Warning: Reviews of The Crown season 6 will contain spoilers.

You had to wonder when The Crown would ever give Leslie Manville’s Princess Margaret the spotlight. You don’t cast a celebrated actor like Manville and have her sit in the background, occasionally delivering a line or two. And, given the show’s fondness for stories of Margaret, you had to wonder if there would be one final send-off for her before the finale. Thankfully we have Ritz, which examines Margaret’s still exorbitant lifestyle as she struggles with her health, and gives Manville the runway to deliver some Emmy-worthy moments.

The episode actually opens to a flashback, to V-E Day, when young Margaret (Beau Gadson) and Elizabeth (Viola Prettejohn) snuck away to experience the jubilation in the streets firsthand. Flash forward to the present day, when Margaret reminisces to that day, and something unspeakable is mentioned about the Ritz, which Elizabeth clearly wants to keep hidden more than Margaret.

The episode gives Manville the opportunity to really shine here, in an uncharacteristically physical performance. First she suffers one stroke, and is told to make significant lifestyle changes, lest she suffer another one – no more cigarettes, no more alcohol, moderate exercise and a healthy diet. Of course, a tiger can’t change its stripes, and Margaret barely makes an effort to change. It harkens back to the Crown’s refusal to adapt from earlier this season, instead doubling down on the pomp and circumstance. Thus she suffers a second and third stroke, both horrifically framed circumstances.

But in-between the second and third, there’s a wonderfully written scene at Margaret’s birthday party, where Margaret threatens to reveal what happened at the Ritz, until Elizabeth intervenes. Her speech smartly underlines their relationship, the spirit of Margaret, and what she means to the royal family.

Princess Margaret is among the best of the show’s many characters, in all her iterations. Ritz gives her a send-off worthy of her earlier self, and it’s easily the best of this batch of episodes. I had wondered when and how the show would get around to commemorating the news of September 11th, and I certainly did not expect it to come when it did, as Margaret recovers. It’s an interesting thematic choice, one that maybe doesn’t make perfect sense metaphorically, but I don’t entirely dislike it.

The ultimate reveal of what happened at the Ritz on that fateful night is admittedly a bit of a letdown – turns out Elizabeth simply enjoyed a night of dancing and merriment. I don’t know why my mind, or the show, had built it up as something more scandalous, but god forbid the Commonwealth see their Queen as just another person. At least the final moments of the episode are sweet, if a little saccharine, as Manville appears to tell her younger sister’s self that they’ll always be together. The Crown won’t be the same without her, but at least we got one final reminder of why she was so beloved from the start.