Timing’s everything. If this episode of The Crown had aired three years ago, it might have looked very different. After all, while rumors had circulated for some time, it was only in 2021 — over 25 years later — that an independent inquiry concluded that Martin Bashir did indeed use deceitful methods to land his bombshell interview with Princess Diana.
Bashir (played by Prasanna Puwanarajah) more or less gets the villain edit here, but it’s of his own doing. A budding journalist looking to land a big, numbers-generating story, he decides to go after the most photographed woman in the world. He knows he can use the BBC’s solid reputation to gain Diana’s trust, despite his plans to full-on betray it. To sum up how calculated Bashir was: He forged documents to get to Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer; used Charles Spencer to get to Diana; and then faked more documents to prey on her paranoia while, according to The Crown, also taking advantage of her sudden … predilection for Pakistani men? (Regarding the latter, I will forever love and watch Peter Morgan’s work, but there are times I wonder if his poetic license should be revoked.)
I’ll have to admit, I was looking forward to the chapter of Diana’s story when she meets Hasnat Khan (Humayun Saeed), the selfless heart surgeon whom she dated and loved for two years. I expected their meeting to be a nice, welcome, tonal departure from the rigidity of the palace. And there were elements of that! Diana is instantly charmed by the understated, dishy doctor, and there’s a genuine, gentle warmth between the two.
But a few too many clumsy, perplexing pieces of dialogue pulled me out of moments I’d otherwise enjoy. After Diana first meets Hasnat, she wonders if he’s Pakistani because of his last name, but it’s an extremely common surname for South Asian Muslims in general. (And not just them!) Later on, when the pair enjoys a midnight rendezvous by some hospital vending machines, she says her solo tour to his home country made her think she’d be happy with a “nice, handsome Pakistani husband.†This could be true, but Diana traveled a lot — was his the only country that inspired such a thought? If anything, this shows her sweet yet naïve tendency to live in the clouds and romanticize situations, not that Pakistan holds her destiny.
Diana also manages to squeeze in a few backhanded compliments with Hasnat that are hard to ignore. She says a prince broke her heart, so now she wants a frog to make her happy. And, when she admits to having a livid experience in her own strict, tradition-abiding marriage, it feels icky for Diana to equate Hasnat’s culture with that of oppression (e.g., saying she’s used to deferring to her husband and stifling her opinions). Plus, the princess’s life under those restrictive, traditional conditions wasn’t happy — why would she sell herself as someone who’d willingly experience it again? Make it make sense!
Throughout their conversation, she keeps emphasizing his cultural background. It’s as if she’s trying to not mention it, so naturally all she does is talk about it. The number of times she says “Pakistan(i)†is bonkers. This kind of exchange, of course, plays out every day in human interactions, but given the amount of different people Diana would have met and the number of countries she’s visited, it seems a bit odd to have her borderline exoticize him. Plus, loving someone’s culture doesn’t instantly correlate to an emotional connection.
But apparently on this show, it does! And later on, Bashir learns this and takes full advantage. When the BBC journo makes his case to Diana — hoping to beat out the likes of Barbara Walters, David Frost, and Oprah Winfrey — he promises the princess control of the interview and protection courtesy of “the best brand name in the world when it comes to journalistic integrity.†As he’s about to leave, Diana asks where Bashir is originally from. He says Wandsworth, but — knowing what she’s really asking — his parents are from Pakistan. She comments how this is such a coincidence, presumably referring to the fact that she’s befriending two men with Pakistani roots.
The Crown is constantly highlighting parallels, but I’m not sure what this one is supposed to signify. That Pakistanis can be good or bad just like … other people? That Diana felt a kinship with that nation? It would be one thing if we knew something specific and deeper about the culture that spoke to her, but as it stands, it’s just an arbitrary country. Even Bashir is not sure what it is about his background that draws her, but he can tell she digs it and is eager to commit to the interview.
The next time Diana meets Bashir, it’s in secret at night in a parking garage. He says her phones have been tapped, that she’s being followed, and that her and Charles’s respective secretaries have been receiving secret payments. In other words, she should trust and tell no one (classic manipulation tactic: isolate the victim). Then he quotes an Urdu proverb — a language he admitted to not speaking earlier in the episode. (Seriously?!)
Bashir says he knows what it feels like to be an outsider with forces working against you; he grew up in a council estate (i.e., public housing), spent time in a homeless shelter, and must work twice as hard to succeed at the “whiter-than-white BBC†— another landmark British institution. “The more I succeed, the more I’m resented,†he says, before saying this interview can help them both show up their oppressors.
Honestly, it’s hard to parse what the show’s going for here, which feels especially jarring when The Crown normally is hit-you-over-the-head obvious. As Bashir uses his life story to get closer to Diana, his struggles as an underprivileged brown man in a mostly white, elitist field would presumably be legitimate. So I’m confused if this tidbit is included to help the audience humanize Bashir (i.e., provide his origin story — why he did what he did to get ahead) or if it’s meant to demonize the journalist further by suggesting he fed Diana a tale to manipulate her. It can be both, but his deliberate use of Urdu suggests it’s more of the latter. And unless his use of that tactic is a factual detail, its incorporation into the show doesn’t seem responsible or necessary. Bashir’s forging and bold-faced lying are sinister enough. Does The Crown really need to bring his heritage and ethnicity into it?
Cultural weirdness aside, where “No Woman’s Land†shines, however, is in its portrayal of Diana as a likable but imperfect character. Since her death, the princess has become something of a martyr. Recent depictions focus on her trauma and paint her almost exclusively as a victim. Even previous seasons of The Crown, a show where narratives are more evenhanded, had Emma Corrin’s Diana refreshingly portrayed as a multidimensional woman, but one who still essentially got the victim treatment. (This was in part by contrasting with Josh O’Connor’s Charles, who was more or less relegated to being a moody villain.)
Elizabeth Debicki’s Diana is far more complicated. She’s undeniably endearing and down-to-earth as we see her interact with various people at the hospital, not least of which Hasnat. But she’s also prone to making bad calls (sometimes literally — oversharing on the phone with William). Prior to the fifth season, any false steps could be written off due to Diana’s age and new environment, not to mention her being sold a lie for a marriage. But by now, while her paranoia remains a considerable factor, her youth and naïveté are less of an excuse. Diana’s flaws are more apparent and she has more overt agency over them. She seems tired of feeling like a victim. This Diana is more driven to assert control.
When Diana gets behind the wheel to meet her brother early in the episode, she moves through her world defensively. She cloaks herself in a red puffer jacket and baseball cap. The top’s up on her cabriolet, and overzealous photo-takers cause her to slide her windows up, too. The trip nearly ends in an accident, with her brakes malfunctioning (something she suspects may have been planned). But, in the final moments of “No Woman’s Land,†post-Bashir meeting and post-swim, we see something’s changed within the princess. She hops in her car, wearing an easy, thin sweatshirt and bike shorts. Edwyn Collins’s “A Girl Like You†sizzles on the radio and the smallest smile plays on her lips. This time the car’s top stays down as cameras flash around her. The audience knows what’s brewing behind the scenes (not to mention what lies in store with the Panorama interview), but now, in this moment, Diana feels liberated, finally steering her ship. She’s on the offensive now.
Royal Diary
• Diana silently getting hot and bothered the first time she sees Hasnat is mad cute. She instantly turned into a lovesick teen.
• William’s visits with the queen are a cross-generational breath of fresh air! And it was nice to see him be reminded that a child shouldn’t have the burden of worrying about their parents. While he and Diana had an incredibly loving relationship and bond, I think people forget about the unfair and inappropriate situations he found himself in due to her (understandable) fragility.
• Who knew that Mazzy Star and heart surgery simulations would go so well together?
• Interestingly enough, this is Puwanarajah’s second time playing Martin Bashir! The first was in Diana, the critically panned 2013 biopic starring Naomi Watts, which he was mostly edited out of. It’s nice to see him get another shot, with more screen time and much more knowledge of the real man’s methods.