickie's tragic death and the clear anguish this caused his beloved family. Whatever his flaws, he genuinely loved his family and the feeling was very much mutual. Even Charles, who was still bitter about an argument about Camilla, is absolutely devastated and can only scream in anguish for the lose of his honorary grandpa.
We get a look of how little the relationship between Charles and Phillip is when Charles points out that Dickie was more of a father that Phillip ever was. Phillip is left stunned and hurt by this.
We see how Phillip tries and fails to express fatherly affection to Charles but the camera shows that to Charles it comes off as his father's resentment of Dickie transferring his attention from Phillip to Charles is physical abuse.
At another point, the speech from the IRA representative talking about how the British Empire has oppressed Ireland for years and cut short the lives of many Irish citizens, including 13 on Bloody Sunday and lamenting how the British Empire won't grieve those deaths like they do for Mountbatten.
Charles' obvious dread towards marrying Diana, particularly in light of the fact that he was still speaking kindly about her prior to their wedding and hadn't developed the resentment he would have towards her later in their relationship. He acknowledges to Anne that she's gorgeous and at least on-paper an ideal wife for the Prince of Wales, but comments sympathetically that "she's a child". Charles seems to genuinely like Diana and care for her as a person, but he simply isn't in love with her, doesn't think he can be, and for a moment seems to genuinely feel badly for the both of them.
The scene of Diana celebrating her engagement with her flatmates set to the contemporary song Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks. A genuinely happy-looking Diana just going out dancing and celebrating with her friends like any young woman who's just got engaged and is looking forward to the wedding and her future. Except, we know her future will be pretty miserable and she'll be dead in 16 years.
Diana's loneliness since moving from the flat she shared with her friends, to Buckingham Palace for her safety where she is confronted with people who won't spend time with her, and pinpoint her mistakes, which cause her to binge and purge.
After a talk with Philip and Margret about having favorites, Elizabeth meets with her four children to find hers and is horrified on how dysfunctional and miserable they all are despite being royals:
Charles is trapped in a loveless marriage with Diana, who he emotionally neglects due to his lingering feelings for Camilla and is insensitive to her pain.
Anne is in a similar situation due to her terrible marriage and constant comparisons to the beautiful and seemingly perfect Diana, who overshadows her accomplishments and contributions. She outright begs Elizabeth not to send away her bodyguard, who she is having an affair with, because he is the one thing in her life she cares about now. She actually comes close to crying, not helped with Elizabeth's well-meaning yet insensitive advice to hang on. Anne even notes that despite having a life many have dreamed of having, she is still terribly unhappy in her life, and bitterly snaps how Elizabeth's go to answer for everything is do nothing.
Andrew, despite being carefree and witty, is already showing signs of the sexual deviant involved in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that will permanently damage his reputation and chafes of being inferior to Charles, the heir to the throne.
Edward was a victim of terrible bullying in school, and displays a rather vengeful side with his new authority as disciplinarian towards others for minor offenses.
Elizabeth asking for information on her children before meeting them, which really shows how estranged she is from them, and that she knows it:
Elizabeth: Martin - perhaps a short briefing document ahead of each meeting, focusing on the child's hobbies, interests and so forth. One would hate to look uniformed, or coldly, or remotely...remote.
Probably worst of all is that while Elizabeth is genuinely upset and worried on how her children turned into such dysfunctional messes, she doesn’t actually do anything to try and help beyond some advice, and remains somewhat oblivious on how her distant relationships with them all contributed to their current states. What’s sad is that she really does love them, it’s just that she has no idea on how to help them.
Maggie's treatment of her daughter, due to her internalized misogyny, Freudian Excuse (of her disdain for her Mom's "weakness), and her Social Darwinist beliefs is so heartbreaking as she is rather cold and dismissive of her daughter while enabling her irresponsible son.
Fagan's life: a lot of his pain (like fights with his ex-wife's boyfriend) is self-inflicted, but seeing as how he felt he'd be ensured gainful employment as a painter-decorator only to lose it because of Thatcher's policies and philosophies.
During the tour in Australia, Diana and Charles actually start to rekindle their love for each other and seem the happiest they have ever been in a long time. Too bad Charles’s jealousy for Diana’s popularity and continuing love for Camilla sours everything and the two are more apart than before.
In that episode, Anne seems to hint at a resentment towards Elizabeth for not being as loving and clinging a mother as Diana is with William.
Margaret's discovery of Katherine and Nerissa Bowles-Lyon. She's horrified and infuriated that not only does she have close relatives who have been shut away in a mental institution for decades, the family falsely recorded their deaths. The Queen Mother's justification of this makes it even uglier thanks to smacking of eugenecism: that known close relations with mental disabilities would delegitimize the claim to the throne because of "tainted blood." Also, the sisters are very much aware that they're related to the royal family and aren't even the only Bowles-Lyon cousins there—while the institution does appear to treat its residents with care, they likely would have been happier if they had lived at home.
Margaret's brush with mortality in the same episode. After an episode of Blood from the Mouth results in a lung operation (bringing up bad memories of George VI's death), she decides to cut out her unhealthy vices and asks Elizabeth for real work to do. Elizabeth instead tells her that because Edward is now old enough to stand royal duties, Margaret is losing the ones she does have. Between that and the revelation of Katherine and Nerissa, Margaret is back to drinking and smoking by episode's end.
Diana tries desperately to create a performance-gift that Charles will love, dancing to Uptown Girl with a ballet dancer for his birthday. The crowd loves it, Charles even appears to be charmed until he looks at the crowd and finds it an untoward bid for attention and is disgusted by how much the crowd loves it. Later, when she creates a private performance-gift where she sings a love song from Phantom of the Opera Charles is equally disgusted by it. Diana's attempts to please him are completely sincere, and even though she manages to charm the entire world, she can't win the love of or even mild affection from her husband. The look on her face is devastating.
Despite her flaws as a person, mother, and PM, it is somewhat tragic to see the infamous Margaret Thatcher, who was known as the Iron Lady for her stoicism and leadership, break down in private as her party turns against her and her time as the first female Prime Minister is coming to an end. Despite her legacy being tainted by controversy, she really did have Britain's interests at heart and wanted to make it better.
When a rage-filed, entitled Jerkass Charles insists he's going to leave Diana to marry his true love Camilla, Camilla softly and reasonably tries to talk him out of it. She knows no one will ever love her like Charles does, including her husband, but she also knows that in the fairytale starring the beloved, tragic Princess Diana, she's the villain.
After returning from New York, Diana is clearly hoping that Charles will at least acknowledge how she held her own during a royal visit and that it was a massive PR success. However, he tearfully and cruelly rants on how Camilla is his one true love and somehow twists the facts so that Diana was somehow responsible for all the pain in their marriage. Diana just stares at him, truly realizing that their marriage will never work and truly never has.
Imagine your husband one day haranguing you for being so well-liked by the public that it upsets his mistress, that he only cares about what his mistress feels, and that you're somehow supposed to care. This is despite the fact that you have been doing everything what your role demands of you, and, again, despite the fact that you're his actual wife and mother of his children. Say what you will about Diana's own flaws, nobody deserves to be spat in the face like that, especially after doing something that unambiguously deserves praise, or at least some positive acknowledgment.
The unfortunate implication of Philip's confrontation with Diana at the end of Season four also counts, given his veiled threat to Diana if she tries to initiate a divorce against Charles, if you believe the longstanding conspiracy theory that she was murdered by the Royal Family.
It's also a bit sad given that Philip is portrayed in the show as one of the few (if not only) member of the Royal Family that bonded with Diana and had positive things to say about her. As a fellow outsider of the British Royal Family, he seems to understand her, and the above conversation even begins in a sympathetic way. However, the differences between the two become apparent: Philip eventually understood his role as a supportive figure and stood aside for Elizabeth, while Diana believes that she needs to find herself and be herself, even if it means breaking away from the family. Philip is not happy to see Diana continue to stick for her way, and the conversation sours.
The sad thing is their own situations were not the same: first due to their gender given that Philip was an entitled young man who gave his young sovereign wife a hard time and Diana is a girl who was brought up not to be more than a Trophy Wife and is discovering that she is a capable individual in her own right. Philip also had the benefit of a kind and loving wife who tried to understand him and make him happy while Diana's husband only married her out of duty and is often cruel to her, no matter how hard she tried to love him.
The final shot of the season: Diana's face as she's posing for the family Christmas photograph, and is unable to fake a smile.
Season 5
Mild-mannered, dependable Nice GuyJohn Major leaving office for the last time, having lost his job as Prime Minister in a Landslide Election in Tony Blair's favour, is surprisingly upsetting, especially as he's such a Graceful Loser, wishing him "good luck" on his way out of Buckingham Palace and leaving Blair a bottle of Pol Roger with a sweet little handwritten note simply saying "It's a great job, enjoy it!".
Major: It's a funny old business. One day, you're prime minister, arguably the most... Well, the second-most important person in the country, and the next, you lose your job, your car, and you're evicted from your home. All before lunch.
Rather unsurprisingly, "Annus Horribilis", due in large part to Imelda Staunton's acting. It really is a horrible year for Elizabeth, who not only feels like an utter failure as a parent due to three of her children's marriages failing simultaneously, and experiences a traumatic fire, but is also on the receiving end of multiple The Reason You Suck Speeches, which were possibly necessary but also rather harsh given everything else she was dealing with. Elizabeth, who has been almost unflappably stoic for four seasons, spends much of this episode in tears due to various events and arguments, and is very visibly struggling mentally through the entire episode.
"Couple 31" has sad vignettes of couples detailing why their marriages failed and what led to their divorce. Before we then see Diana and Charles quietly and privately reflect on their own failed marriage. It is particularly sad as unfortunately the reasons for their incompatibility flare-up with both giving barbed exchanges with Charles angrily saying he is relieved that she is finally out of his life while she weeps. In particular, Diana seems genuinely concerned about Charles well-being and insists that her belief that he should not be King is less a recrimination than a concern.
Season 6
"Aftermath." All of it.
When Elizabeth, Philip and Charles receive news of Diana's death, Charles begins to break down. Even though he and Diana divorced, Charles' reaction shows how he felt about Diana which shows that even though she was no longer his wife, she was his friend and the mother of their sons.
One of the heartbreaking scenes is when Charles breaks the news to William and Harry. Imagine in their shoes when your father wakes you up in the middle of the night and tells you that your mother is gone forever.
Charles' anguished scream when he sees Diana's body, and Mohamed's when he sees Dodi.
Diana appearing as a ghost for Charles, and later Elizabeth.
Diana: Thank you for how you were in the hospital. So raw. Broken. And handsome. I'll take that with me.
"Ritz." Margaret has been in worse and worse health all episode, a series of strokes leaving her bedbound. At the same time, the episode flashes back to young Elizabeth and Margaret's night of dancing and partying at the Ritz after V-E Day in World War II. The girls walk home together in the early morning, pausing outside the gates to the palace. The ending title card says that "Princess Margaret died peacefully in her sleep at 6:30 a.m. on 9th February 2002. She was 71."
Young Elizabeth: Aren't you coming? We can join Mummy and Papa for breakfast.
"Sleep, Dearie Sleep," the series finale. You know tissues are going to be needed when the main topic is the Queen and Prince Phillip planning their own funerals. Especially the very final scene, with Phillip and Elizabeth in the chapel. After Phillip kisses her hand goodbye and gently says, "Well... I'll leave you to it. Say one for me?" before departing (foreshadowing his own death in 2021, before Elizabeth's), Elizabeth is left alone. A bagpiper plays the title song (which was played during her real-life funeral) as she walks past her own coffin, and has a vision of her younger self in uniform, who salutes her with a smile. Elizabeth turns back to go—all three versions of herself (Imelda Staunton in front, flanked by Olivia Colman and Claire Foy in the back)—and leaves the chapel. She walks down a long hallway, a small but steady and determined figure, and the front door opens for her to let her into the light.
when a dangerously large coal tip spilled over the eponymous Welsh village. Especially when Margaret tells Elizabeth and their mother about Tony's visit to the village after the disaster, describing the unimaginable grief of the townspeople.