Happily Ever After at Downton: 1929

DOWNTON, I'll miss you so.

Like all good fairy tales, this one ends happily for all those good people and the evil get their just deserts. (Dowager Aunt Violet's maid gets put in her place).  

 Edith, finally is happy, with prospects for a good life with her Prince Charming, and her newspaper. After years as the runt of the litter, she outranks all her relatives, something which, happily, seems immaterial to Edith. She's just happy someone wants her.
There's the requisite wedding scene with the dress and the long train and the proud father and the whole crew at the lovely little church. (No fairy tale would be complete without the wedding scene. We'll know we've advanced as a civilization when that is no longer part of the fantasy life of women.)

Edith's  editor catches the bouquet and, quite evidently, Tom, who says they like strong women at Downton, which is true.

Mary and Barrow have become actual human beings capable of joy and kindness.

The Butler, Carson,  disabled by his intention tremor is promoted to Butler emeritus, and Barrow is rescued from his dismal lot and back at Downton.

Mary's husband has stopped racing and is now selling cars with Tom, so they can both be men because they have work, and men define their self worth by work, except of course, Lord Grantham, who is worth something simply because he is kindly.

Cora finds her husband is no longer possessive and she can find meaning in her work with the hospital. Who cannot love Cora? Is it an accident that she is American and seems to make no distinctions in her approach to people based on class?  She is the one, constant guiding light of the manor. Her only break occurred when she found the servants in her room, with Mrs. Hughes trying on her coat, and she later apologized for that.

The Bates's have a new son, healthy and happy and none the worse for wear despite his recent delivery. Neither of them is in jail or even indicted, and Anna did not die in childbirth and, in fact, looks more beautiful than ever.

Mrs. Patmore has a suitor in the pig farmer and Daisy has finally got a suitor she likes, because he has stopped liking her.

Ms. Baxter has thrown off her obsession with the man who possessed her and Moseley has a real job at the school and Baxter promises she'll stay in touch with him. 

Rose has returned with her Jewish husband, Atticus, from America, and they are fully accepted and they have a new baby. Doesn't that name, Atticus, strike you? The only other Atticus I've ever run across was the upright lawyer in To Kill A Mockingbird. It's possible Rose's son, back in America, will grow up to be a small town lawyer. He was born in 1928, so he'd be about the right age, but that would mean he was named after his father, and Jews do not name children after living relatives. So it's a mystery. Never mind. All is well at Downton.

It's what we've all been waiting for. All accounts settled. What a far cry from the way accounts were settled at the end of "The Godfather" with guns and bloodshed. Here we have toasts and offers of jobs and applause and professions of love.

But of course, it is the dawn of 1929, and we all know what that means:  the American stock market will crash that year and Depression will spread to England.

But that's not to think about. For now, we are happy and people whose travails we have followed for 6 years are now safe, happy and smiling.

If I had champagne, I'd drink it. 

And I don't even like champagne.