Hugh Bonneville (Lord Grantham) will appear in Doctor Who!
Y’all are right about the farmer’s wife. I stand corrected.
Is tomorrow night’s program the last episode? Is there another season, or is this it?
Last episode, but ITV’s ordered another series that’ll probally wind up being shown on PBS as well.
I loved this (USA) miniseries. Mary and Edith were uberbitches.
And if any of you repeat this, I’ll kill you. One must maintain image, donchaknow.
So I wonder what next season will be like. Eight episodes is enought time to cover WWI, but they could always skip over it and go straight to the '20s (though that would be really weird). Thomas is gone, I don’t see how they could feasible get him back at the Abbey. They might be able to work Gwen in somehow, she works at the local phone company and they could always have Matthew hire her as his secretary. As for the daughters; I don’t see Lady Mary reconciling with Matthew, but him getting together with Lady Edith sure would be fun to watch. Lady Sybil becomes a VAD nurse.
I like that O’Brien at least tried to redeem herself (while still thinking she was getting the sack) even though she failed. Of course it would’ve been a boy (I’m surprised it wasn’t twins). Correct me if I’m wrong, but since the Crawelys (Matthew & Isobel) have been repeadedly dining at Downton Abbey wouldn’t etiquette dictate that at some point they invite the Granthams to dinner at Crawely House (hence explaining Dowager Lady Grantham’s remark about never having tasted Mrs Bird’s cooking). I now Matthew is a bachelor and his social obligations would be different from a married couple, but he does have his mother living with him to serve as a hostess. he might not care, but she’d probally be very concerned with following etiquette.
I don’t think this is the dynamic. Matthew and his mother are not guests being invited to dinner. They are part of the household and family and they live on the estate. They just happen to live in another building. The Granthams wouldn’t expect to be invited to dinner by Matthew any more than you’d expect your son to invite you to his bedroom for dinner in exchange for having dinner with the family.
Crawleys, not Granthams, as such.
A great final episode, although a bit abrupt in ending with the Earl announcing at the Garden Party that Britain was at war. I couldn’t feel too sorry for Mary’s heartbreak at the end, given how she’d only moments earlier coolly torpedoed Edith’s hopes for the boring Sir Whatsisname’s proposal. I completely sympathized with Matthew for his frustration with Mary’s coyness and her opportunistic timing of whether or not to accept his proposal. Mary should’ve realized earlier that not only did she love Matthew, but her little brother might very well not live to inherit the estate.
Why would Thomas take a particular interest in medicine? Because it would keep him out of the trenches (assuming he was that foresighted as to the kind of war that was looming)?
I suspect many if not all of the Downton Abbey men, both servant and served, will end up in uniform.
War had not been declared when Thomas volunteered. He’s in for a living hell, of course. I think he knew the axe was about to fall and quit to avoid being sacked. He’ll probably reappear in the next season (yay!) as a shell-shocked wreck of a man after the war has spit him out. I had wondered earlier in this thread about how they were going to wrap up all the sub-plots in the finale, and I’m glad to see that another season is on the way. While the time period is the same as Upstairs, Downstairs, they are managing to make this series fresh and engaging, a tribute to all involved.
I missed how Mary sabotaged Edith’s potential proposal. Those two sisters deserve each other but after writing the letter, not sure Edith deserves any better.
Loved Maggie Smith in this episode, she had all the best lines! Put that in your pipe and smoke it :)!
LVBoPeep, Mary spoke to Edith’s intended at the garden party and, pretending not to know why he was there, said Edith was dreading a proposal that day from some boring old fuddy-duddy, her cutting impersonation of which had had them all in stitches. The deflated nobleman left the party shortly thereafter.
I agree, Chefguy. It’d be nice if they make a passing reference sometime to “those charming Bellamys we met in London.”
I don’t blame Mary for a second to torpedo her sister’s chance with whatshisname. Edith did write to the Turkish embassy about Mr. Pawmuk and said that “Mr. Pawmuk had died in the arms of a SLUT”. Yow, Edith had karma-back on that one. What comes around, goes around.
I was kind of surprised how it ended without any resolution as to the issues of Mary and Matthew’s relationship (or Edith or Sybil’s), given that the second series was not guaranteed when this was made. And at the end when O’Brien found out that the advertisement for the lady’s maid was for the Dowager Countess, I thought perhaps she’d kill herself out of guilt.
As for the second series, if it’s set during WWI, perhaps they’ll show the soldiers encamped on the grounds of the estate (as in Brideshead Revisited).
I haven’t had a chance to hear this Live Chat from Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley). But the AVclub said it reveals the year the show resumes. (Not the year we see it, but the year the characters inhabit.)
Edith had her relationship destroyed by Mary. Matthew gave Mary the heave ho at the end and Mary was left crying her eyes out.
Yes, but that doesn’t resolve things. I’m assuming that this was meant as a one-time thing, and therefore would have ended with everything wrapped up in a nice neat package, with Mary and Matthew happily married, Bates married to Anna and O’Brien and Edward getting what they deserved.
Why assume that the show was meant to only have one season? I’m pretty sure the production company hoped to get the OK to make more shows.
Thus the ends left to be tied up. Or blasted to hell in No Mans Land…
Given that it was the most expensive show ever filmed in the UK, the ratings had to be enormous to justify a second season.
Most shows that are on the bubble tend to wrap-up loose ends for the fans’ sake just in case the series isn’t renewed. I think an argument can be made that the ending of DA’s first season was sufficient to stand alone.
Upstairs, Downstairs question:
What was Richard Bellamy’s social position? I seem to remember that Lady Marjorie was the one born with a title not him. Was he a Member of Parliament?
How does the Bellamy family tree compare to the Grantham-Crawley’s?
Working from memory - it’s a long time since I saw U/D - I think the Crawley’s are way higher up the social ladder than the Ballamys. We’re talking the Earl of Grantham whereas - as you say - Richard Bellamy is a commoner (son of a parson) politician married to the daughter of an Earl.
I wonder why it was so expensive. It’s not like there’s a lack of costumes and scenery for period dramas in the U.K. (I could see battle scenes of WWI with hundreds of extras being expensive ,though on Upstairs Downstairs they didn’t show any come to think of it). Even renting a couple of horseless carriages - I’ve seen those here when car shows are being held.