Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Way Of All Soaps


Interesting characters have dropped by the wayside: Pamuk dead, William dead, Richard Carlisle cast into outer darkness, Martha Levinson shipped back to the States. No explanation of what ever happened to Drake. Matthew wasn't particularly interesting, but he was cute.

The only interesting new character is Shrimpy, and he's got to leave his gorgeous Highland estate and go to India. (I liked his explanation of what was wrong with his marriage: "I don't like her.")

There was much in Season 3 that one had to overlook, to keep watching the thing. Ethel--probably the most unnecessary character in the whole thing--except for Rose. A tiny spark of light in Episode 7 was Clarkson's attempt to propose to Isobel, and her priceless choice of words to cut him off.

Isobel has provided moments of relief and sense throughout the whole show--"Do you want to go on killing things and eating them?" "Then the war has taught you nothing." "Don't worry about her [the Dowager]--if you had gone, she would have found something else..."

Sibyl is dead, Mary is a widowed mother, and Edith has acquired another dead-end suitor. Bates and Anna are happy, Thomas and O'Brien have had their comeuppance, and Daisy is in the way of being Mr. Mason's heir. Branson is managing Downton Abbey, which bodes pretty well for its future; I can imagine him in the 1960's, maybe, living alone in a run-down castle stuffed with relics of the past.

It's just a play, and it should have ended its run some time ago, before it got boring.

2 comments:

Susan @ Blackberry Creek said...

But wardrobe is still going great guns.

JD Atlanta said...

Before the season even started, I saw a headline about Matthew not coming back for the next season.

I was hoping that they would find some way for him to die in childbirth. :)