Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Like most movies based on TV shows, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale and its two predecessors aren’t standalone narratives so much as extended episodes — not that anyone still tuning in is likely to complain. Longtime devotees whose hearts still swell when they hear those opening piano notes 15 years after the series first premiered are clearly looking for an excuse to spend more time in this most comforting, sophisticated fictional world. On that level, The Grand Finale more than delivers. It’s a fond farewell that bows out at just the right moment and avoids overstaying its welcome. Not since two untimely deaths in season three has Downton Abbey truly dared to challenge its viewers, but it has continued to reward them.

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Unlike most of Peak TV’s standardbearers — your Sopranos, your Mad Men, your Game of Thrones — this security blanket of a show has never been about antiheroes whose various misdeeds force you to question whether you should root for them. It’s about fundamentally decent people whom the audience likes, even loves, and wants to see happy. The more you watch, the more inclined you are to forgive their flaws — and those of Downton itself, which, while endlessly enjoyable, is far from perfect.

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All the tried-and-true tropes we’ve come to expect from series creator and writer Julian Fellowes are once again present in the final chapter of this long story, which concerns the aftermath of Lady Mary’s (Michelle Dockery) scandalous divorce as she prepares to succeed her grandmother, the estimable Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith), as the mistress of Downton. As difficult as that is for her, it’s doubly so for her father (Hugh Bonneville) — his status will diminish as hers rises.

The series’ oft-repeated premise — that change is inevitable and we must adapt to the times — has never been subtle, but neither is it wrong. And while there’s a certain irony in following an inherently nostalgic TV show with three movies because neither the creators nor the viewers could bear the thought of moving on, it’s easy to overlook when the films themselves are so forward-looking. The upstairs/downstairs ratio has never been so askew, with the number of servants gradually shrinking throughout the series as the same realization dawns on marquess and maid alike: that grand estates like Downton have begun to outlive their usefulness. But how much of the past do we take with us as we step into the future?

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It’s also appropriate precisely because the series has been around for a decade and a half. Downton Abbey is explicitly about the passage of time, which we can now see in its characters’ faces and hear in their voices. The Grand Finale is as much a denouement as a climax, like a party with friends the night before graduation that brings to mind the true meaning of the word commencement: the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

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The question in shows like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos was whether the protagonist would survive the series finale. In Downton Abbey, it’s whether the eponymous estate will. The Grand Finale addresses that issue more directly than either the show or the two prior movies, ultimately settling on an appropriately bittersweet conclusion that, like the best endings, feels inevitable in hindsight.

It’s a fond farewell that bows out at just the right moment and avoids overstaying its welcome.

Not all your favorites are here. Lily James, who played Lady Rose in the latter half of the series, continues her streak of not appearing in any of the movies; ditto Jeremy Swift, whose snobby, fastidious Spratt was the ideal butler for the Dowager Countess. Having died in the last film — and, alas, in real life last year — Smith is also conspicuous in her absence as Downton’s most quotable character; gone but not forgotten, she’s mentioned throughout as Lady Mary prepares to succeed her. For as much narrative focus as that deservedly receives, however, it’s Edith (Laura Carmichael) — the overlooked middle sister whose run of terrible luck finally reversed at the end of the show — who most comes into her own in The Grand Finale. Confident and assured in a way she never has been before, she makes it clear that Mary isn’t the only one who inherited her granny’s quiet ferocity.

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Everyone else gets a proper sendoff as well. As Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and Carson (Jim Carter) prepare to retire after decades of service, newlyweds Daisy (Sophie McShera) and Andrew (Michael Fox) get ready to step into their shoes. Anna (Joanna Froggatt) and Bates (Brendan Coyle) have a second child on the way, Molesley (Kevin Doyle) and Baxter (Raquel Cassidy) are adjusting to married life and his new career as a screenwriter, and Lord and Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) ponder a big move. If you’re spoiler-averse, just know that it isn’t the people of Downton you have to worry about — it’s whether you’ll have enough tissues as you say goodbye to them.

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But say goodbye we must, even if we don’t want to. As her ladyship’s brother (Paul Giamatti) puts it in a classically on-the-nose Downton summation, “Sometimes I feel that the past is a more comfortable place than the future.” Truer words, and yet he and the rest of the family move forward all the same. If they can do it, so can we.