Like Christmas when I was a child, I wait all year with
great excitement and anticipation and then poof! It’s over in a flash and I’m
left feeling empty and alone.
Of course I speak of Downtown
Abbey. It just started and tomorrow night season three will conclude and
then what? Luckily I’ve DVRed all the episodes and bought the DVD so I can
console myself by watching them over and over as I’ve already started to do (Hello,
my name is Elaine and I’m a Downton-aholic) but still…
There’s nothing like that cold Sunday night in January when,
after a hectic holiday season, I need a bit of a pick me up and there she
stands, Laura Linney, seemingly as excited as the rest of us, and utters the
words I have been waiting eleven months to hear, "Tonight we come back to the
spellbinding magic of Downton Abbey."
The music starts, we see Isis’ rump waddling along Lord Grantham, and I get
chills all over.
And what a season! Superbly written and acted, it kept us
enthralled. Bates and Anna, Lord Grantham’s financial downfall, the death of
Lady Sybil, Mrs. Hughes cancer scare, a wedding that finally happened and a
wedding that never made it back up the aisle. We saw Lady Mary blossom into a
kind, lovely woman. Of course, she was there all along under the cold alabaster
exterior. And we saw Lady Edith come into her own. And Branson. I wasn’t sure
about him at first but he fit beautifully upstairs where he seems to have
gained a great respect for the Crawleys.
And downstairs…I cried for Thomas and his tortured soul and
loathed O’Brien who doesn’t have one. Will Anna and Bates unlock the horrible
secret behind those words, Lady Grantham’s
soap? Will Thomas be humbled by Bates’ help or will he revert back to his
conniving self?
So tomorrow night I’ll sit in front of my television anxious
to see what happens, all the while willing it not to end. A few tissues will
become soggy before the screen fades to black, no doubt, and melancholy will
envelope me.
Years ago in the heyday of Dallas, my friend Janet and I
would watch the season finale and then say that we hoped we didn’t die over the
summer before we found out what happened. So here’s my wish for the coming
year. I wish for world peace, an economy on the rise, good health, blah blah
bah. And come January 2014, on a cold Sunday evening, for Laura Linney to look
out directly at me and say, "Tonight we come back to the spellbinding magic of Downton Abbey."
