Things To Watch: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Title: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Quote:

KRUSTY: Now, when the wealthy dowager comes in, the party’s over, right? Wrong! [hits dowager with pie]
HOMER: [writing] Kill wealthy dowager.

Brief Plot Synopsis: Rich Brits enjoy brief lull in world wars.

Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 sensible chuckles out of 5.

Tagline: “The time has come to say goodbye.”

Better Tagline: “Eat the rich.”

Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Time marches on, even for aristocrats. Lord Robert and Lady Cora Crowley, the Earl and Countess of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern) are faced with financial turmoil (again) as they prepare to turn over Downton Abbey to daughter Mary (Michelle Dockery). This in spite of her recent scandalous divorce, which threatens to make her a pariah on the British social scene. Meanwhile, the Countess’ brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) is dealing with money troubles of his own, and has brought along fellow American Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola), who has some potentially unwelcome ideas about solving them.
“Critical” Analysis: “Sometimes I feel like the past is a more comfortable place then the future.”

That’s a non-throwaway line said near the end of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale by Mr. Carson (or Mr. Bates … one of those guys) that, in the immediate sense, addresses the (for them) galvanic changes taking place at the storied Yorkshire estate. The year is 1930, after all, and while the aristocracy is (slightly) falling out of favor, upper class mores are still formidable obstacles to, say, divorced women poised to take over their family’s ancestral home.

Lady Mary is hardly the only person in Downton confronted by personal upheaval. Young assistant cook Daisy Parker (Sophie McShera) is about to take over for the retiring Mrs. Patmore, while longtime butler Mr. Carson (Jim Carter, who I just remembered played Déjà Vu in Top Secret!) is stepping down, replaced by Mr. Parker (Michael Fox). And everyone is grappling with the recent demise of the Dowager Countess (the late, great Maggie Smith). They’re dealing with a lot of shit.

But as in seasons past, outside world intrusions mostly serve as mild inconveniences (the occasional Titanic sinking notwithstanding). Snotty Americans like us — who used to be able to mock other countries’ despotic rulers — can roll our eyes at the thought of being forced out of a royal reception due to our marriage failing, but the loss of social standing counts as Serious Business in the Julian Fellowes-verse.

Fellowes, before creating Downton Abbey, made his bones on the shenanigans of stodgy Brits, winning an Oscar in 2002 for Gosford Park. That and Downton, and newer Fellowes efforts like The Gilded Age, serve as a kind of comfort food for a … certain demographic, with any social critiques comfortably swaddled in elegant wardrobes and sumptuous locales, while potential disasters either come to nothing (Mary’s “unladylike” pursuit of pleasures of the flesh) or are deus ex machina’d off screen (Anna’s rapist in season five). Familial rifts are temporary, and life marches on.

Not that Fellowes has been shy about killing off occasionally beloved characters (my mother quit the show after Matthew’s car accident), the better to reinforce the stiff upper lip of it all, I suppose.

But these movies are nostalgia, nevertheless. The horrors of The Great War and the 1918 pandemic may drift over the transoms of the Granthams’ lives, causing temporary consternation. But in the end, things are wrapped up nicely with a cup of tea and the reinforcement of comfy class divisions.

The Grand Finale is more of the same from Fellowes, and that’s fine. If you’re going in expecting some significant deviation from the formula that made the series one of the most successful programs in British TV history, you’re going to be disappointed. For everyone else, there’s plenty of pithy rejoinders and dazzling gowns to go around.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is in theaters today.