‘Downton Abbey’ Season 4: Julian Fellowes On Matthew’s Death

Downton Abbey Season 4 is at our doorstep and writer Julian Fellowes is still discussing Matthew Crawley’s death in Season 3.

As we all know, actor Dan Stevens decided not to renew his contract and left at the end of last season. According to Fellowes, the only way to do a credible transition was to kill off the character.

It wouldn’t have been fair to make him leave Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) for any reason after what the couple endured the first two seasons, separation due to war, and his ensuing paralysis.

Now Julian Fellowes, creator and writer for the period drama, is speaking a little more about killing off Matthew and why that was a good thing for the show, even if it broke millions of hearts around the world.

Well the advantage of Dan dying at the end of last season as opposed to the beginning of the new one is we are able to have a six-month gap. So we don’t have to do funerals and memorials and all that stuff. That has all happened, rejoin the family six months after his death. The sort of subtitle of the series is the rebuilding of Mary, really.

Losing a main character is never a good thing for a long running show, but according to Fellowes his decision to kill off Matthew at the end of season three was the best choice for the future of the show.

In Season 4, Lady Mary is seen struggling to move on with her life and refusing to do away with her mourning clothes. Her mother, Lady Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) is pushing several suitors on her, but she is not interested.

Fellowes says that having to deal with the uncertainty of what happened to Matthew would have prevented the show from moving forward.

Do you agree with Julian Fellowes’s comments about killing off Matthew? Are you planning on watching Downton Abbey Season 4?