Looking Forward: What's Next for Downton?

The almost-idyllic finale of Downton's third season, with its sharp turn at the last minute, has left its viewers with all sorts of things to contemplate as we await the next installment.

What will the unknowingly widowed Lady Mary do now that she has an heir but no husband? Will she remarry? It seems to me that killing off Matthew was a means of making Mary single and desirable again; once the audience thinks they can see how a character's future will go (in Mary's case the moment she married and intended to have children), they begin to lose interest in that character. Having Mary on the market again, her and her son's fates uncertain, will get the viewers back to the edge of their seats. Aside from the possibility of a romantic interest renewed, will Mary and Branson bond over the loss of their spouses? Will they raise their children side by side or will Branson eventually leave the wealthy world he is still so unaccustomed to?

There is no doubt in my mind that we will see a number of new staff members in season 4, as we have in the past three seasons. My guess would be that the nanny will get a lot more screen time as well, given that she now has two Granthamlets to look after. How will Lord Grantham react to losing the man he came to see as his son? Will the scheming, vindictive O'Brien be redeemed the way the now-dear Thomas was? (Or will she remain a cruel and malicious character who we love to hate and who will, to quote from class, die alone?) How will Thomas and Jimmy's newfound trust and companionship fare? How will the entire family and household deal with Matthew's death?

While we may not all end up watching the next season, I hope that at least a few of us continue to follow along. I know I will.

Reading too much into things..?

The ending of Lady Audley's Secret gives us a lot to consider. We can speculate, as we did on Tuesday in Madison that Lady Audley isn't actually dead and is in fact pretending in order to get out of a messy situation and work her way into a better one.

For that to be true though, I feel like it would depend on her kind of 'mad'. Is she simply upset about being abandoned, does she have postpartum depression, or is she actually a lunatic? If she is simply angry, I don't see her disappearing again, more likely her story has actually ended. If she s slightly unstable and upset about her circumstances, maybe she really did waste away—maybe she really was just tired, being a loon can really take a lot of a person. And can probably be linked to physical health factors that can lead or contribute to death. But if she is a full blown lunatic, a sociopath, then she very likely could have faked her death. She could very well be lurking around the corner of the story, waiting for everyone to be so distracted that we/they don't see her slip out and into a new story, full of new characters to terrorize. Or to live a new life, less complicated.

However, all of this speculation seems like just good fun, or silly on our part, like we are unhappy with the ending and thus we need to make up something more exciting. I personally like the ending of Lady Audley's Secret, even if it is a bit of a cop out...

"I hope that no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace" (Braddon 446).

Maybe, as suggested in Madison, peace is being used as a trick term and doesn't actually mean peace and is really alluding to something else. But maybe Braddon just wanted a happy ending and did the most convenient thing; killed off Lady Audley. It would not be the first nor would it be the last time a writer has done so. I guess it seems to me that after all the trauma, the characters deserve a happy ending, or maybe Braddon is just a sucker for happy endings too. Either way, I am in favor of taking the ending of Lady Audley's Secret at face value and accepting that she is probably not actually still alive and that everything has worked out in favor of happiness.

More Than One Secret?

"It is more than a year since a black-edged letter, written upon foreign paper, came to Robert Audley, to announce the death of a certain Madame Taylor, who had expired peacefully ay Villebrumeuse, dying after a long illness, which Monsieur Val describes as a maladie de langueur" (Braddon 445).

While our class was in Madison on Tuesday, someone brought up the idea that perhaps Lady Audley was actually alive at the end of Lady Audley's Secret.  This thought wormed it's way into my head and I began to think, "Why not?"  As we know from previously in the text, Lady Audley has successfully faked her death before to change her life and circumstances and what would stop her now?

Before the conclusion of Lady Audley's Secret, Lady Audley confesses all of the things that she has done to keep her identity secret and to maintain the style of life that she has chosen for herself.  For me that confession seemed like an ending of sorts - the secret was out and there was an answer for the mysteries that had been plaguing Robert Audley for most of the serial.  Despite some of the confession being false (though Lady Audley thought that she'd killed George Talboys), we would never have know that Lady Audley was wrong.

What if the secret is that Lady Audley didn't die peacefully of an illness referred to as "maladie de langueur" or as the footnote points out "anemia or general fatigue?"  Part of me wishes to believe that Braddon didn't leave it so cut and dry.  The "general fatigue" or the "wasting disease" that Lady Audley purportedly died of was Braddon's way of saying that she grew tired of her situation and moved on to a different one.  To me, dying just seems too tidy a thing.

Braddon concludes by saying, "I hope that no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace" (Braddon 446).  What about the "bad?"  Even if Braddon doesn't place Lady Audley in the "good" people category, perhaps Lady Audley isn't "at peace" because she still hasn't found the life or security that she has been searching for and she isn't dead (the idea of "rest in peace" as something we associate with the dead and being buried).  Her presence still haunts Audley Court because she hasn't found the place that she's meant to be.

What do you think?

The Biggest Cliffhanger

What I found most compelling about the finale, besides the obvious death of Matthew, was his death in placement to the episode. When I think cliffhanger, I think about a completely grave event happening on screen, a smash to black and then a wait until the next episode tells me the fate of the characters on screen. In this regard the cliffhanger I find most compelling is how Downton itself will deal with the death of Matthew, not Mary or any of the other inhabitants of the estate but the show itself.

Obviously Matthew is an integral character to the show, he progresses story lines and interacts with other characters as a main character should; he and Lady Mary's romance has become one of, if not the most, popular on the series. While his death is still raw to me, what I'm interested in now is seeing, come season four, how the show will continue to progress and evolve without one its of the key elements. Lady Mary, the baby, Downton itself, where will their fate lie as we move away from the “certainty” the finale tried very much to portray. The uncertainty that is sure to come following Matthew's death is poetic, it mirrors the uncertainty fans have in Downton's future.   

Cliffhangers

What else would we talk about?

Really, though, I'm sure that the rest of the episode was all fine and dandy in its own right - I recall a hilarious scene with Moseby, some heartwarming moments with Thomas (of all people), and I believe a wee bairn came into the mix at some point. It's just that, when a story does something like this - abruptly killing off a main character (and a "main" main character, at that) - there's rarely much else people talk about.

The effect is only amplified when the character is killed off at the end of an episode, because that's what people come away from the watching thinking about. And when it's at the end of a season, well...

Essentially, there are two ways such a move can go: well, or poorly. There's no middle ground, because, with a twist like this, an indifferent reaction from the audience is just as bad as an angry one - potentially worse, even. At least anger implies some degree of investment. The best case scenario is that the audience is horrified and saddened (make 'em gasp and cry, and all that), and cannot wait until the next installment to see what happens. How will the remaining characters react? Is character X even really dead? Sometimes, after all, these characters return in the most unlikely of ways. Of course, ideally this also creates even more tension in the audience simply because, if such an important character can die so suddenly, then this means that other characters can be bumped off, too, at any given moment. Now, for my part, I don't expect anyone to start saying "Valar Morghulis" or "only death is real" any time soon - ie, I doubt character are going to start dying off in droves at random or the show's themes are going to become excessively morbid - but the show has shown this season that it is capable of killing off characters to create tension, for better or for worse. Since it's not "Supernatural," the odds of these characters coming back are not high - this means that the show's formula and the way characters interact with one another can and will change with these and any following deaths. Change, whether or not we like it, is exciting; if the show can make good use of the deaths, it will continue to draw a large audience for this reason. If not, then it may be boarding the train for cancellation town sooner than expected.

What do Downton Abbey and Jane Austen fandom have in common? This blog post from  The Journal of Victorian Culture  may be of interest! We look forward to hearing from our bloggers about tonight's "Scotland episode"/ finale...

Lady Audley's Secret: Vol. 2 Ch 9 - Vol. 3

I was one of the last to sign up for a blog post, and I wasn't sure how I'd like doing a post on Lady Audley when I wrote my name down, but after reading this installment, I'm glad I did! These chapters contained a number of intense, suspenseful moments that were quite entertaining to read. 

The reading starts with Robert conducting more investigation into the matter of Helen Talboys' disappearance, which concludes with Robert determining that he has collected enough evidence to prove that Lady Audley and Helen are indeed one and the same—that is—at least enough evidence to finally confront Lady Audley face to face with plain language. No more letters or warnings. The gloves are coming off!

Robert's visit to Audley Court and Lady Audley's conversation with Sir Audley are probably my favorite parts of this section.

He arrives at Audley Court  and quickly finds a place where he can talk to Lady Audley alone.  The confrontation that follows is quite intense and loaded with tension. Lady Audley denies the accusation, obviously, but Robert made a very compelling case, compelling enough to convince Lady Audley that he was a real threat. Later on, in private, we see Lady Audley say something along the lines of, "if he were standing right here, I'd kill him."

Of course, Lady Audley can't allow Robert to reveal her secret, and there's a long section of conversation between Lady Audley and Sir Audley in which she tries to bias Sir Audley against Robert. 

I found it quite amusing how obvious her acting was, (although of course it would look obvious to the reader) and unfortunate that Sir Audley—blinded by his love for Lady Audley—began to believe her, because at first, Sir Audley came to the defense of Robert. He said that perhaps Robert wasn't the brightest of fellows, but surely he wasn't mad. But by the end of the conversation, Lady Audley's tears had at least convinced him to reconsider. 

It will be interesting to see to what lengths Lady Audley will go to to protect her secret. Will she follow through on her promise? Will she kill him? Will Robert bring her to justice? I guess we'll have to find out!