First things first about the season four finale of “Downton Abbey”: No, you didn’t miss a few episodes.
The “Christmas Special” episodes which cap these seasons air weeks after the rest of the seasons end in the U.K. — actually running on Christmas Night there.
So some six weeks pass in England between the final episode and the special. Enough to allow some time to go by in the story, but it turns out as the story began Sunday that a whole year has gone by since last week’s episode.
It’s now the summer of 1923. Edith isn’t talking about going to Switzerland to do something with her baby; she’s had the baby, lost any baby weight and is back to the abbey (It was a girl, and left with a family there as they had planned).
But everything else is just about the same as it was at Downton a year ago (that is to say: an episode ago).
Mary is still juggling the affections of two men (she mentions a third, Evelyn, but he’s pretty much out of the picture). The Bates are still healing but way better than before. Lord Merton is still nosing around Mrs. Crawley; the school teacher in town still runs into Branson; Barrow is still trying to squeeze information out of Miss Baxter, who is hanging out even more with Molesley.
The big deal is the big society coming out for Rose, an event that brings Cora’s relations from America, which means not only a reprise of Shirley MacLaine as her mother, but now Paul Giamatti as her brother. “Downton” is popular enough now to draw big stars to guest star, but the bigger the name, the more you’re taken out of the drawing room drama.
What makes for a suitable Christmas special in the U.K., it turns out, is not great for a season finale. Instead of a big cliffhanger or dramatic turn, as happened the last two seasons (marriage! death!), this one is more like a stand-alone movie, with all your favorite characters but the kind of action that doesn’t advance the story, seems sillier than most, and is resolved by the episode’s end.
We do get a glimpse of celebrities of the day for the first time, from King Edward V himself to the Prince of Wales, which moves “Downton” more into the kind of world that the failed updated version of “Upstairs, Downstairs” attempted.
Still, fans must have relished moving the action to London for the episode (just as they moved to Scotland for last season’s Christmas special/finale).
Suddenly, Rose has a number of friends her own age, one of whom is flirting with the Prince of Wales; another of whom is flirting with Giamatti, which he finds as odd as the audience does. He’s supposed to be playing the Ugly American (one involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal no less), but his initial disdain for England and English food disappears as he becomes a nicer man.
His mother is fending off another suitor — James Fox playing Lord Aysgarth, a man looking to keep his standard of living by perhaps marrying Cora’s rich mother, who has cottages at Newport, we learn. She’s too much of a free spirit to be tied down, it turns out.
It takes a while for everybody to get to London, so when Branson is still home he runs into Miss Bunting and has dinner with her in the village; she’s curious to see the big house so he takes her there. Barrow, already angry he has to wait on the former chauffeur, tells Lord Grantham he’s bringing ladies around to the bedroom level.
In London, there’s all sorts of intrigue about a supposedly naughty or otherwise scandalous letter penned by the Prince of Wales. When Rose giggles about it, Lord Sampson, the card sharp from earlier in the season, snares the letter probably for ransom.
A hilarious diversion is set to retrieve this letter: Lord Grantham decides to keep Sampson busy with another card game, Bates forges a letter allowing others to ransack Sampson’s room, still they cannot find the letter. But when Bates, who has other street skills besides forgery, helps Sampson on with his coat, he also grabs the letter from a pocket. Problem solved.
Bates has his own coat problem. When Anna grabs one of his old coats for a charity drive, a ticket is found inside that he was indeed in London the day that the rapist Green died. Bates had gotten that day off to go to York. Not that this is enough evidence to prove he murdered Green, but there is great consternation about whether to make this deception public or not. Mary is very moral about this at first, but when she sees that Bates has stolen a letter that will keep the family out of trouble, she burns the ticket and the case is closed.
The valet that accompanies MacLaine’s Mrs. Levinson to America gets sweet on Daisy and finds a way to have his boss hire her to be a cook in America. She declines ultimately, but Ivy volunteers herself and boom, she’s gone with the rest of the Americans by next season, we imagine.
Mary’s love life doesn’t advance, but she does learn that Blake is actually from a rich family, possibly altering her eventual decision.
Edith is still without Gregson, whose disappearance is now tied to a beatdown by brownshirts in Germany. She frets about her baby decision to the point where she is determined to go back to Switzerland, grab the baby from the family that has adopted her, and have the pig rancher on the property raise her as his own. It’s an outrageous thing for her to do, but nobody can stop her and the rancher also agrees he can do it. Edith is just a pill.
Rose is presented at the debutante ball, and the Prince of Wales comes to her dance afterward because he’s so happy the Granthams saved him by finding that letter.
The staff gets a one day outing for all their hard work in London, so there’s a seaside scene capped by Carson and Mrs. Hughes wading out in the water, holding hands. Cute, but hardly a season-capper.
And certainly not the thing to make one wait anxiously 10 months for season five.
For all the talk of time passing the denizens of Downton by, maybe it’s starting to bypass the series as well.