Series creator Julian Fellowes and executive producer Gareth Neame talk about the happy endings in the finale and whether there will be a 'Downton' movie.
- Mar 7, 2016
AceShowbiz - Where the beloved characters ended up in the series finale of "Downton Abbey"? Almost everyone got a happy ending in the last episode which aired Sunday night, March 6 on PBS and on last Christmas in the U.K.
First, let's talk about Edith. After Mary almost ruined her engagement to Bertie in the penultimate episode, Mary attempted to make amends by setting up Edith to have a run-in with Bertie in London. Things went smooth for the couple after her father and Bertie's mom had a talk.
Mary, meanwhile, learned that she's pregnant again, but decided to hold the news until Edith's wedding so that she didn't steal the spotlight from her sister. Anna went into labor in Mary's room and she gave birth to her and Mr. Bates' baby safely.
Mary's new husband Henry and Tom decided to open a car dealership. There's also a hint that Tom started to fall in love with Miss Edmunds, the magazine editor, and Robert finally saw the positive side of Cora's work at the hospital.
On the sad note, Mr. Carson revealed he had Parkinson's disease and it's affecting his job. Thomas finally got a new job and left Downton Abbey, but he was super bored. Robert eventually rehired him as butler so that Carson could semi-retire while still living at the house.
Speaking about saying goodbye to these beloved characters, creator Julian Fellowes admits, "Obviously you're sad." He tells Variety, "You invent these characters and they become quasi-real to you so when you say goodbye there is a bit of a pang. But on the other hand, I don't think we've made a mistake. I haven't at any point since we made the decision thought, 'oh my god, what are we doing?' "
Fellowes also comments on the happy ending for almost all characters on the series. "I love happy endings... A long running series is very different from a movie. I can watch a tragic movie and enjoy it very much. You've been involved with these people for 100 minutes, and then you go home. I just watched 'The West Wing', and that ran seven years. You've been with them for so long, I wanted the cat happy by that stage. So I didn't want to disappoint people. There was a wonderful quote on Twitter: 'If Edith Crawley isn't happy by the end of the series, Julian Fellowes better sleep with one eye open.' "
For Edith, it was finally the time for her to be happy after a series of unfortunate events. Executive producer Gareth Neame explains, "I mean Edith has just gone on this journey that none of us had quite figured out at the beginning. But it sort of evolved. At every turn her life started moving the alternative direction from what she had planned. Then she works out that she's going to have this career."
He adds, "We certainly had increasingly felt that she had been so unlucky over all these years that it would make for a wonderful resolution if finally things would start to go right for her."
Carson, on the other hand, got the not-so-lucky ending. Exec. producer Liz Trubridge explains this, "Well, it's something that has been very close to Julian. Julian's father had that shaking. It's a bizarre illness, because it's not life-threatening in any way, but it is extremely debilitating, and it seemed a good story to explore. And it wasn't that it was completely bleak for Carson. There was a good scenario. There has to be a semblance of reality I think in everything, and not everything works out for everybody all the time."
There have been talks about the period drama getting a movie treatment. Fellowes responds, "I'm completely up for a movie." He adds, "There are various considerations, which of the cast would be available. That would be a big thing. If we couldn't get enough of them to do it, it wouldn't really work. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm completely up for it."
Neame echoes Fellowes' statement, saying, "There may be but still there's nothing to confirm at the moment. These are all conversations we are having. Julian and I haven't shied away from saying we would like to do it. The cast would be up for doing it. But it's a whole new thing to put together. It's a whole new beast. It's a whole way off were it to happen."
