Oh ... I ... I cannot find the words to say how I feel -- to quote the Dowager Countess. Sit down, everyone, I'm afraid I have some dreadful news: Dame Maggie Smith says she's leaving Downton Abbey. How will they ever carry on? How will WE?!?
"They say this is the last one, and I can't see how it could go on," the octogenarian actress told the UK's Sunday Times, implying this is the last season of Downton Abbey. "I mean, I certainly can't keep going. To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We're into the late 1920s."
Oh Countess, don't be so defeatist! It's so middle class. (Wait, where have I heard that before?)
But really, Dame Smith right. Even with her iron will and vinegary constitution it is asking an awful lot to expect Aunt Violet to outlive her peers by decades.
Which means the show cannot go on. I'm sorry, but that's all there is to it. The producers still refuse to confirm that they're ending the show. But without the Dowager Countess, what is even the point anymore? She is the magic ingredient. She added just the right amount of sourness and sharpness to this lush period soap opera. She had all the best lines. Besides, too many plot lines have jumped the shark in this show. I don't even know what's happening anymore.
Yes, I'm afraid it's the end of an era.
And like the characters in the show, I am resisting this change! But I must accept it (SIGH). All I ask is that we NOT have an episode where we see the Dowager Countess die. Please, spare us that at least. It is my fervent wish that the producers not bother with a seventh series at all. Let's just, everyone, simply walk away with our happy memories and let this most recent, sixth season be the last.
Farewell, Aunt Violet! I'll miss you terribly.
See this video on The Stir by CafeMom.
Do you think there's any point in Downton Abbey going on without the Dowager Countess?
Image via PBS.org