INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

‘Downton Abbey’ Is Up And Running With The Final Season

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 12:30 PST, Jan 4, 2016

Downton Abbey is off to a great start on PBS after showing the full, final season on ITV in the U.K. Fans got a peek at where the Crawley family left off, and over the next few months, loose ends will be tied up. Starting off, Lady Mary was raked through the mud (literally and figuratively) while Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes did a complicated dance around their wedding plans. Anna is still under suspicion, and Lady Edith is still trying to decide if country life, or life in London, is right for her.

According to the Inquisitr, Downton Abbey did not come to an end because they ran out of story ideas, but rather because Dame Maggie Smith decided to throw in the towel, and move on to a new challenge. The show creator, Julian Fellowes couldn’t conceive of a Downton Abbey without the Dowager Countess, and he figured it was as good a time as any to wrap up the show.

The Seattle Times wrote that the season opener of Downton Abbey had some of the best one liners in the series. Spratt, the Dowager Countess’ man-servant delivered droll retorts when responding to her ladyship.

“Your ladyship’s humor is always a tonic.” Somehow, everything Spratt says — perhaps it’s the way actor Jeremy Swift delivers all his lines without seeming to move his mouth, as if he’s a ventriloquist — is hilarious.

And the Dowager Countess never disappoints with her delivery, especially when she is chatting with Cousin Isobel.

“Does it ever get cold on the moral high ground?”

A big fan favorite is always the cook, Mrs. Patmore, who comes up with cheeky comments seemingly with no idea that she is frankly hilarious.

“Mr. Carson wouldn’t be vulgar if you put him on a seaside postcard.”

The mental picture of Mr. Carson in a bathing suit on a postcard would make anyone chuckle.

E! Online published an interview conducted by Allen Leech (no ladies, luckily, we haven’t seen the last of Tom Branson) speaking to Mrs. Hughes, a.k.a. Phyllis Logan, primarily about the Mrs. Hughes/Mr. Carson engagement.

“I think that’s what, certainly, a lot of the fans of the show wanted to see happen. For some strange reason they were interested in this late middle-aged romance developing and I think Julian [Fellowes]—he likes to give the audience what they want sometimes, and not other times as well! In this instance, it was lovely that he saw the right path for both Carson and Mrs. Hughes that they should be destined,” Logan said.

After watching so many young couples pair off, it is wonderful for audiences to finally see someone over 22 find love.

The Washington Post helped Downton Abbey viewers get up to speed after an almost year-long wait since last season. The paper commented on conversations that went on in many American homes last night.

“Wait, who’s that guy?”

“I thought Anna was in jail?”

“Rose went to New York?”

“Isn’t Mary’s son supposed to be older than Edith’s daughter?”

Then, the shushing went on. The Post thought it would help by ironing out a few details.

“It’s 1925 at Downton — 13 years have passed since we first met the family — and now these noble folk are trying to hang on for dear life to everything they’ve got: property, tradition, money, secrets. Nipping at their heels are the wretched lower classes, who for some strange reason have become resentful of the aristocracy that has sent them off to fight their wars and kept them pinned down in dead-end jobs without opportunities to advance. Hey, that sounds like … never mind.”

It also addressed, politely, a conversation about sex over 50 without actually saying the word, when poor Mrs. Patmore got sucked into a conversation of manners that should have happened between Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson.

“Perhaps you could keep the lights off,” she suggested.

“Not helpful,” Mrs. Hughes replied.

Are you watching the final season of Downton Abbey? What are you hoping to see?

[Photo courtesy of PBS]

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