The Grand Finale’ Says Goodbye (Finally!)

Partings, as we all know, are such sweet sorrow, even the ones that seem to go on forever. Over a dozen years, six series, 52 episodes, five specials, and two feature films that played at a theater near you, Downton Abbey looked backwards at a bygone England beating back early-20th-century modernity with all its empirical might. Julian Fellowes’ upstairs-downstairs drama was a hit from the beginning in its home country; after the show began airing on PBS in the U.S. in 2011, it became a phenomenon. The ongoing saga of the Crawleys and their battalion of servants caused viewers to swoon over a portrait of aristocratic rule in the “good old days” — y’know, back when strictly upheld class systems had class!

World wars, pandemics, nautical disasters, revolutions — not even death itself (R.I.P., Matthew Crawley and Lady Sybil), or a fate worse than death, i.e. growing audience indifference, could destroy the family’s bonds or the loyalty of the hired help. Still, nothing lasts forever, not even franchises. By the end of the second film, the optimistically named Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022), Maggie Smith‘s Dowager Countess of Grantham left this earthly plain with one last parting bon mot (“Stop that noise, I can’t hear myself die”). Given that she was the bridge between the old and the new, and the soul and viperous wit of the series, this seemed like a good place to bid adieu once and for all. What do you do after the curtain goes down with such perfect finality?

The answer: cook up a ripe Yorkshire pudding of endless curtain calls. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale brings back the old gang for what’s promised to be one last roundabout of scandals, side eyes, stiff upper lips, sniffling goodbyes and soapy operatics. Sir Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) will spend “the London season” taking in the new Noel Coward play that’s all the rage in the West End, then throw a temper tantrum when financial woes dictate they must sell their house in the city. Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern), the Countess of Grantham, will once again look upon him adoringly and pat his head. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) will suffer the indignities of social pariah-hood because she is — gasp — a divorcée. She will also be seduced by a rakish American named Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola), courtesy of his snake-oil charm and several exquisitely made old-fashioneds, and nearly blackmailed. Her younger sister, Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael), and her husband, Bertie (Harry Haden-Patton), offer the occasional commentary from the sidelines.

Meanwhile, in the servants’ quarters, the longtime head butler Carson (Jim Carter) is set to retire — decades of raising one’s eyebrows at so many shocking examples of impropriety will leave a gentleman exhausted. So is the cook, Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol); the former scullery maid, Daisy (Sophie McSheara) will take over. Other stalwarts, such Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle), his wife Anna (Joanne Froggatt), ex-footman Andy Parker (Michael Fox), and the head housemaid Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), scurry about.

Some new faces show up, notably the single campiest version of Noel Coward (Arty Froushan) ever committed to film — the fact that the playwright does not get to trade barbs with the late Dowager Countess is akin to a war crime. (Every cutaway to the matriarch’s portrait or her empty chair stings twice as hard now, given that the irreplaceable Smith died in 2024.) Several familiar ones, such as Paul Giamatti‘s flustered Uncle Harold and Dominic West’s dashing actor Guy Dexter — who’s made good on his promise to sweep the household’s old, scheming servant Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier) off his feet — reappear as well. A big set piece at a horse race occurs, as does a lavish party and several other examples of luxury escapism that bring to mind those vintage “white telephone” movies that Hollywood pumped out in the 1930s. Progress here is represented by the kitchen staff being allowed to say goodbye to their rich patrons on the outside grounds for once. When it’s time to eventually shut off the lights, there are more climaxes than the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Despite the mix of succession-focused handwringing and a lot people busily running around, extremely little actually happens in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale — certainly not enough to justify a third feature. It barely even feels like a TV episode with benefits. So many worthy movies are denied a theatrical release these days, yet ironically, this victory lap would have been much better served had it just premiered on Peacock. The sheer pleasures, be they guilty or guiltless (your call), of watching people in elaborate costumes weep and scream and whoop “Huzzah!” that this show once doled out can now be found in Julian Fellowes’ other period show The Gilded Age, which may as well be called Downton and 3rd Ave.

Watching this extended exit interview, you quickly realize that it’s just an excuse to spend two more hours with these characters, and nothing more. For some fans, that’s more than enough. Other moviegoers may just feel a pinprick of longing for when the show’s first few seasons were airing in the early 2010s, and delivered a juicy version of Britain’s yesteryear at what now feels like a simpler time. Downton now just gives you nostalgia for old nostalgia. “Sometimes I feel like the past is a more comfortable place than the future,” one characters says wistfully, and you wonder why it’s taken this long for the franchise to say the quiet part out loud. Such exotic flashbacks of strict class boundaries no longer seem so quaint in our current eat-the-rich era, only antiquated. Go gently into the night already, for God’s sake.