Downton Abbey: An Appreciation

Recently I finished a binge of Downton Abbey, the British period drama about the wealthy Crawley family and their servants downstairs in the 1910's and 1920's.  My uncle is a huge fan of the show and has been encouraging me to watch it for years.  I finally took the plunge and couldn't be happier about getting to spend my summer with these characters.  Please don't read any further if you don't want the show spoiled for you, because I will be discussing some key plot points.

The vividness of the characters really stands out to me as one of my favorite parts of the show.  Even though it's set a century ago, the characters feel so real, like they could exist in the world even now.  The large and somewhat rotating cast never feels TOO large; instead it allows for endless opportunities to explore the relationships between them.  And each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, like any real person.  Patriarch Robert is persnickety and often disagreeable, but he dotes on his wife Cora and daughters Mary, Edith, and Sybil.  Speaking of Mary, she's vain, selfish, and manipulative- my least favorite character on the show.  But she isn't completely irredeemable, because she has a close bond with her maid Anna and looks out for her like a real friend (not just an employer) would.  Edith is often weak and a little whiny, constantly clashing with Mary, but she's deeply compassionate and loving to her family, especially her illegitimate daughter Marigold.  Head butler Carson is staunchly conservative, stuck in the old ways of the 1800s, but he cares deeply for the family that he serves and is loyal to a fault.  Under-butler Thomas, one of the most complex characters on the show, schemes and manipulates multiple characters, but this only serves as a distraction to his "never-fully-accepted" identity as a gay man, which must be suppressed in a time that would never allow such a thing.

The sadist and trashy tv-lover in me also loved the multiple shocking deaths throughout the show's run, often envying that of action dramas like 24, as well as many of the other insane plot developments.  You definitely won't get bored watching this fairly fast-paced show.  Sybil's death during childbirth early in season 3 completely took me by surprise, as did the show's decision to keep on her chauffeur-turned husband Tom for the remainder of the series.  The most talked-about death on the show was definitely that of Mary's husband Matthew in a car accident just after the birth of their son, but this didn't have as much of an impact on me because I already knew about it even before I began watching the show.  There was also the death of Matthew's ex-fiancée Lavinia from the Spanish flu and the wartime death of footman William, who married kitchen maid Daisy on his deathbed. 

Speaking of intense plot developments, the most impactful storyline to me was the brutal rape of Anna by the butler of a man visiting the abbey.  For close to an entire season she kept the rape a secret from almost everyone, including her husband Bates, due to the intense shame and fear that she felt.  Actress Joanne Froggatt was brilliant in these scenes, masterfully conveying Anna's unease long after the actual attack.  This plot also led to another engrossing storyline, the mysterious death of Mr. Green, the man who committed the rape.  Such intense plots were tempered by much-lighter and happier storylines, such as footman Mr. Molesley discovering his passion for teaching, Carson learning to appreciate the cooking of his new wife Mrs. Hughes, the Crawley family's head housekeeper, and the family's introduction to new and unfamiliar inventions like the electric hairdryer, electric toaster, and telephone.   

I can't finish this post without discussing the awesome Dowager Countess Violet, played by the wonderful Maggie Smith.  As Robert's aging mother, she easily steals every scene in which she appears.  She's stuck-up and stuck in her old ways, but she also loves her family, even though she's often mad at them for one reason or another.  Her bickering with her cousin Isobel, a much more progressive but lower-class woman, provides some of the best back-and-forth on the such.  A sample exchange:

Isobel: "I take that as a complement".
Violet: "I must've said it wrong".

While I'm sad to have finished all 6 seasons so quickly, I'm happy about the recent announcement of a Downton Abbey movie.  I can't wait to see it with my uncle and spend a little more time with these characters.