DOWNTON ABBEY Recapped (Mostly) Entirely From Memory: Season 6
So… I think the friggin’ dog dies?
Much like this show, we are limping to the finish line this week. It’s the final season of Downton Abbey and my final Downton Abbey recap. What was this all for? Who knows???
I think…we start with a dumb brief blackmail plot where some peasant lady is trying to extort Lady Mary, but I have no idea why or for what. It can’t be that Turkish guy still, right? Anyway, it barely even matters cause it gets resolved with money within the first 20 minutes or something.
Carson and Mrs. Hughes are preparing to get married, and suddenly it occurs to her that he’s maybe going to expect her to participate in sex with him. And she’s like, “Oh no, fuuuuuuuuck! I’m, like, 100 years old!” So, she gets Mrs. Pattmore involved, hahahahahahahaha! Like, to talk Carson out of a conjugal marriage or something? None of this is appropriate in the workplace! But it’s 1908 or whatever still, so no one cares, and Mrs. Hughes decides to embrace her sexuality and get married anyway for some reason.
Remember how Tom/Branson moved away to U.S. of America for no reason? Well, that didn’t last and he’s back now, which is fine because Allen Leech is adorable. (And if anyone knows where I can find this early 2000s gay movie he was in called Cowboys & Angels, def let me know!)
Uuuuuuhhhhh… So… I think the friggin’ dog dies?
Ummm…
Well, ok, full disclosure: A few weeks ago, an editor decided to pay me to do a Downton Abbey recap, but of only the gay stuff. So, I did have to go back and look up everything that happened to Thomas, which means that the following is not exactly entirely from memory. (Which is wild because I still remember next to nothing about this dumb gorgeous season hahahahahah uuuuugggghhhh.)
Everyone downstairs gets initially all suspicious of Thomas’s friendship with that new-ish footman Andy. They’re like, “Hey guy! Don’t get all sexually harrassy again!” But really, Thomas is just teaching the poor soft lad how to read out of the kindness of his heart which apparently isn’t all just rotten pomade and crushed cigarette butts after all.
Also, staff cuts at Downton mean that Thomas has to look for a new job. That does not go well due to the aristocracy being in decline and the age of rich white people ruling the world is over now. (😑) So, he gets super depressed because there are literally no other jobs in the world he would rather do than put clothes onto rich people, and he tries to kill himself. This makes everyone feel guilty for thinking he was just an evil gay schemer which is literally how he has acted the whole entire time they have known him, so Lord Grantham decides to let him hang out at Downton until he finds a new job.
Mary is still seeing Matthew Goode, who is still gorgeous and dashing in this way that is very much like they tricked a movie star into doing the final season of this soap opera and he will spend the next seven years trying to not participate in all the spin-off films. Also he’s a race car driver? And Edith is dating that other guy who turns out to be a duke or something, which is a big deal because of how no one ever expected anything but misery to ever happen to Edith.
I know Mary and Matthew Goode get married at some point like…late in the season? Like, I think there’s a whole thing about how she’s not sure whether to marry him because of how he’s not a Gentry or whatever, which is basically all Mary ever cares about even six seasons in. But, yeah, then they do get married so I guess that’s character development? Whatever! She looks fucking stunning finally.
Oh! Also, doesn’t Lord Grantham finally figure out how to make Mary his heir? I think that happens, right? Which, like, wasn’t the whole point of this whole show the fact that he couldn’t do that???
Then, I think the whole last couple episodes kinda center on…Mary and Edith starting to hate each other again for who knows why? I guess because that’s the emotional linchpin Hizzoner Sir Julian Fellowes thinks this show turns on? Anyway, for some reason Mary tells Duke Whoever that Edith has that illegitimate daughter, so he breaks up with her. And Edith and Mary get in this big climactic FIGHT in which Edith calls Mary a BITCH and then leaves Downton forever to go live in London and be fabulous and run her newspaper and love her daughter. Which, GOOD FOR EDITH!
Thomas briefly works for some boring not-rich-enough old people which is tragic for him for some reason. But then when Carson develops some kind of hand tremor and has to retire, Lord Grantham re-hires the new, nicer Thomas as his replacement. So, former bitter gay schemer and occasional thief, blackmailer, and sexual harasser THOMAS gets to be the butler of Downton Abbey. HAHAHAHA! Sure! #BeGayDoCrimes #queerjoy #happyPride!
Mary feels sad after Edith called her a bitch and so she…does something nice? I can’t remember what. And so, Edith comes back to Downton after all, but like they don’t kiss and make up or anything. Basically, Edith still thinks Mary is a bitch, which, yeah, she is, that’s her whole thing.
And then…I honestly have no idea what happens in the Christmas special other than Edith and that Duke or whatever get back together and get married. Fuck, this show sure loved cramming several weddings into a single season of British TV!
I think the whole series ends at Christmas? Which…I dunno, doesn’t that seem like a really weird way to end a long-running show? Like, it’s a Christmas special and a series finale? Cozy holiday feels and emotionally satisfying goodbye to 74 different beloved characters? That’s too many different things for one episode to do! But you can’t tell Dame Julian Fellowes that! She’s a renegade! She does what she wants!
Anyway, yeah, wow, that is all I remember from this season: Mary and Edith and Thomas and that dog dying. I think maybe that’s because I’ve only ever seen this season…once? Like, I recently started rewatching the whole series—I can do that now that all my misrememberings have been published, so it’s not cheating! And right now I’m in the middle of Season 3, and I realized that, oh yeah, this is where I usually drop off. Because Season 3 is when stuff starts to get kind of annoying. So, I never make it to the last few seasons, which is why I have no idea what happens in them, in case you were wondering.
Oh, wait! Bates and Anna have a baby! A wee bonny baby boy with Anna’s smile and Bates’s tendency to constantly murder everyone limp. Oh! And Isobel gets to marry that Baron or whatever with the awful hateful kids. But also, he’s dying maybe? Which is great, because Isobel has been sort of a nurse this whole time, which is something I only know now because I’m doing the actual re-watch. And I think it’s implied that Mrs. Pattmore and Daisy’s father-in-law (remember, from that footman who got blown up in The War?) are going to hook up, and also probably Molesly and Baxter are too, and Daisy and Andy. Basically, everyone gets a spouse in the end except Thomas, because of how gay he is in 1920s.
OH! And the Lady Mary blackmailing thing was because she had a sex weekend with the guy from Weekend one time like two seasons ago!
Hahaha. That all just came to me! But that’s it. No more Downton Abbey memories! Except to say that now that I’m actually re-watching the series, my big take-away is how much I LOVE ✨Elizabeth McGovern✨’s unhinged performance! I forgot how deranged it is! She’s like a baby who had a stroke!