It strikes me that rumours of Downton Abbey’s demise are much exaggerated. It was reported today that series six – due to air in the UK in September (series five is currently on PBS in the US) – will be the last gasp of the Crawley dynasty. ITV has said it won’t comment on “speculative stories about our programmes”, but added that they absolutely do not mind broadcasting countless series of period dramas with endlessly speculative and inconclusive plots (not really, I added that).
But what if it’s true and this is the end? What should happen if series six is the finale? The last episode of series five left a lot open; I will avoid alluding to this directly – and other events in the season – as US viewers won’t have seen it yet. We’ll presume we have access to the current existing cast for the final episode, although it’s unclear whether Branson (Allen Leech) has definitively left the show. It’s obvious, though, what needs to happen in the final episode ...
The evil impostor child is foiled at last
Lady Edith’s imposter daughter, Marigold, becomes the first child spy for the Germans when she receives a series of invisible-ink telegrams from Berlin. Mrs Patmore intercepts the telegrams and, using a unique steam-iron method, gets Daisy (bound for Harvard after securing the first Open University degree*) to help her read them. Edith is forced to choose between the Traitor Ginger Impostor Child and her burgeoning career as the next Rupert Murdoch (a job for which she never does any work but occasionally mentions over breakfast).
Mr Pamuk returns from the dead – and O’Brien’s back
Mr Pamuk, the Turkish ambassador who so unfortunately expired while “embracing” Lady Mary in the first series and whose supposed corpse was unceremoniously spirited away by the servants, turns out to have been living in Mrs Patmore’s cold-meats cupboard since 1912. He was joined in the cupboard the following year by O’Brien, the housemaid who put the miscarriage-causing soap by the bath tub. Lady Grantham (Cora) knows they are both there because she put them there.
Cora decides who’s inheriting – and it’s not Lady Mary’s son
This is Cora’s long-term revenge on her husband. She knows that Thomas is the illegitimate son of O’Brien and Lord Grantham – and the rightful heir to the house. She knows it will kill her husband to see an illegitimate child inherit Downton Abbey and she has waited a long time for this moment. Lady Grantham poisons Lord Grantham (already nearly dead anyway after contracting a rare form of slow-acting rabies from Isis) and on his deathbed he acknowledges Thomas as his son. Thomas inherits the estate. His first act as the new Lord Grantham is to change the family’s coat of arms to a picture of a maroon leather glove.
Four weddings and a funeral
In the last five minutes of the final episode, there are four weddings and a double funeral. And Lady Mary has an exciting new haircut (potential spin-off series: Mary’s Bangs). Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson marry and go and run a B&B in Dawlish. Edith, free of Impostor Child at last (she has gone to Germany), marries the pig farmer. He barely notices because Edith is identical to his previous wife.
While reading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando aloud on the veranda, Cousin Isobel and Cousin Violet get carried away and unofficially marry each other over afternoon tea. Spratt the butler witnesses this incident and knows their secret. Mr Moseley marries O’Brien, with whom he has had a secret, cupboard-based affair for years. They go to run a rival B&B in Dawlish. (Potential spin-off series: Bleak Guest House.) Though jilted, Baxter is happy as she now replaces Mrs Hughes as Downton Abbey’s housekeeper. Anna and Bates die in a suicide pact motivated by frustration that no one seems to want anything good to ever happen to them.
In the last moments of series six, we see the final wedding, the one that should have happened in series one. Mr Pamuk, somewhat weakened from his years inside the cold-meats cupboard, finally marries Lady Mary. Barely visible next to the altar is the ghost of Lady Sybil, clad only in turquoise pantaloons and a suffragette sash.
The last image before fade out? A labrador backing out of the bushes next to the church. She’s alive. And she’s wearing Green’s trademark bowler hat.
*not an anachronism because, as we all know, there are no anachronisms in Downton Abbey
