"All this unbridled joy has given me quite an appetite," said the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley. An appetite for more Downton Abbey, that is. No matter how melodramatic and contrived the story of the Crawleys becomes, I can’t help but want to watch this show more.
Far be it for this show to be guided by any form of reality. One moment that really set this episode off the edge was when Lord Grantham, visibly attracted to the new maid Jane, decided to actively pursue her. If this show was not already filled with the histrionics of a Greek drama, then I might have been surprised. But seeing him fall for a woman who looks strangely similar to his wife, Cora, was not the most astonishing development of the episode.
The real sparkling scene of sheer ridiculousness was the one that guided the episode as a whole. When Matthew rose from his chair for the first time, apparently no longer hindered by a fractured spinal cord, I couldn’t help but be relieved, confused and slightly upset.
Regardless of the intense passion I feel for Matthew Crawley and my desire for his relationship with Mary to continue and blossom (especially now with Lavinia out of the picture, however ridiculous her battle with death appeared on screen), this just was not a necessary development.
I appreciate the choice not to rid of Matthew by killing him off in the war. The scene from “Episode Three” where Mary sings “If You Were the Only Girl in the World” was perhaps my favorite of the entire series thus far, though it was admittedly filled to the brim with over-the-top emotions. But Matthew’s disability actually added a sense of reality to a show that somehow manages to avoid the stuff of real life in many of its episodes.
If Matthew had remained crippled from the war, another dimension might be added to a story that is so driven by fantasy that it has started to lose its historical appeal and gain a sort of alternate reality, period science-fiction kind of vibe. Especially considering the bouts of Spanish Influenza that nearly destroyed the entire Crawley family, it is reasonable to say that this show has taken a turn toward the utterly outrageous, yet somehow it's still very deserving of love.
Downton Abbey is great without factoring in the condition of realism. What makes it do well despite being tacky at times is that it keeps its audience enthralled and invested in the fate of its characters. The side plot of Bates’ ex-wife’s undetermined murder or suicide and his resulting apprehension by police as well as Sybil’s decision to run away from home with chauffeur Branson and then ultimate choice to backtrack and maintain her relationship with her family were both perfect examples of this.
While we may be bothered by the fact that these characters are either put into or willingly choose to partake in compromising situations, as fans we can’t help but root for our respective teams and favorite individual people in the show.
Since I care for Bates and Anna so much as characters, I long for their happiness and Bates' innocence. Similarly, I feel a stake in Matthew and Mary’s romance, however strained it may be, and Sybil’s happiness (even if I'm not too fond of Branson). It’s as though as we get to know Downton Abbey we become more willing to accept its silliness because we have grown to care so much for it.
In a scene where Violet speaks to Matthew, she tells him about Mary’s love for him despite his engagement to Lavinia. “I would just say one thing: Marriage is a long business. There's no getting out of it for our kind of people,” she says. “Why you may live forty, fifty years with one of these two women. Just make sure you have selected the right one.”
These kinds of lines seem straight out of a soap opera. Yet while the drama persists at almost falling over the edge into absolute unlikelihood, it returns to ground itself in British charm and intelligence. “Mary is still in love with you. I was watching her the other night when you spoke of your wedding. She looked like Juliet on awakening in the tomb,” Violet said to Matthew prior to her ultimatum.
So with a Shakespearean reference, Downton Abbey provides a grand flourish with the charm that keeps us coming back despite its inherent outlandishness: its undeniably perfect British dramatic sensibility.