Dave and I watched the Downton Abbey season four finale last
night, and I’m now curious to know what some of you thought about it. Here’s
what I thought:
Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed this season (particularly
as it progressed toward the final episodes). Thinking about it, I realized that
the main reason for this lukewarm sentiment was the lack of a compelling
romance. Edith’s romances are always, well, icky, and the Tom/school teacher
budding romance was uncomfortable at best. With Mary now free, there could have
been at least the beginnings of something good, but no; I don’t mind the “multiple
suitors vie for Mary’s attention” plot-line, but when they are all as boring as
a pressed white shirt, who really cares? (The last guy actually started out with
potential, but he pretty much became instantly boring once he fell in love with
Mary and started being nice to her. (At any rate, he’s nowhere near as cute or
charming as a certain blonde-haired lawyer from yesteryear). And poor Mary? She
started out convincingly heartbroken, but is now back to being as unlikable
(almost) as ever. If the writers don’t come up with a better male lead to
humanize her a little, I fear we are in for a lot more of this self-absorbed
heiress, “go ahead and try to win my affections” act.
What else happened? Well, I rather enjoyed Rose’s involvement
with the black Jazz singer; he was delightfully cast. Daisy’s crush on Alfred
(really, Alfred? –when cuter what’s-his-name guy was never good enough for
you?) started out amusing enough, but if I am honest it was starting to wear
pretty thin by the end of the season. And now Ms. Crawley has a suitor? Are we
supposed to care about him or just enjoy watching her squirm whenever he brings
her flowers and the like? The Anna/Bates conflict was by far the most
interesting story-line this season, but I don’t think they did enough with it.
Anna didn’t suspect Bates a little more given the arrows of pure hatred that he
was shooting across the table at Mr. Green? Does she, like, know her husband?
Did Bates confront the villain or simply push him into oncoming traffic with
all the grace and precision of a trained assassin? After all, we now know he is
a competent forger, a skilled pickpocket, and a very smooth liar. The season
finale certainly could have done more with that, right? Speaking of the season
finale, while killing off a main character every time seems far from necessary,
I would like to be at least half-way to the edge of my seat waiting to see what will happen in the next season by the time the current season comes to an end. (To be fair though, the season finale did include an
impressive number of gorgeous costume changes amid an apparently nonstop string
of high-society events.)
As far as season five goes, all we seem to know for certain is
that the Edith baby thing will explode (can’t say I’m looking forward to
that), and that Mary will be pressured to pick a suitor (blah). They could have
thrown some new complication into Mary’s love life (and, no, boring suitor #2
turning out to be super rich does not qualify). Or why not do more with Thomas’
scheming? We get vague threats that he has dirt on the new lady’s maid all
season, but we still have absolutely no idea what those secrets might be? Even
some revelation into what happened with Edith’s guy would have been
appreciated. Is he living a double life? How ‘bout a shot of his body lying in
a ditch? Come on, give us something to bite our teeth into! While the creators of the series are still nailing
the details like setting, dialogue and humor, I’m afraid that if they don’t put
a little more effort into major plot developments –or at least give us a decent
love interest to pine after- the glory days of Downton may be forever lost
somewhere down that dirt road near the smoking remains of Mathew’s car.
