A Grand Goodbye Awaits Both Upstairs & Downstairs in 'Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale'

Downton Abbey is celebrating its 15th anniversary this month, which seems somehow impossible—how can this documentary about the triumphs and travails of Lady Mary and her family and servants a century ago only be turning 15? I know the pandemic messed up our sense of time, but this is ridiculous. (Hey remember when there was a pandemic in Downton too? Good times, good times.) And the franchise—created by Julian Fellowes, the man also responsible for The Gilded Age—is marking said anniversary by calling it quits. Yes after six seasons, five Christmas specials, two movies, here comes the third and (supposedly) final film titled Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, to kill all the characters in a Melrose Place like explosion of the Abbey bidding them all one final gruesome adieu. Wigs in trees, I tells ya!

Is it a spoiler to say that’s not what happens? Because it’s not. Check one possible outcome off the list. Instead The Grand Finale is one long, sumptuous kissy-fest for the characters and the fans—a two hour and three minute love letter to those who’ve stuck with Grantham & Co. all these many rollercoaster years. After all Fellowes now has Rail Daddy and his friends and foes to focus on, so he spends the near majority of this third film tying up neat little bows on fifteen-year-long character arcs so we can all move on cleanly, fusslessly. White gloves immaculate.

Indeed it’s almost comical how little fresh Big Drama is packed into The Grand Finale. A few half-cooked money woes (the sort we’ve seen this series sweat its brow about a thousand times before), a divorce and a sexy conman, a couple of retirements and the staging of the local community fair are the sum total of it, and most of that gets sorted out with very little fuss by the film’s mid-point. Out of the three movies this one is by far the one least concerned with having much of anything for new fans—there are deep-cut callbacks to storylines that populated the pilot episode (yes a certain Turk gets a shout-out) for god’s sake.

We open with the Granthams greeting a new decade—it’s 1930, and the family’s in London for the season. Kicking things off in the big swinging city allows director Simon Curtis (who also directed the fun and frothy previous film A New Era) to really drive home how much the world has changed since 1912, where the series began—Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and her once-frumpy sister Edith (Laura Carmichael) are now the picture of chic flapper-dom, taking tea at outdoor cafes and swanning through upscale stores their arms loaded with bags. These opening scenes are the purest distillation of escapist shots and chasers that we’ve been coming back to Downton for this past decade and a half—style, grace, wit, a world removed brought to fabulous life.

And speaking of fabulous—the first major event we visit alongside the Granthams in London is a play written by no less than real-life homosexual-legend Noël Coward (a deliciously camp Arty Froushan). Even better the play stars the grand gay film and stage star Guy Dexter (Dominic West), who was last seen romancing away the long closested and miserable footman of Downton, Thomas Barrow (Rob-James Collier), when a movie was shot inside the Abbey in A New Era. Now having found his happy ending, everyone seems very glad if a little bewildered by Thomas’ role in Guy’s life—for being his “personal manservant” they sure do hang on each other a lot!

All of this delightfulness comes crashing down soon enough though, as it must, because Lady Mary isn’t getting the center-of-attention spot that the Downton plots always demand. So it’s not long before the royal ball of one Lady Petersfield (Joely Richardson, having a blast skittering about in a tiara) comes to a screeching, shrieking halt. Lady Mary suddenly finds herself cast to the streets because of a headline-courting controversy she’s the center of. Oh poor rich girl Lady Mary. Will she ever find peace?

From there the Granthams run back to the warm embrace of their Yorkshire estate with their foxtails between their legs, and what follows feels the most like the television series that any of the movies have to date. This is not a complaint, just an observation—every character upstairs and downstairs has had one big want since episode one, and it’s The Grand Finale’s job to finally find it for them dammit.

Both the head butler Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) and the head cook Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) are retiring, and must make sure they’re leaving the place in good hands for the next era. And it’s not just the domestics facing big change—as promised in the last film, the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) is passing the baton of leadership to Mary. He’s just having some trouble letting go, what with the money thinning out, and the scandal that Mary’s found herself baked into certainly isn’t helping.

Will the locals set aside the rules of society past and embrace Lady Mary as the head of their community? Will their money problems be solved by the promised windfall coming from the off-screen death of Cora’s (Elizabeth McGovern) mother back in the States? Will the charming and handsome American businessman (Alessandro Nivola) who’s come to Downton with Cora’s brother (Paul Giamatti) manage to straddle, well, everything (ahem) and fix all of these problems at once with one quick thrust of his bared side-hip? (A bared side-hip is practically pornographic in the G-rated land of Downton—tres risque!)

Not all of the answers to these questions are yes, but Fellowes sorts it all out in fast and satisfying fashion so we can start giving each and every character the endings we’ve long wanted for them. Lowly cook Daisy (Sophie McShera) gets to wow everybody with her first big feast as the newly appointed head of the kitchen; one-time chauffeur Branson (Allen Leech) gets to sweep into town and save the day for like the fiftieth time. Heck even Barrow comes back to the Abbey with his fellow gays in tow—thankfully somebody realized that Froushan’s performance as Coward was too sublime to leave back in the story’s opening scenes, and so we get basically every character interacting with Noël Coward. Because why not? (His song sung to Lady Mary is queenly heaven.)

At one point Fellowes literally has the hapless footman-turned-screenwriter character of Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) turn directly to the screen and say “The writer really is the star,” and with all the goofy juggling going on in order to land this 15 full years of thatched plots satisfactorily you’re willing to hand him this indulgence. (Indulgences do come easy in this place.)

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale might leave newcomers as confused as the now dead Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith, admittedly missed) once was by the concept of “a week-end,” but it should satisfy anyone who’s ever considered themselves a fan of the franchise. Hell, lest he leave any grave unturned there are even spectral visitations from ghosts of Downton Past as Lady Mary has what can only be described as some sort of flashback seizure, all in thrall of slamming shut every last shutter and spelling out “The End” in big thick final-seeming letters. And if this is truly that, it’s a good’un. (Somebody might want to check in on Lady Mary though.)