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Season 4 opens on a gloomy note about 6 months after the tragic death of Matthew Crawley. The entire setting is a symbol of the grief Mary is experiencing. Grief has clearly changed her. As someone who has experienced grief myself, her pain is easily relatable. Grief changed me, to some extent, the way it changed Mary. She always had a slightly abrasive personality, but this was deepened after she lost her husband. Yet, there are also glimpses of the softer side of her as well. All of this is completely valid and realistic. I wish they had shown Tom grieving in a similar way after he lost Sybil. It is true that everyone grieves differently. However, I feel like this sent a subtle message that men are stronger than women. He was upset after losing Sybil, but his character seemed to overcome it rather quickly. Of course, one can also argue that some people put up a front, so who knows. Mary's grief is definitely more evident, though.
The other significant change as Season 4 opens is that O'Brien suddenly up and left. She was one of the main characters "downstairs" and she seemed to have a fairly descent, though slow-moving, story line, so this was surprising to me. After doing some research, I found out that her three-year contract, like those of the actor and actress who played Matthew and Sybil, was up. None of them wanted to renew their contracts.
I have been saying all along that Anna is my favorite character and that still remains the case after Season 4, perhaps even more so. Tragically, she was raped in Season 4. Anna is a truly good person. Some may find this boring, but I find it refreshing. She appreciates the simple side of life and she's deeply faithful to her loved ones. So you can imagine the pain I felt when she was so brutally attacked. It's the most heinous crime, in my opinion, and it couldn't have happened to a sweeter character on the show.
The way the show dealt with this was interesting. I imagine there weren't a lot of options back then to seek help. Anna confided in only one person at first and she didn't want to tell Bates for fear of he might do something to the attacker and end up in jail again, but with a worse outcome for him than before. So Anna dealt with the pain of not telling most people what happened or who it was even though he was a frequent visitor to Downton!
To some small extent, I can relate to her way of thinking. When I was going through a tough time years ago, I didn't want to talk to those close to me about it because I was afraid of the way they would handle it. I don't think they would have done anything that landed them in jail, but I was afraid the way they would handle things would upset me even more. So for a time, I kept my day to day struggles to myself or shared them with people who I trusted, but were not that close to me. And to this day I stand by that decision to do so. It was a way of protecting my emotions. So I can completely understand why Anna dealt with this the way she did. By the way, Joanne Froggatt is an amazing actress. She has played every aspect of Anna flawlessly.
I am not sure I agree with the way the show handled Bates's response, though. Yes, he was extremely sympathetic. However, something he said to Anna rubbed me the wrong way. They were alone at dinner and he asked that she forget about the whole thing for one night. DUDE! Do you have ANY idea what your wife has been through??? How can she just forget about it even for just one night??? She's traumatized!!!
Rant over. Moving on.
It's beginning to seem like Downton is a bit about checking off boxes so they can say they covered certain issues, then quickly moving on. It happened with the disability story lines, and in Season 4 it happened with the issues of abortion and race. Edith got pregnant with her man who is now missing. She came very close to having an abortion, but changed her mind at the 11th hour. Her mulling over this issue didn't last long. I would have liked to see both sides of the abortion issue further developed. And then there's the fun niece, Rose, who falls for a Black jazz singer and he falls for her. However, enter Mary who convinces Jack Ross to end his plans to marry Rose. So he ended it and that was that! And this doesn't bother Rose for very long either. That was another missed opportunity to develop a deeper story line.
Season 4 ends on a much more uplifting note than when it began. The downstairs crew has a fun day at the beach and it is here that we see Daisy's character starting to develop more. She no longer is experiencing jealousy the way she was before. She's genuinely happy to see others happy. It seems that she is beginning to appreciate who and what she does have and "trust the process".
Also by the end of Season 4, Mary is showing her emotional strength and she is beginning to take more charge of how things at Downton run. She is starting to emerge from her grief and move on with her life. I'm sure it helps give her a boost that there are two very different single men interested in her.
However, despite all the happiness, there's a murder mystery now brewing. Anna's rapist died. There are questions and several possibilities for how he died and who killed him, if anyone did.
Overall, I enjoyed Season 4. There is a lot of drama brewing and the new inventions, such as blenders and sewing machines, provide for some quirky fun. Also fun to see are the Americans (Lady Cora's family) visiting England...and clashing with them.
The benefit of not becoming interested in a show until after it's gone off the air is that when it's streaming I don't have to wait months to see what happens next. And if the interest doesn't ignite until many years later, then hardly anyone will be talking about it, which decreases the possibility that I'll hear spoilers. I'm so glad I can enjoy this show and be surprised along the way, the way Downton's fans were when it first aired.
Read Season 3 review here.
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