Downton Abbey - The Finale

"Oh, please someone, make it stop", I said. And now someone has. The most unlikely Yorkshire drama ever to come out of Berkshire has finally come to and end. Yippee!

I decided it was only fitting that I watch the last "ever" episode of Downton Abbey. I was looking forward to the slaps, the explosions, the arrests, the hangings, the timely or untimely deaths, the fire, and whatever other emotionally decimating excitement Julian Fellowes was going to unleash on us.

Marigolds - the elephant in the room

Nice, but not to Violet's taste.

Only nothing happened really. Or at least nothing befitting a guns-blazing-off-into-the-sunset-for-all-time kind of ending. There was a bit of a flurry when Thomas attempted suicide in the bath, but it was quickly ascertained that he was still alive and he was soon sitting up in bed fingering an orange and told he didn't have to find a new job after all. Mrs Patmore's bed and breakfast briefly became a house of ill repute, but a few days later the Granthams were dropping by for afternoon tea to restore its reputation. Mary did get called a bitch, but no sign of the slap that she probably deserved alongside. The Dowager returned from the Riviera as soon as Robert announced it was jolly good that she wasn't around, but she didn't swoop in with quite the sense of autocracy you felt was required. She did give Mary a good talking to, but it was full of kindness and none of those acerbic one-liners we have grown used to. The only untimely death was off-screen in Tangiers. There was a shot-gun wedding, but the wrong daughter got the happy ending. And it seems Bates isn't a secret murderer after all.

But golly gumdrops, at least they have stopped talking about the bloody hospital.

And it turned out it wasn't the final episode ever. There's a Christmas special. Groan. So maybe Julian Fellowes is saving all the drama for then. The birth of Anna's baby. The reconciliation of Edith and Bertie. The affair of Mary and Branson, leading to Henry pranging his racing car into a wall. The elopement of the Dowager and Spratt after she becomes his agony aunt column's greatest fan. The closing down of the village school after Ofsted observe one of Molesley's lessons on the Divine Right of Kings. Daisy's matriculation at Oxford. The recurrence of Lord Grantham's burst ulcer after too many of Mrs Patmore's scones. The burning of Downton. though I realise the latter may be a bit of an inconvenience for the good folk at Highclere. Especially at Christmas.

Or will it just be more of the same, leaving Julian the option of coming back for a seventh series after all, and leaving us as depressed as a Queen Vic Christmas dinner?

It will all come good in December. Or not.

(*** Disclaimer: I may have watched more of the sixth season than I am prepared to admit.***)