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THE RECORD

Downton Abbey finale

9 p.m. Sunday, PBS

In these rude and crude times, how I wish Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, could dispense her wit and wisdom to a world she’d never live to see.

Can you imagine if Violet, an octogenarian in 1925, were to aim some of her best zingers at 2016’s most annoying and discourteous transgressors?

“Vulgarity is no substitute for wit,” she might say to any number of today’s politicians, pundits and social-media commentators. And, Violet, played to perfection by Dame Maggie Smith, could fix the self-righteous with that withering stare and ask, “Does it ever get cold on the moral high ground?”

Violet’s witticisms top the list of things I shall most miss about “Downton Abbey,” which airs its 93-minute grand finale at 9 p.m. Sunday. For several months a year over the past half decade, PBS’ highest rated drama has been a weekly respite from 21st century life, an escape to a world of manners, civility, magnificent homes, stunning and elegant clothing, a place where dignity was greatly valued.

As I write this, I have not yet previewed the finale of the sixth and final season on the press site, in part, because I want to be surprised, in part out of fear that I’d inadvertently spill spoilers.

These days, of course, it’s easy enough for anyone in America to find out what happens next, as the “Downton” finale was written about and recapped aplenty after it aired in Great Britain on Christmas night. What’s more, the final season DVD has been available for purchase since late January.

Still, I’d rather avoid specifics here and just ponder something that Hugh Bonneville, who played Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, said about the final episode when cast members did a press event in New York City in early December: “There are conclusions to a lot of wonderful stories, but not everything is tied up in bows,” he said. “It’s left to the imagination of the audience, for them to continue these characters’ stories in their own imaginations.”

Along the way, “Downton Abbey” picked up Primetime Emmy Award nominations as outstanding drama series four years in a row (for a total of 59 nominations and 12 Emmy wins, over its run), and lost two of its most beloved characters — Lady Sybil Crawley (Jessica Brown Findlay) and Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), deaths precipitated by the actors choosing to not renew their contracts. But at that December event, cast members and executive producer Gareth Neame suggested there would be mostly happy endings Sunday night.

https://www.northjersey.com/arts-and-entertainment/tv/at-wits-end-over-the-final-downton-1.1522992

January 24,2016

by Fr. James Martin, SJ

Like many other Jesuits I know (including many in my community), I’m a big fan of “Downton Abbey.” This is the case even though, as I wrote during its first season, I sometimes feel guilty about enjoying a show that is, in essence, all about England’s one percent enjoying their perks.

One of the charms of this wonderful show is its almost slavish insistence to authenticity. There was even a recent BBC special (which I watched, dutifully) about the man whose sole job it was to ensure the absolute authenticity of the show. The dress, the posture, the way that the family and the downstairs staff would eat, how the butler (not to mention the sub-butler) would behave in the presence of a lord or lady, and so on, are all the source of scrupulous attention. Nothing is left out, seemingly.

Which leads to one obvious question about recreating this period between the wars: “Where’s God?”

This was especially obvious at the long-awaited wedding, last night, of Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes (now Mr. and Mrs. Carson). There they were, in a lovely stone chapel, with a vicar pronouncing a Trinitarian blessing over their rings, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”

It was striking. Because all three of them have been otherwise absent from the series, now in its final season.

If you’ve read any books written at that time, or written about that time, you’ll find an England steeped in, well, religion. This is not to say that everyone was religious, or that some of the gestures were not simply window dressing, but many books of the time talk about vicars and chapels and Christianity quite regularly.

To wit, I’m currently rereading some of P.J. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and Wooster” stories, which are roughly contemporaneous, and there are more than a few vicars, vicar’s nieces, and vicarages peppered throughout. It was simply part of the atmosphere. It’s just as much an element of Bertie Wooster’s world as the Drones Club. (E.g., “‘There is the risk, of course that the vicar will recognize him….’ said Gussie broodingly.”) Or read “To Serve them All My Days,” by R.M. Delderfield, another novel, set in an English boarding school, which takes place during the same period. One of the main characters, Algy Herries, is an Anglican vicar.

So where is religion in “Downton Abbey”? Yes, I know we’re not at Brideshead (and yes, I know, not Anglican) but why do we never see Lord Grantham and his family saying grace before meals, even perfunctorily, as they surely would have? Why are they never at church on Sundays? After all, they have a chapel on the grounds of their estate, as far as I can tell. Why, in conversations about the right thing to do (which is about half the show) don’t they talk about, as they surely would have, the “Christian thing” to do?

In short, where, as this article wonders pointedly, is the vicar? https://the-toast.net/…/watching-downton-abbey-with-an-hist…/

Most likely, this is a case of the producers not wanting to offend the sensibilities of the English and American audiences. But it is interesting that authenticity only goes so far.

https://www.facebook.com/FrJamesMartin/posts/10153244286031496:0

At wits’ end over the final ‘Downton Abbey’

God and “Downton Abbey.”