Thread: Downton Abbey--season Finale

With just one episode to go before the feature-length Christmas special
Downton Abbey video: will Mary end up with Henry or Tom?....Last in the season

Oh dear lord. Please no. Seriously? A thread about downton abbey?

Has TD finally turned into Mumsnet?

Jan { wife} enjoyed the series as it gave her a deep historical understanding of the period and the heritage, identity of England and Englishness. Television is the primary means by which people today learn about history.

Originally Posted by KEVIN2008

Jan { wife} enjoyed the series as it gave her a deep historical understanding of the period and the heritage, identity of England and Englishness. Television is the primary means by which people today get shown the rewritten history that the people are supposed to believe.

Fixed that for you.

As much as it pains me to agree with Kevin, Downton Abbey is an excellent depiction of changing life in England between the two world wars. It's well done, and is a good way to view a slice of the past.

@D44: I've lived in Asia for 40 years and know Asians from all economic strata. I've been in hundreds of their homes, and can count on one hand those that had anything resembling a library, or even the odd book lying around. Asians (and I exclude North Asians as I have never lived there) simply don't read, and they certainly don't now that every one of them has an electronic selfie machine fused to his/her hand.

If Kevin's wife found the show interesting, and educational by default, good for her. And for him for explaining it.

Originally Posted by KEVIN2008

Jan { wife} enjoyed the series as it gave her a deep historical understanding of the period and the heritage, identity of England and Englishness.

And there I was thinking you had no sense of humour.

Christ almighty, if that's what you lot base your opinions of us on no wonder you bombed our pubs.

It's a soap opera, ffs.

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

@D44: I've lived in Asia for 40 years and know Asians from all economic strata. I've been in hundreds of their homes, and can count on one hand those that had anything resembling a library, or even the odd book lying around. Asians (and I exclude North Asians as I have never lived there) simply don't read, and they certainly don't now that every one of them has an electronic selfie machine fused to his/her hand.

Very true. My wife initially couldn't understand why I had a room dedicated as a library. Then one day she wanted to know something, and I took her into the library and pulled out a book, gave it to her, and said "the answers in there". She now spends many hours a week in there engrossed in books, and can not remember the last time she took a selfie.

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

As much as it pains me to agree with Kevin, Downton Abbey is an excellent depiction of changing life in England between the two world wars. It's well done, and is a good way to view a slice of the past.

@D44: I've lived in Asia for 40 years and know Asians from all economic strata. I've been in hundreds of their homes, and can count on one hand those that had anything resembling a library, or even the odd book lying around. Asians (and I exclude North Asians as I have never lived there) simply don't read, and they certainly don't now that every one of them has an electronic selfie machine fused to his/her hand.

If Kevin's wife found the show interesting, and educational by default, good for her. And for him for explaining it.

Books are like kryptonite to them. The only Thai house I have been in with a library was that of a rich ex pat Cambodian and the library was a left over from dead falang husband. Been into quite a few teachers homes, no books apart from School ones. My BIL got his masters, I was amazed never seen him with a book, or on the web, all I ever saw him reading was the Thai Rath rag. His masters must have been in watching channel 7!

I know several Thais who have large book collections. They are writers. They don't do selfies. My other friends, who I doubt ever read a book, do selfies and drive me crazy with stupid videos on Line. Sigh.

My internet is my library,.....

Very true. My wife initially couldn't understand why I had a room dedicated as a library.

are the shelves labelled "conspiracy theories for dummies", "a kiddies guide to hamas", and "medieval quackery for beginners" by any chance?

Originally Posted by taxexile

Very true. My wife initially couldn't understand why I had a room dedicated as a library.

are the shelves labelled "conspiracy theories for dummies", "a kiddies guide to hamas", and "medieval quackery for beginners" by any chance?

You really are a tedious troll, aren't you?

If you had ever read a book, not least one printed prior to the Carnegie foundation initiative in 1913, you would understand that there is no need at all to read "conspiracy theories for dummies", "a kiddies guide to hamas".

Ever read a book that wasn't first published in Forum Magazine? Doubt it, doughnut.

First thing i built in my house when the kids came was a library.

Shelves full of books everywhere on every subject and at all different reading ability levels.

If they're bored they know what to do.

As for Downturn Abbey, i wouldn't watch that shite if you paid me.

Gosh, I've only just found out that tonight's episode is an hour and a half long!! Goody!!

End of Downton Abbey: What is a Sunday night without the Crawley family?


Stop all the clocks. That dinging bell in the servants’ hall is silent now. Never again will Lady Mary and Anna be reflected in the dressing-table mirror as the maid brushes her mistress’s hair and they explain the plot to each other.

Never again will Mrs Patmore squawk like a fox-invaded hen-house at Daisy for some culinary mishap. Never again will Mr Carson’s craggy face contort in pain because some young footman has served the soup in the wrong livery.

And Mrs Hughes shall not console that old stickler after this mortifying proof of “slipping standards”. Never again will Lady Cora call her husband Rabbit (it’s Robert, Milady, we know you’re a Yank, but you’ve been married to him since 1889). Lady Edith will never again be “poor old Edith”.

And – I’m really not sure how we are supposed to bear this – not once will we hear another mauvais mot from the divinely condescending Dowager Countess of Grantham. I don’t know about you, but she had me at “What is a weekend?”

Alas. The sixth and final series of Downton Abbey ended on Sunday night with a triumphant return to form. Fans (roughly nine million of us in Britain and an astonishing 120 million worldwide) will know from years spent observing the aristocratic Crawley family that a period of mourning is called for. Tom Bradby should wear a black tie during ITV’s News at Ten, which is the very least that Carson would expect.

Downton, which first appeared on our screens in 2010, is arguably the truest example of Sunday-night telly in the history of the medium – a deeply enjoyable mixture of human calamity set within a comforting framework.

Julian Fellowes’s genius was to paint a gentle wash of liberal sentiment over the cruelties of English social history and to present upstairs-downstairs not as two worlds bitterly divided by the lottery of birth, but as mutually dependent families with a common home.

Hugh Bonneville’s Earl of Grantham was lordly in his bearing, but his care for the welfare of his servants was pure Nick Clegg. Downton flattered the past and it flattered the present by saying we have more enlightened attitudes that they were groping towards. Critics complained that it was an absurd, paternalistic fantasy set in a National Trust theme park, but where’s the fun in complaining? As with drowning, Downton was lovely once you gave in.

Thankfully, the finale, which came at the end of a dull series, was an absolute corker. That trademark recipe of low comedy and high melodrama was served up on a silver salver. Mrs Patmore’s bed-and-breakfast venture came a cropper when the first guests turned out to be an adulterous couple. “An 'ouse of ill repute,” she moaned Yorkshirely.

Meanwhile, the Greek tragedy littered with corpses that is the Crawley sisters’ love life was coming to a climax. Fans predicted it would be Lady Mary who would finally remarry after her husband Matthew spoiled the nation’s Christmas by dying in a car crash. (After surviving the war! After his broken spine had healed itself and he sprang from his wheelchair in time for dinner! After his fiancée died so considerately of Spanish flu and he could marry Mary! After they overcame infertility and had Master George!)

Well, we were almost right. In a delicious twist, however, it is Lady Edith, doomed from birth to play the ugly duckling, who bags the bigger prize. Edith’s boyfriend, Bertie Pelham, a land agent, was promoted overnight to Marquis after his “delicate” third cousin died in Tangiers. (Delicate and Tangiers being Downton code for homosexual.) “Golly gumdrops,” cries Lord Grantham.

Lady Mary, however, is in no mood to celebrate, having just rebuffed the racing driver Henry Talbot. For what has Henry to recommend him except respectable birth, wonderful good looks, a phenomenal way with a gear stick and an ability to love a spoilt princess with three facial expressions?

Even by Downton standards, breakfast is tense. Mary receives the news of her sister’s engagement with all the warmth of a woman who has swallowed a hedgehog. She congratulate Bertie on his courage in choosing a bride with such a murky past. Oh, didn’t he know that little Marigold was Edith’s illegitimate daughter? Ooof!

“I know you to be a nasty, scheming, jealous bitch,” shouts Edith, who has just entered the Guinness Book of Records for the shortest engagement in British history. As Lady Cora observed ruefully, back in Series One, when you have daughters “you think it’s going to be like Little Women, but they’re at each other’s throats from dawn till dusk”.

Everyone tells Mary that Henry Talbot is perfect for her, but she won’t listen. “Nobody can believe I know my own mind,” fumes Mary. As if that weren’t enough drama, the footman Thomas Barrow decides to slash his wrists in the bath.

The self-slaughter of Downton’s scheming Iago would once have been a result. Lately, though, Thomas has been rehabilitated as a sensitive soul (both delicate and Tangiers), a development that is as disappointing as the Dowager Countess telling her granddaughter, “I believe in love”. How frightfully common.

But this is Downton Abbey, where each wasp must lose its sting and everything in the garden is lovely. So Lord and Lady Grantham agree to take tea at Mrs Patmore’s B&B, instantly restoring the reputation of the 'ouse of ill repute. Barrow gets over his near-death experience when Master George brings him an orange. The only hint of disapproval is from the biggest snob of them all, Mr Carson: “A suicidal footman in the attic. What are we coming to?”

Lady Mary marries Henry Talbot and smiles for only the fourth time since the Titanic went down. Despite everything, Lady Edith comes back for the wedding: “Because, in the end, you’re my sister and one day only we will remember Sibyl. Or Mama and Papa, or Matthew or Michael. or Granny or Carson or any of the others that peopled our youth. Until, at last, our shared memories will mean more than a mutual dislike.”

It was a moving speech because Edith could have been talking about Downton itself, the way in which this TV drama has become part of our shared national experience, laid down in the memory like a wine in Lord Grantham’s cellar.

That achievement is not thanks to the script, but to one of the democratic glories of this country, a company of great actors - Jim Carter, Penelope Wilton, Maggie Smith, Brendan Coyle, Joanna Froggatt, Phyllis Logan, Hugh Bonneville, Dan Stevens – who could turn a National Trust tea towel into Shakespeare.

There is to be one last Downton Christmas special. Dear Anna will give birth, but, as a fan, I predict that baby Bates’s entry to the world will be perilous, involving a/A blizzard b/Mrs Crawley’s nursing skills and Mrs Patmore’s boiling water, and c/Henry Talbot speeding to fetch Dr Clarkson (please don’t die like Matthew).

The Dowager Countess will observe that it’s vulgar to have a child on Jesus’s birthday. As always, Lord Grantham will pretend he hasn’t heard Mama and, with tears in his eyes, will raise a glass and welcome a new life to that venerable old house. Never again.

Golly gumdrops, Downton, we’re going to miss you.

End of Downton Abbey: What is a Sunday night without the Crawley family? - Telegraph

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

@D44: I've lived in Asia for 40 years and know Asians from all economic strata. I've been in hundreds of their homes, and can count on one hand those that had anything resembling a library, or even the odd book lying around. Asians (and I exclude North Asians as I have never lived there) simply don't read, and they certainly don't now that every one of them has an electronic selfie machine fused to his/her hand.

Very true. My wife initially couldn't understand why I had a room dedicated as a library. Then one day she wanted to know something, and I took her into the library and pulled out a book, gave it to her, and said "the answers in there". She now spends many hours a week in there engrossed in books, and can not remember the last time she took a selfie.

So she can't use the internet then?