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the-crown-aberfan-colman.jpg

F*ck You, 'The Crown'! Where is My Godd*mn Trigger Warning?

By Heather Huntington | TV | November 23, 2019 |

By Heather Huntington | TV | November 23, 2019 |


the-crown-aberfan-colman.jpg

So last night my husband and I are having a lovely evening. The kids are in bed, the dog has stopped trying to eat the wallpaper, and I’ve got all manner of leftovers ready to eat while catching up on the new season of The Crown. I’m ready for an hour of the kind of quiet, slow-paced, deeply internal British regal drama that one can only get from a show that advertises itself with gutting stills like this:

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We fire up Episode 3. It’s named “Aberfan” and is set in (Aberfan) Wales, which I point out to my husband, who is partly Welsh. We see beautiful deep green hills, adorable 1960s kids with their adorable Welsh accents. My husband makes his usual Welsh comments about sheepshagging and prehensile feet (IDK, he swears it’s a thing) and then SUDDENLY THE ADORABLE CHILDREN’S SCHOOLHOUSE IS BURIED IN A MINING COLLAPSE.



Now granted, you can tell something terrible is going to happen by the way it starts: They’re spending a ton of time with these random families in this town instead of with our royals; the episode is named after the town; mining is a major industry in Wales, so it is likely going to be some mining-related crisis.

Sure, if this is a big enough event that an entire episode is named after it, maybe it’s a big enough thing in British history that everyone there would know what is coming. But I have never heard of it and I’m willing to bet not many other Americans (at least those younger than Boomers) have. Also, I just asked the Brit I sit next to if she’d ever heard of it and she said, “No,” so I think that accurately represents the entire UK.

Regardless: Can a bitch get a trigger warning? I used to be tough AF and there was literally nothing too dark for me to watch — except of course for animals suffering because I’m not a monster. Even still, I watch every crime thriller I can get my hands on, usually filled with insane Swedes cutting each other in half and posing the corpses as creepy dolls or something.

But ever since having kids, the thing I can’t handle is children suffering. I couldn’t even handle Blackfish with the mother orca crying for her baby. So what I do not need to see is slow-mo detail of a roomful of kids my son’s age getting avalanched by a mine. Now you don’t have to either, because TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEASON 3 EPISODE 3: CHILDREN GETTING HURT/KILLED.

via GIPHY

Do I know what happened in the episode after that? No, I do not. Because I promptly turned off the TV, stood up, yelled at my husband that I would not be watching the rest of the episode — as though what happened was his fault or he wanted to watch it anymore, either — and then dramatically marched out of the room. Not as dramatically as a mine caving in, but more dramatically than a lady in sensible pumps petting her corgis.



Header Image Source: Netflix