‘The Crown’ dramatizes Prince Harry’s Nazi costume scandal, differing from his narrative

After six seasons and 60 episodes chronicling the history of postwar Britain through the eyes of Queen Elizabeth II, the series finale of “The Crown” has arrived on Netflix. Titled “Sleep, Dearie, Sleep,” the episode — which also finds Elizabeth contemplating her mortality and whether to step down from the throne to allow her son, Prince Charles, to ascend — offers a version of the incident which differs in key ways from the recollections Harry has presented in the hit Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan” and in his bestselling memoir, “Spare.” Though it ends in 2005, the series hints at growing differences between Prince William and Prince Harry, foreshadowing the brothers’ present-day state of very public enmity. For those who have somehow forgotten this milestone event, in 2005, Prince Harry — who had recently completed a gap year in Australia and Lesotho and was about to enroll at Sandhurst, the royal military academy — wore a Nazi uniform to a “fancy dress” party, as the British refer to costume parties, at a friend’s country estate. Harry eventually headed to a well-known costume shop in the village of Nailsworth, near Highgrove, his father’s estate, a place memorable mostly for its “musty, moldy funk.” Having narrowed down his options to two outfits — the Nazi look and a British pilot’s uniform — Harry called Kate and William for their input. Meanwhile, William selects a regal lion costume — one that looks nothing like the silly “feline outfit” Harry recalls in “Spare,” which consisted of a skintight leotard and a springy tail that made William look like “a cross between Tigger and Baryshnikov.” At the debaucherous party, complete with Roman soldiers on horseback and a queen performing Queen, no one outwardly objects to Harry’s Nazi costume.