All Hail The Crown's Princess Margaret, Badass Queen of My Heart

And who would after getting home to their palace at 4 a.m.? Let Princess Margaret live!

"Is it possible that you're still drunk?" Elizabeth asks her sister after they meet for lunch. Naturally, Margaret doesn't mince words with her reply. Pour the mimosas and settle down, Elizabeth.

The season's fourth episode, "Beryl," is when we really get a chance to see what Princess Margaret is up to. It opens with her at a friend's wedding, where she's clearly still nursing wounds from her breakup with Peter Townsend. Sensing her frustrations, longtime friend Billy Wallace spontaneously proposes to her at the reception. He says that it's better that she marry "somebody one at least liked." Although it's obvious that Margaret isn't over the moon about her situation, she accepts.

Flash forward a bit later to the day she and Billy are supposed to announce their engagement to society. It turns out Billy is a huge tool and stands his bride-to-be up because he got into a drunken duel the night before (that he lost, obviously). It's unfortunate for the princess, but luckily it gives her a reason to deliver this brutal takedown while he's pathetically laying in bed:

"People like you don't get to insult people like me. You get to be eternally grateful. 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 40 years of your life will look like."

I really hope Billy immediately puffed into dust after this because there's really no coming back from a burn like that.

After ditching the lunch where she was supposed to announce her engagement to Billy Wallace, Princess Margaret heads home to let loose in her chambers. We see the moment through the eyes of one of the women on her staff. She comes upon the royal princess drinking, smashing things, and stumbling around her room as Ella Fitzgerald's "Angel Eyes" plays in the background. While the queen's steely demeanour means we see her bottle up her frustrations throughout the series, Margaret is her opposite; she isn't afraid to let herself fall apart in public or in private. This scene, perhaps more than any other in the season, helps to define the difference between the two sisters and cement our love for Margaret's relatably messy life.

After deciding that the royal portrait her mother wants her to have done on her birthday is stuffy and promotes a fantasy to the public that she's no longer interested in, Margaret turns to a handsome, enigmatic photographer she recently met at a dinner party: Tony Armstrong-Jones. She goes to his studio, and after some unconventional behaviour from her future husband, he gets her to pose with the top of her dress pulled down from her shoulders; the resulting photo, while breathtaking, gives the impression that she's naked.

Although it appears to be Tony's idea to have Margaret wear her dress like that, the entire situation with the photo is a bold act of rebellion for the princess and a way for her to take back some agency in a life controlled by the royal family. She demands Tony send the portrait to the newspapers, where it's published for all to see. "It's a Margaret I've never seen before," Tony tells her after laying eyes on the photo for the first time. "That no one's ever seen before," she agrees, clearly stunned by the results.

After her intimate photo shoot with Tony, the two end up in the darkroom he has set up in his apartment. She remarks that he's probably done this many times before with many other "beautiful women," noting that his "whole routine is far too practised and well-oiled." He asks her to stay "just a little while longer," but she's resolute in the fact that she has to get back to the palace. She does let him take her for a spin on his motorcycle, though. But have you seen his face? Who wouldn't?!

In the fifth episode, "Marionettes," Prince Philip (Matt Smith) compliments his sister-in-law's "unregimental" hair and then asks her where she got it done. She happily tells him Tony recommended the stylist to her ("the only stylist who could be trusted"), but she can't recall his exact name. "I want to say Victor Gabon, but that's not quite right," she says. "Vidal Baboon? Yes, I think . . . He talked endlessly about hair as a geometric art form."

Now, in the grand scale of this show, Princess Margaret butchering the name of famed hairstylist Vidal Sassoon in between drags of her cigarette is not as important as, say, her nude photo. But do I love it any less? NO. I live for this unbothered icon.

Where is Vanessa Kirby's Emmy? Where is her Golden Globe? The range of emotions that play out over her face while reading Peter Townsend's letter in episode seven's opening scene is extraordinary. The way she feverishly tears open the envelope? The speed with which her eyes hungrily race down the page? Her furrowed brow? Kirby's performance is both subtle and spectacular. Also, all I have to say is that if the love of my life told me he's getting married to some 19-year-old chick named Marie-Luce, I would have smashed a lot more than a few water glasses. Props to you, Margaret.

"Matrimonium" has so many fantastic Margaret scenes that it's hard to narrow down my favourite, but this motorcycle ride is near the top. As the light, hopeful sounds of Max Richter's recomposition of a Vivaldi classic bounce through the air, Princess Margaret reaches forward to put her hand over Tony's on the controls and whispers sweet nothings in his ear; she finally looks free.

Praise be: we get a steamy scene between Kirby's Margaret and Goode's Tony. It's markedly different than anything we ever see between Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in the series, with Margaret playfully pushing Tony away before reaching out to roughly pull him back again, in total control. Shirts, heels, and stockings go flying, and although there's no "royal boob," a scene like this is a rare moment on The Crown. I'm happy they saved it so that Margaret could shine.

Princess Margaret dutifully waits until the queen gives birth to her son, Andrew, before announcing her and Tony's engagement. Before she can do so, however, she sits down with her older sister to confirm that the timing is OK. Elizabeth, who still hasn't really warmed to Tony, is understandably concerned for Margaret — is she "rushing down the aisle" because of Peter's letter? Margaret isn't having it.

"Tony is no revenge. Tony is a free choice," she declares. "Tony has given me reason to hope and dream. He makes me feel things no one ever has, things I didn't imagine possible . . . I will marry Tony if it is the last thing I do, at the Chelsea Registry Office with a local drunk as witness, if need be."

I gasped at that last line, but it's what she tells Elizabeth afterwards that really gets me: "Tony makes sense of me, defines me. At long last I know who I am and what I represent . . . a woman in my own right. A woman for the modern age, above all, a woman who is free. Free to live, to love, free to break away."

Margaret and Tony's marriage might not work out down the line, but it's satisfying to see Queen Elizabeth's little sister get to have her own fairy tale, no matter how brief. The scenes of her and Prince Philip riding in the carriage on the way to Westminster Abbey are particularly tender, especially the look of unadulterated happiness in her eyes as she waves to onlookers. At long last she has what she's always wanted, on her own terms.