Parting thoughts on “Downton Abbey”

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WARNING: Massive spoilers ahoy. Tread lightly.

Another picturesque morning dawns at Downton Abbey and finds the extended Crawley clan – Lord Robert Grantham and his wife, Lady Cora; their headstrong and heretofore unattainable daughter Mary, with her freshly pressed husband of less than five cumulative wedded minutes onscreen, the former race car driver Henry, and her young son from a previous marriage, George; their perpetually lightning struck middle daughter turned surprisingly capable modern woman, Edith, and her official “ward” but natural daughter, Marigold; their Irish widower son-in-law, the former revolutionary turned estate agent and erstwhile matchmaker, Tom, with his daughter Sybil (named after his late wife, the Grantham’s youngest daughter); their cousin Isobel, sensible, empathetic mother of the former widow Mary’s late first husband – strolling the grounds and talking idly about this plan or the other, in no particular apparent hurry to get any underway. To see this group of “formers” together, content, convivial, and out of doors, freed of the magnificent bunker that is its ancestral castle and largely unencumbered even by fawning servants, is our first indication that things have somewhat changed Continue reading “Parting thoughts on “Downton Abbey””