The Crown pauses the royal drama to introduce us to Dodi Fayed’s dad
As Mou Mou tries to gain access to the monarchy, he's met with resistance at every turn
TV Reviews Dodi Fayed
[Editor’s note: The A.V. Club will publish episode recaps of The Crown’s fifth season every weekday at 1 a.m. Eastern through November 22. The following details episode three.]
Whenever it starts to pick up speed, The Crown tends to deliberately slow itself down. If you came into “Mou Mou” eager for the bloody aftermath of the release of Diana’s tell-all book, the episode will feel like a bit of a letdown. Instead of barreling ahead in the 1990s, the show ricochets back to 1946, when a man named Mohamed Fayed (Salim Daw) catches sight of King Edward VIII (Alex Jennings, reprising his role from seasons one and two) as he visits Egypt. So begins his lifelong fascination with the royals that will put his future son, Dodi (Khalid Abdalla), in the orbit of Diana (Elizabeth Debicki). But it will take us an hour to get there.
This rich, winding storytelling is a feature of The Crown, not a bug. If you’re looking for fast, scandalous dramatization of the headlines that have plagued the royal family, you can try Lifetime. This show is much more interested in constructing these fictional arcs that tie the dramatic events together.
Which is all to say: Buckle up for an episode on Diana’s boyfriend’s dad.
Mohamed–Mou Mou to his friends–is selling cokes on the streets of Alexandria and flirting with a rich girl when he sees Edward there on a visit 10 years after his abdication. “I saw a king today,” he says over dinner that night, and his own father launches into a lecture about the evils of the monarchy: “The British have occupied us, dominated us, trampled our freedoms.” He has contempt for Egyptians who look upon the British as gods.
But to Mohamed, they are gods. He cites their ambition and vision as the source of their superiority, and he’ll spend the rest of the episode fighting to get closer to them. He marries the rich girl from the opening scene, who gives birth to Dodi.
Flash-forward to 1979, Paris, when Mohamed and Dodi bring a bid to buy the struggling Hotel Ritz. (The Fayeds are now rich men.) Despite the fact that their offer is higher than their competitors, Madame Ritz (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) accuses them of shady dealings. Mohamed switches to Arabic, with Dodi translating, and calls her out for discrimination. When they act as if they’re about to walk away, she calls them back, and the Ritz is theirs.
It seems that Mohamed has no problem with racism as long as it’s not being applied to him. At a party at the Ritz, he notices a Black server and orders Dodi to remove him. Dodi does what he’s told but tells his father he would have liked the man. “His name was Sydney Johnson, personal valet to King Edward for 30 years.” This perks Mohamed’s interest, and the billionaire brings Sydney (Jude Akuwudike) in to ask about his connection to the former king.
The real-life connection here (Sydney Johnson did actually work for Edward for three decades, before then being employed by Mohamed Fayed) is one of those “stranger than fiction” moments, and I can’t begrudge The Crown for wanting to tell the story about this twist of fate. Mohamed, still desperate to gain respect and currency in British high society, asks Sydney to teach him the ways of the royals–which books to read, events to attend, sports to play, clothes to wear, and the ritual of afternoon tea. The two attend an equestrian event, and Mohamed is irritated that he’s not seated closer to the queen. Beside her is the owner of Harrods (“part of the national soul,” Sydney explains) and the sponsor of the event…so Mohamed decides to buy Harrods.
Dodi is concerned what this means for his plans to start a film production company, and there’s a bit of father-son tension about how the Fayeds want to make their mark on the world. But Mohamed eventually relents, and when their company produces Chariots of Fire (“The story of an outsider who became an insider,” Dodi tells his father to make him see the value in the project), they get an Oscar to their name.
But Mohamed’s next effort to get closer to the royals comes when Wallis Simpson dies. She had been confined to her house for eight years before her death, and the estate has fallen into disrepair. Sydney explains that the fate of the house is in the hands of the French authorities, and Mohamed decides to buy and restore it. “It will be my gift to the British royal family,” he announces.
It’s worth noting that as these two men, one Middle Eastern and one Bahamian, grow closer and attempt to gain access to more elite circles of British society, they’re met with resistance at every turn, no matter how much money (Mohamed) or knowledge (Sydney) they possess. Mohamed can buy a home of a former king of England, employ his personal valet to restore it to former glory with painstaking attention to detail, and rename it “Villa Windsor,” but at the end of the day, Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) isn’t interested in visiting her disgraced uncle’s old house. She just wants his stuff—a painting, some pearls, a desk, his diaries and correspondence with Nazis. They prepare for a royal visit (“The mountain is really moving to Mohamed”), but it’s merely a representative to reclaim Edward’s things. Sydney is indignant, but Mohamed is thrilled at the scrap of attention.
Soon after, Sydney himself dies, and we see Mohamed tending to him on his deathbed and then visiting his grave, which reads, “Sydney Johnson, Valet to the King.” How much did Mohamed care for the other man and how much did he enjoy the proximity to royalty and the idea that Sydney’s service made him a bit of a king himself?
We return to the same equestrian event that originally inspired Mohamed to buys Harrods. He’s sitting in the sponsor’s seat, waiting for his face-time with the queen. When she shows up, she hesitates, notices her friend Porchie is here, and asks her staff to handle it. So instead of the queen, Mohamed is seated next to…Princess Diana.
The two get along famously, exchanging jokes and commiserating over the queen’s avoidance. Dodi even comes over briefly to say hello, and as the queen and Margaret (Lesley Manville) observe how well her snub has worked out, Margaret delivers the episode’s most overwrought, heavy-handed line of dialogue: “Out of the acorn of a simple kindness, an oak tree of happiness will grow.” Feels like that one could have used a rewrite.
Stray observations
- No Charles (Dominic West) again this episode. So far it feels like the new King of England is getting off pretty easy.
- The Crown is routinely hesitant to go too hard on criticism of the queen, but her refusal to sit by Mohamed, the sponsor of the event, seems like at least a subtle acknowledgement of her racism.
- While rifling through the Harrods gift bag Mohamed brought for the queen, she calls him “a little creep” and she even manages to make that seem charming.
- In the final scene, Diana says she’s trying to get back in the queen’s good graces, but it seems like this must take place before the release of Andrew Morton’s book that closed out the previous episode. There’s no coming back from that act of war.
36 Comments
I had mixed feelings about this episode. I enjoyed watching it, but afterwards I started thinking abotu how it portrayed Sydney as a loyal servant who just existed to serve and was happy with that. There’s no problem with taking pride in your work, but the real Sydney had a family and left the Duchess of Windsor’s service because she wouldn’t let him spend enough time with them. Did this (Black) servant really have to die with only is current employer around? Did he not have a family cemetery? This man wasn’t Bagger Vance. He was a real person.I was amused that Mohamed seemed to think that getting in good with the royals could be done with associating himself as closely as possible with the Duke of Windsor, which results in them wanting to do with him because hey, the Duke of Windsor was a Nazi traitor.
“It’s NOT a documentary!”
I would pay extra to have Judi Dench appear before every episode as Ben Affleck in Jay and Silent Bob
WTF is the internet?!
First of all, they’re not fictional characters.
Second, it’s not about the people. It’s about how the show chooses to highlight particular aspects of people’s lives, and in this case, a magical black man who only exists to serve helps old guys get dressed. That was a decision. They made a decision about what type of story they wanted to tell, and that says something about them.
A lot of folks struggle with the whole bit about the stories we tell and how we tell them having importance.
It’s even worse – Sydney left because his wife died and Wallis wouldn’t give him more time off to take care of his kids.
The depiction of Sydney was extremely offputting in this episode, and especially fascinating to me given the royal family and racism in general (which, as noted, they sure don’t seem to want to get into!) and that, cynically, one might even think this was an attempt at offsetting the blinding whiteness of the show and these relationships and the best they can still muster is the ever-faithful servant who has no interior life of his own whatsoever outside of his constant devotion. Absolutely reeked of bullshit and just an awful episode all around.
See I never heard of Sidney Johnson before and I wager this is many people’s first and perhaps last time learning about him. So its dispariting to see a lot of this mans story was altered quite significantly.
The aristocracy hates (maybe too strong – looks down their noses at…) all “climbers” – not sure it is intentionally racist. It sure does walk like a duck though.
I would like to think that it’s not racism that makes me think Fayed is a piece of shit.
He’s a product of his culture. All patriarchies are shit.
They all are.
Well he got me tooed pretty hard a couple years back, has a shady connection with money and is obsessed with conspiracy theories. I’m gonna say yep.
He’s in his 60s and he’s from South London, of course my dad’s a little racist!
They can both look down their nose at social climbers and be racist. It’s like their superpower.
The episode is fascinating but it doesn’t really work in the over-all series. In fact, I’d be happy to see a series (or movie) following the Fayeds. At best, it’s preparing us for the horrible outcome of Dodi and Diana’s deaths. But will the series explore Fayed’s search for the ‘truth’ about the car accident? This is the part of the story that I find most fascinating, but I can’t believe the last episode will focus on that. And given the very many themes this series explores (to some degree), I’m not sure if the series wants to end with cover-up conspiracies (even if they might have merit). This last season lacks focus (or a tighter treatment).
Yeah I agree. On the one hand I really liked this episode on its own, but it didn’t work as part of this series. It felt like it belong in another series, and it definitely had me wishing for one about the Al Fayeds, because I really wanted to know more about how a man went from selling Coca Cola in the street to owning friggin Harrods.
They sort of left out the part where his brother in law was an arm’s dealer who played an integral role in the Iran Contra affair.
Also the brother in law was the uncle of the journalist the Saudis killed and cut up with a bonesaw.
This isn’t the last season, there’s one more to go.
This last season lacks focus (or a tighter treatment). I may be reading this wrong, but this season isn’t the final season. There’s at least one more. However I definitely agree with you that season 5 does lack focus and a tighter treatment. It’s also seriously ignores how visciously the palace and Charles’s office went after Diana after the book came out (and especially after the interview).
I completely forgot that there’s another season coming, thanks.To add to your reply, the scene where the Queen tells Diana (before Diana warns of the coming interview) that she is a valued member of the family and that they only want happiness for their future Queen confused me. Elizabeth seems sincere, but I just couldn’t believe it. Diana obviously didn’t either. I think that they’re all utterly amoral (and worse). So much rested on the decision that she made in that moment – to go ahead with an interview that would upset the Firm even more that Edward’s abdication. It was both terrifying and liberating to see Diana call Elizabeth’s bluff.
This Mitchell and Webb skit says all that needs to be said about asinine conspiracy theories about Diana and Dodi’s death
https://youtube.com/watch?v=05oZVBOH_1Q
We actually saw quite a bit of Sydney in the episode about Edward’s death in Season 3, though here he’s replaced by an older actor like the others. I wonder if they were deliberately planning ahead for this.
We actually saw quite a bit of Sydney in the episode about Edward’s death in Season 3, though here he’s replaced by an older actor like the others.
Did the media ever combine their names like they do with famous couple? Like “Do-Di”? Oh, I guess that doesn’t really work.
“Doana”? “Didi”?
Dido?
I don’t trust women who use eyeliner ALL around their eye. They’re usually a little – off.
It was a thing back in the mid-90s. There was this mistaken belief (much like that with Spanx) that it “enhanced” the eyes. Lord knows there’s a few pictures of girls I went to school with looking like cheapo extras from Cleopatra lurking about on the intarwebs.Even more disturbing were the pastel power suits of the time. The eighties are over, people, discard thy shoulderpads!
Racism never even occurred to me in the scene where she chose not to sit beside him at the event, but rather that she wasn’t going to boost someone’s (who was incredibly successful in their own right) stature further by being seated next to them…when that person had been pretty openly trying to buy their way into that opportunity. I don’t blame him. I don’t blame her. They both had legitimate reasons for doing or not doing it in that moment that had nothing to do with racism. Like her or not, these seemingly small decisions can have a huge impact on both parties. I felt like it as more about whether or not his approach with all the money and the estate and such was seen as being too un-Queen like. Maybe it just went unnoticed by me though. I really like him as a character thought the actor was fantastic.
Weird historical coincidence: the wealthy young woman Mou Mou marries is from the Khashoggi family, the aunt of the yet-to-be-born Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist murdered on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince MBS. Dodi was Jamal Khashoggi’s first cousin.
I saw that on Wikipedia the moment I saw the wife’s surname. Small world.
What a boring episode. It felt disconnected from the rest of the show and, as usual, played up the melodrama for the Yanks. The actual events/crap that was going on around Charles and Diana’s separation and upcoming divorce – and the fact that Diana was more or less losing the media war against Charles – is far more interesting.
The episode portrays Sydney as having genuine loyalty and affection for Wallis, and in a separate scene reminds us that she was literally a Nazi. I’m not saying that’s impossible, but it’s a conflict/contradiction that’s never really explored.
Never forget: