It seems like a decade since we stateside viewers were last whisked inside the cavernous halls of Downton Abbey. We remember it not so fondly. . . Julian Fellowes was out back hastily digging a grave for Matthew Crawley and dumping him in it during the final few seconds of the Christmas special—happy holidays!—after Lady Mary had birthed a replacement heir. Memories! The season-four premiere opens six months later, in 1922, with Lady Mary handling the loss of her darling cousin/husband Matthew with the grit and class that her ancestors—porcelain figurines, we think—intended.
Haha, no. Actually, Lady Mary is in the throes of a pity party so magnificently unsympathetic that even Anna, Mary’s sister from a downstairs mister, looks like she is this close to slapping the grief right out of her. Determined not to let any fresh air or lavender walking accessories kill her mourning buzz, Mary deposits her plump cherub, Master George, with Nanny West. Bidding him a fond farewell—“Poor little orphan”—she then gets back to her self-pity proceedings. If she can find the strength to do anything more than stare dramatically into the distance, we’re sure that she will work some sweatpants and the consumption of Chunky Monkey in bed into her grueling schedule.
Thankfully for us, there is already a scandal afoot downstairs, as O’Brien has up and gone in the night. No, not just into town to queue up for Best Buy’s post-holiday doorbuster sale—everyone knows how much O’Brien loves a good flatscreen deal—but to work for Robert’s cousin, Susan. It turns out that O’Brien was not completely turned off by the Flintshires’ marital strife in Scotland, and Susan was so desperate for a lady’s maid who could properly crimp hair that she poached the nefarious O’Brien out from Downton—whilst Susan’s own daughter, the rebellious Rose, is staying at the very Yorkshire manor. (Dear viewers, the twist was not written as a natural plot progression to O’Brien’s not-so-apparent cosmetological aspirations, but because actress Siobhan Finneran decided to bow out of the series after three seasons.)
With so many recent cast shake-ups—with Matthew and Sybil gone, O’Brien curling hair in India, and Mary’s body now inhabited by some kind of misery-thriving zombie—can we still find it in our hearts to move past the changes and embrace this frightening new world? Perhaps, if only because we are begrudgingly led into it by Lord Grantham—a traditionalist and new-world phobic of the highest order. If he can do it, why can’t we? During a glum walk and talk with Branson, Robert glosses over the estate technicalities of Matthew’s passing. Since Matthew has not left a will—never anticipating that he would be killed off in a car crash so cheap that Downton producers wouldn’t even show the fatal collision—Lady Mary is only entitled to a third of her husband’s worldly possessions. (We imagine that includes lots of hair gel and facial lotions.) The major stake of the estate will go to George, with Mary, in theory, overseeing until he comes of age.
Only Lord Grantham, slippery fumbling idiot that he is, has a plan: “Since I own half of everything, isn’t it more appropriate for me to manage the boy’s fortune?” Lord Grantham, who pays the bills in Monopoly money, asks. Isis, who has been correcting Lord Grantham’s business ledger mistakes at night, covers her eyes with his paws and whimpers at this absurdity. “Besides, [Mary] is in such a fragile state that the last thing I want her to worry about is money.” Lord Grantham, whose head Bates screws on each morning for fear that he may lose it, furthers his strategy by coddling Mary and enabling her pity party with a new batch of Ben & Jerry’s each night.
Elsewhere, in the Real World: Servants’ Quarters, it is Valentine’s Day! Hughes and Carson dispatch anonymously written love notes to the staff. Daisy, after successfully setting up a profile on KitchenMingle.com, is pleasantly surprised to learn that she has an admirer—possibly her crush, the tall, Lurch-ian Alfred. Sadly for her, the admirer turns out to be her squat kitchen superior Mrs. Patmore, who sent Daisy a pity Valentine. (The real pity party is upstairs, ladies!) Speaking of minor-note scandals, Mrs. Hughes intercepts a letter from Carson’s former Vaudeville performing partner, Charlie Grigg of the Cheerful Charlies. Only Charlie Grigg is not so cheerful these days—having stumbled on some hard times—and Mrs. Hughes, with no other plot to keep her busy, convinces Cousin Isobel, also still mourning over Matthew, to take him in.
Carson naturally does not approve of this needless meddling, nor Lady Mary being so glum, for that matter. He attempts to give Mary a much-needed reality check and suggest that, for the love of god, she does not concede her hold over the estate to her father. Carson rightly argues that her dear father will accidentally sell all of Downton for a lifetime supply of dog food, or something equally foolish. Only heartbreakingly, Lady Mary—horrid, Matthew-less Lady Mary—responds with a scolding so harsh that it would have been scored with “meow” sound effects had it played on Bravo. “You don’t seem to understand the effect Mr. Crawley’s death has had on me,” Mary hisses. “I am sorry you feel entitled to over-step the mark.” For Carson, the firmest believer in respect and role and rightness, to be told off by his adored Lady Mary is brutal. Even with shattered feelings, he manages to give her the best parenting she will receive all episode. “You’re letting yourself be defeated, my Lady,” he says before exiting. “I’m sorry if it is a lapse to say so.”
You’d think with one daughter dead, and another daughter gone Dawn of the Dead, Lord Grantham might be able to cough up some affection for Edith. But no. When Edith mentions that she is going into town to see Gregson, her married publishing paramour, Lord Grantham gives her nasty, Dowager-ian side-eye of disapproval. Fortunately, it seems as though Edith has come to grips with the fact that she will never be the favorite Crawley girl, even if all of her sisters are dead. She goes into London, looking as though she has raided Lady Mary’s closet, dines out with Gregson, and even kisses him in public. Ooh la la. Gregson, unhappily married to a loon, has done some research and realized that he can get a divorce if he becomes a German citizen and be with Edith for all of eternity. Edith seems pleased by the news, but also as though she is secretly steeling herself for another broken heart.
Back at Downton, Thomas has found himself in a feud with the new nanny, who scolds him for touching baby Sybil. We figured that the unlikable nanny is homophobic but as it turns out, she is downstairs phobic. After Violet catches her sneering at Sybbie—“Go back to sleep, you wicked little crossbreed”— she gives the nasty nanny her walking papers.
Alas, it is the ever wise Dowager Countess who manages to snap Mary back into reality by telling her that she has to choose between life and death. Having said the magic words, Mary’s blank stare suddenly disappears, her frostiness thaws, and she says, “You think I should choose life?” “Duh,” the D.C. says. The transformation from Zombie Mary to Alive Uptight Mary is underscored by outside shots of springtime and flowers. At the end of the episode, Mary makes nice with Carson, collapsing in a heap of grief sobs downstairs, and showing up to a very important business meeting on behalf of her son, to Robert’s consternation. Looks like he won’t be able to make that very important dog-food trade after all.
In retrospect, Lady Mary’s premiere pity party was so miserable, for both the house and viewers, that we can’t help but wonder whether the plotline was a subliminal message to Matthew-grieving fans who have been logging their complaints about his sudden death for the past year. Maybe by providing us with a Downton funhouse mirror to our own grief, Fellowes is encouraging us to move past Matthew’s death and look forward to life (and Robert’s lousy business decisions) in season four.
Line of the episode: Without any great Dowager disses in the episode, we award Carson with the best line of the episode, which we hope is an indicator of a plot to come. Amidst all of the Valentine chaos downstairs, Carson reminds Hughes that matters of the heart are not so foreign to him. “I’m not a complete stranger to romance, Mrs. Hughes, if that is what you are implying,” he says. Fingers grossed that Fellowes is laying the groundwork for a steamy love interest for Carson this season. His cobwebbed heart could use it!
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