The Last 'Downton Abbey' Review: The Happy Endings Everyone Deserved?
Downton Abbey closed out its run on Sunday night with a finale that tied up every loose end with a smiley-face sticker: Clearly creator Julian Fellowes had decided there would be no surprise deaths or lingering unhappiness settling over this series like a funereal fog. Instead, to quote the Anglican hymn Lord Grantham probably doesn’t know because he’s not a regular church-goer, all things bright and beautiful suffused Downton with a rainbow of contentment.
Warning: Spoilers follow for the series finale of ‘Downton Abbey.’
My biggest worry had been about Mr. Carson’s wine-pouring hand, and while even Fellowes knows that only God can stop the palsy, he is a god-like dramatist who engineered the return of the now-thoroughly-redeemed Barrow so that they can go into their lackluster futures helping each other in co-butlering.
Lady Edith was reunited with the P.G. Wodehousian Bertie, and made amends with her sister, telling Mary what the ice queen already knew: “You make me miserable for years and then you give me my life back.” Me, I liked it better when Edith simply called Mary a bitch.
That said, I should emphasize that I am eternally pro-Mary. Glad to see she’ll be as happy as Mary can be with her used-car salesman — you know, the Guy Who Should Have Stayed On The Good Wife.
(Speaking of things American, thank goodness Shirley MacLaine didn’t make a return cameo — Fellowes must have wisely concluded that her character was, along with Paul Giamatti as Lady Grantham’s brother, the low point of broad humor in this series.)
The baby boy born to Anna and Bates ought to finally put a smile on Anna’s sad face, but given her neurotic inability to be happy, I’m sure she’ll soon be turning a stricken gaze upon Bates, and confess she’s sick with worry that the infant is having trouble feeding at her unworthy breast.
Toward the end, couples were pairing off — or having implied pairings-off — at an almost alarming rate. Daisy with Andy, a character brought on late in the series for, in retrospect, the purposes of (a) making Barrow look like a decent chap and (b) being the one man who might be able to tame the obstreperous Daisy. But can you imagine Daisy, Andy, Mr. Mason, and Mrs. Patmore all living happily under the same roof of the pig farm? I cannot; I think the pigs themselves will move out when the yelling starts. More pairs: Schoolmaster Molesley with Baxter; Cousin Isobel with the Thin White Duke With Not-Fatal Anemia; Tom with the bouquet-grasping Publishing Spitfire.
Related: ‘Downton Abbey’ Postmortem: Inside the Series Finale’s Big Moments
The episode had its share of anti-climaxes. The Dowager Countess finally found out about Spratt’s side career as an advice columnist and… she could not care less — not even a suggestion of fireworks there. (I liked hearing his job referred to as being an “agony aunt,” a phrase I haven’t heard since my last re-rereading of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts.)
I wrote earlier about why so many people loved Downton Abbey, and really, there wasn’t much Fellowes could do except to tidy up loose ends in a most optimistic way: The fan-base of Downtown Abbey has always looked to the series for comfort and warmth, and so to bring the icy chill of death or any sort of destruction would have been interpreted by most viewers as a betrayal. The final Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations of Downton Abbey remained just that: toasty final celebrations.
Related: 'Downton Abbey’ Series Finale Recap: A Happy Ending
