Friday, February 26, 2016

Downton Abbey, the Aftermath

According to the spoilers, all’s well that ends well in the Downton Abbey finale, with loose ends nicely tied up or heading that way, and considerable happiness all around. That’s the kind of ending I Ilike.
But what happens next?
The last episode of the series is set on New Year’s Day, 1926. That means that a very major event is coming up quickly: the stock market crash, beginning on Wall Street and spreading around the world. Fortunes will be wiped out overnight. Fortunately for the Abbey gang, thanks to the wise management of Matthew, Tom, and Mary, all will be well, and the placid life of privilege will continue in that isolated little corner of Yorkshire.
But not so across sea. We know that Cora’s American family are extremely wealthy speculators. They will lose everything. Impoverished and humiliated, they will take refuge in England, where no one knows them and where they can sponge off Robert (who owes them a debt from decades ago, when he married Cora Levinson and got her fortune along with her).
Of course, the English family (except for Tom, perhaps) is more than a bit embarrassed by these crass family-members-by-marriage. Robert stuffs them all into one of the empty, outlying farms, and the well-brought-up Downton family members try politely to ignore them. The American visitors transform into permanent residents and offend all but the most brutish locals with their bumptuousness. On the bright side, this provides many an opportunity for nasty witticisms from Lady Mary and the Dowager Countess.
Romances and rivalries between the two family branches are inevitable.
This sequel series could go on for generations of Crawleys and Levinsons. All that’s lacking is the writer. I volunteer.