'Downton Abbey' wraps up with (spoilers)
Series finale goes upstairs and downstairs and in my ladys chamber.
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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details of the series finale of "Downton Abbey," which aired Sunday on PBS' "Masterpiece."
In the end, no member of the household staff was hanged, for murder or anything else, and no member of the audience was left hanging.
In a satisfying, occasionally too satisfying, two-hour finale written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, we learned to pronounce "marchioness." That's the title Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) acquired upon her marriage to Bertie Pelham, marquess of Hexham (Harry Hadden-Paton), who groveled deliciously - and stood up to his formidable mother - to make up for breaking Edith's heart that other time.
It's to be hoped that her daughter, Marigold, will perk up now that she'll be living apart from her lively, officially unacknowledged cousins Sybbie and George.
The romantic in me was happy to see Edith settled at last, but I do worry about her career in publishing, Edith having become admirable in her own right in recent seasons.
And, OK, maybe I gagged just a little when Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), who once turned up her nose at a country solicitor named Matthew Crawley, pronounced herself "as proud as anyone living" to learn that her new husband, Henry (Matthew Goode), was giving up racing to sell used cars. His partner would be Tom Branson (Allen Leech), who, before he became Mary's brother-in-law, was the family chauffeur.
But while I was more than ready to let go of Downton Abbey, whose best days were behind it, I'm as happy as anyone to see some of its more tortured characters safely settled.
Their brushes with the law behind them, Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt) and John Bates (Brendan Coyle) welcomed a son on New Year's Eve, delivering in the very bedroom where Anna spent so many years fixing Lady Mary's hair.
Daisy Mason (Sophie Shera) bobbed her hair and finally found a beau worth having.
Thomas (Rob James-Collier) went away and came back and was in the right place at the right time when the butler Carson (Jim Carter) developed palsy.
Carson and his housekeeper wife Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan) were heard using each other's first names.
Robert (Hugh Bonneville) saw Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) in action at a hospital meeting and the earl had an a-ha! moment.
Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton) found happiness at long last with Lord Merton (Douglas Reith) - who was dying, and then wasn't (if we learned nothing from Downton Abbey, we learned that medical diagnoses are subject to change).
The dowager countess (Maggie Smith), pronouncing on Edith and Bertie's wedding, could have been speaking for all the denizens of Downton as she said:
"With any luck, they'll be happy enough. Which is the English version of a happy ending."
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