The Grand Finale is a farewell that’s intertwined with real, palpable grief. Last year, we lost Downton Abbey’s glorious pièce de résistance, Dame Maggie Smith, whose snake-bite wit as the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley was always the series’s purest pleasure. The Dowager Countess’s passing was the climactic event of the previous film – here, her portrait hangs reverently in the hall, watching over all with that sparkling gaze of hers.
Death has brought change to Downton Abbey. There’s money to be moved and managed, especially with the loss of Cora’s (Elizabeth McGovern) mother in America. It heralds the return of her brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) with some less than favourable news, alongside a new compatriot, the charismatic Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola).
