Downton Abbey - Season 4 Premiere - Recap: A Good Cry
This is a review of the American airing of Downton Abbey - Season 4, Part 1. There will be slight differences from the original UK airing, necessitating a different approach. However, reviews for the original episodes can be found by clicking the "Downton Abbey" tag. Episodes from UK airings are tagged as "Series 4," while American airings will be listed as "Season 4."
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Downton Abbey has returned to American shores, and the premiere is a two-hour super-episode, a kind of patchwork quilt of narrative excess that is both exciting and meandering. The episode is titled as being "Part 1," and not "Episode 1," since this is actually a stitching of the first two episodes of the original UK airing, re-edited into one long, feature-length installment. Not that I'm complaining, since many of the plotlines that weren't exactly working in their original airings find new life here, primarily because they're taken care of rather quickly. No more waiting a full week to find out what the deal is with Matthew's will, or the feud between Carson (Jim Carter) and his old colleague/friend Grigg (Nicky Henson). Even the trouble Edna Braithwaite (MyAnna Buring) is trying to stir up feels more fleet and purposeful than it did on the first go-around. In short, this season premiere leaves a lot of optimism for how the editing of the American airing could help the early stages of Season 4 gain some much-needed momentum.
Most of the premiere is haunted by the figurative ghost of Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), as Mary (Michelle Dockery) spends nearly the entire episode teetering on the brink of complete emotional collapse. Six months have passed since Matthew was killed in a car crash, and the only person in a worse state of affairs than Mary is Matthew's mother, Isobel (Penelope Wilton), who wonders what purpose her life even has any more. Yet Robert (Hugh Bonneville) doesn't seem to want to address the effect it's having on her, believing that if they all simply leave Mary alone to her grief, time will take care of the rest. But Branson (Allen Leech) disagrees, and it's part of an ongoing character arc in which Robert is painted as something of a well-intentioned, misguided villain. It's not that Robert is a bad guy. Quite the opposite. It's that his excessive concern is actually making things more complicated for Mary, particularly once Robert discovers a letter among Matthew's belongings detailing his wishes for the estate, an embryonic will of sorts that may or may not be legally binding.
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It's clear to the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) that Robert would prefer that the letter have no legal standing, since he'd then be able to have complete control over the running of the estate. And while Robert doesn't want to own up to his position on the matter, it becomes fairly pretty clear once he gets on Mary's case about how little she knows of running an estate. Violet is resentful of Robert so desperately clinging to the patriarchy, and so she enlists Branson to bring Mary up to speed on the ins and outs of estate management, since she feels her granddaughter should have a say. The storyline helps in casting off the shadow of Matthew's death somewhat, as the show begins to develop Mary as a person who can exist outside the context of Matthew and what happened to him. In addition, the storyline exhibits a certain progressiveness that's been lost since the death of Sybil last season, as the late Crawley sister was among the few progressive characters on the show. Power is gradually slipping away from the patriarchy, and into the hands of the women who, in many ways, have helped Downton to thrive in the first place. I mean, really, you can't make heirs with just your left hand and a tin of Vaseline.
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On the subject of the women of Downton Abbey, let's rewind a bit to Mary's mourning period, as it gives us the best scene of the episode, between Mary and the Dowager Countess. Violet feels Mary should be thrown back into the business of life, offering her advice to Mary not as "the Dowager Countess" but as her grandmother. "What's the difference?" Mary asks, bitterly. "The difference is I love you," she replies. Though Mary apologizes for her sour attitude, she argues that whatever light existed in her character died with Matthew. "All the softness he found in me seems to have dried up and drained away. Maybe it was only ever there in his imagination." But Violet isn't content to let Mary lose herself to depression. "You have a straightforward choice ahead of you," Violet tells her granddaughter. "You must choose either death or life." Mary responds, "And you want me to choose life?" Naturally, this is a tall order, and Mary nearly loses herself to grief completely, even lashing out at Carson for attempting to speak plainly about her need to move on with her life.
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Mary visits Carson's quarters and apologizes for being so brusque with him, yet she's hardly able to take hearing mention of Matthew's name ("Mr. Crawley") without falling to pieces. After holding it all together for far too long, Mary finally lets it all out, sobbing her unfiltered grief as Carson holds her. "Cry, my Lady. A good cry, that's what's called for," he coos, as Mary weeps into his arms and confesses that she isn't sure if she's strong enough to go on. But Carson insists that Mary has a duty to Matthew's memory, to fight to keep his reforms for the estate from being undone, and to look after their son and keep his memory alive. Like the Dowager Countess, Carter proves himself to be one of the key figures of the show, without whom the show just wouldn't be the same. Moreover, his grandfatherly relationship with Mary is one of the best of the show, and long has been. Mary isn't exactly over Matthew, but she's at least facing the long road ahead, opting to take a more active role in the running of the estate once Matthew's will is declared legally binding.
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Yet while the Mary storyline takes a more pointed, serialized approach, many of the other storylines this week are in more of a vignette style. Downton Abbey is one of the more literary shows on television, as it works more like a giant novel or short story anthology than a TV show. This episode features a seemingly endless series of subplots that mirror a collection of short stories centered on new arrivals and old faces. Nanny West, the woman hired to look after baby George and little Sybil, is an absolutely monstrous woman who basically unnerves everyone. Even Thomas (Rob James-Collier) finds his inner-protector and stands up to her, since he's long been loyal to Lady Sybil's memory. Ultimately, Nanny West is exposed as a woman prejudiced against the Irish, calling little Sybil a "dirty half-breed," and Cora, who catches the entire exchange, fires her on the spot. It's a fleet storyline, but it's unmistakably satisfying, far more so than the love rectangle between Daisy (Sophie McShera), Alfred (Matt Milne), Jimmy (Ed Speelers) and Ivy (Cara Theobald), which still manages to be tiresome even though there's apparently less of it now than in the original airing.
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I also wasn't that crazy about the return of the Branson-obsessed Edna Braithwaite, who wastes no time starting up a feud with Anna (Joanne Froggatt) that ends up getting Bates (Brendan Coyle) a stern talking-to from Robert, who wants the feud quashed. But while I'm not crazy about a new social schemer arriving in Downton, this at least helps solve the mystery surrounding the departure of the show's other big schemer, as the series addresses the departure of Siobhan Finneran by explaining that Mrs. O'Brien has unceremoniously ditched Downton in favor of working as Susan Flintshire's ladies' maid in India. Naturally, the return of Edna brings up a new potential (ugh) love interest for Branson, but let's not dwell on that, since there are more encouraging romantic developments elsewhere.
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Edith (Laura Carmichael) might actually find happiness for once, as her relationship with Michael Gregson (Charles Edwards) can actually move forward now that he can finally get a divorce from his wife. Meanwhile, Lady Rose (Lily James) gets Anna to accompany her to a dance in town, where she plays a would-be ladies' maid and hits it off with a handsome working stiff, a storyline that is both sweet and reflective of the unfortunate nature of Rose's sheltered life. And hey, even Carson gets a bit of romance in his life, albeit of a belated sort. He's been holding a grudge against ex-colleague/friend Charles Grigg over a love triangle from their youth, in which the love of Carson's life chose Grigg over him. Yet Isobel (Penelope Wilton) convinces Carson to meet with Grigg one last time before it's too late, and it's there that Carson learns that the late woman -- Alice -- proclaimed on her deathbed that she wishes she'd have chosen Carson, and that she always loved him. Carson returns to Downton with a lighter step, high on the bittersweet feeling of a shadow love. It's actually really heartwarming.
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Ultimately, this first installment of Season 4 is dry, in parts. But it largely works by setting the stage for what's to come, rushing along plotlines that didn't entirely work in the UK airing (Molesley is broke! So Bates pretends to owe him money!), and giving us more of the stuff that really matters, such as Mary's development from someone who defines herself in relation to her widowhood, to someone who has life and purpose beyond her husband. Downton Abbey has a tall order ahead for Season 4, and it'll be interesting to see how PBS presents some of the more impactful storylines of the season.