How M/M via DS Non-Ironically Ruined My Life Meme: Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda
"Deep down you're not on our side!"
[Downton Abbey S3/S4 Spoilers Ahead]
It is a trifecta! In an effort to catch up (again), it made sense to take on not two but three topics today since, in my mind anyway, the next three on the list are thematically linked. What is the theme? In a word: loyalty.
Day 18 - Other than Matthew not dying, what is the one thing you'd have changed about Matthew and Mary in S3 to make it immeasurably more satisfying?
If I could have changed anything about S3, I would have let sleeping dogs lie or rather, sleeping ghosts lie. At the end of those glorious ninety minutes which comprised CS 2011, Matthew assures Mary that Pamuk would never "resurrect himself" and, though similar words were not actually verbalized about Lavinia, the implication from that scene and Matthew's "I was wrong, I don't think she wants us to be sad" was that his ghosts would not haunt them again either -- at least not enough to come between them. It may well have been the case that Matthew would always regret what happened with Lavinia (and to be fair, he should), but I had hoped against hope we would never get even a whiff of divided loyalties between Mary, his living fiancée and then wife, and dead Lavinia. Sadly, it was the first of a series of bubbles that S3 burst.
If the point of the Swire inheritance plot was to show different views about money or ethics or class or lifestyle, there were myriad ways of accomplishing this other than digging up that "sweet, dead girl" again. Granted, at a certain level, I do recognize the distinction between Matthew feeling guilty over his feelings for Mary (2x08-CS 2011) and Matthew feeling guilty about inheriting money that would, had she lived, have gone to a woman whose heart he broke on the eve of their wedding (3x01-3x03). Still, boiled down to its essentials, it smacked too much of Matthew prioritizing Lavinia -- who is dead -- over Mary. (And Dan Stevens -- surprise, surprise -- only aggravated my dissatisfaction when I read his comments in the press pack to the effect of "he tries to do right by them both [Mary and Lavinia]." Uh, excuse me, Dan Stevens, but Matthew has one wife, not two, thank you very much!) Loyalty is a push-button issue with me; divided loyalties can be a deal-breaker (depending on the situation and degree). ... Mary was probably more understanding in the end than I would have been.
Julian Fellowes really underestimated the extent to which everyone was glad to see the end of guilty!Matthew and, more generally, the end of the Matthew/Lavinia ship. I do not think viewers were actually glad to see her die, but if that was the only way to stop Matthew from making the biggest mistake of his life (making three other people miserable in the process), I think most people were prepared for her to be sacrificed. Put it this way: no one wanted to see her resurrected. And I think some fans' anger at Matthew -- including mine -- over his attitude in early S3 was exacerbated by the fact that whatever Matthew offered Mary by way of apology for what he said to her at Lavinia's graveside, we never witnessed it onscreen, so for many of us it was a wound that had just scabbed over when it was ripped open again with the Matthew/Mary pre-wedding fight in 3x01. For many, "I was wrong, I don't think she wants us to be sad" and "I would never be happy with anyone else as long as you walk the earth" were references that were far too oblique to make up for the poison he threw at her in 2x08 (though I understand he was lashing out like a wounded animal; he said those words in grief and self-hatred and I can forgive him -- but many of us needed the closure of hearing him acknowledge the pain he caused Mary as well as the pain he caused Lavinia and we never did). If we had seen a more open and direct Matthew on the subject, perhaps the Swire inheritance plot would not have riled up viewers as much as it did.
Day 19 - Name one thing you'd want to see in S4 if Matthew were still alive.
If Matthew were still alive, in the next series I would want to see Mary/Matthew achieve the potential they always had, to see them become that power couple we had glimpses of in the CS 2011 in particular (in fact, I would say we saw more of their potential there than we did throughout S3 -- unless you count their fabulously coordinated wardrobes, that is). In retrospect, I think we did not see more of it in S3 because ... it was never going to happen. Matthew was going to die so it was not in the cards for them.
But if Matthew were alive in S4, I would expect to see him and Mary become a true partnership, for Mary to become more involved in the plans for the estate, for them to be partners in raising their son, and dare I say it ... perhaps at the next CS, I would have liked to see Earl!Matthew and Countess!Mary (sorry, Robert). In short, I would have liked to see their loyalties totally united in service of the greater good: Downton, the family, their marriage, their child, the future. And even in the midst of such harmony, there still would have been plenty of tension and conflict to explore within the boundaries of (happy) marriage. (Are you listening, Gareth Neame? Take note.)
Day 20 - Name one thing you want to see in S4 now that Matthew is dead.
Well if I am entirely honest, I am really not looking forward to seeing anything in S4, but ... I have made it no secret that I find the idea of Mary moving on with a new love interest after six months or twelve months or even eighteen months pretty galling. I do not want to preempt what I will be writing about tomorrow, so I will keep my remarks here short. Suffice it to say, I do not think Downton can create a sea change of this magnitude and then ... just pretend it did not happen. Downton is at a crossroads: does it know what it is and where it is going from here? S3 was so different from anything we saw previously on Downton; Fellowes and his cohorts cannot have a season as heavy and bleak as the last one and then try to revert to the sunnier Downton of old. And I do believe it is a wish to escape the heaviness of the last series which is, in part, driving them towards finding a new romance for Mary as quickly as possible. I get it: Fellowes wants a happy ending for Mary. But first, should the show not acknowledge the loss of Matthew to the narrative? (And I am speaking of Matthew, not Stevens.) And to me, the best way to do that, is to show a grieving process that is realistic. Matthew's death impacted everyone in the show because he was the heir to the estate. He was integrated into the family and the story in a way that no successor or "replacement" ever will be. (And as a practical matter, Mary's grief is a proxy for everyone else's on the show: when she moves on, the show will move on.) If they were not prepared to deal with the aftermath, then different decisions should have been made about writing off the character. Please note I am not suggesting that I think the alternatives were better; I agree, actually, that given the choice between death and recasting or having Matthew abandon his family, I too would have chosen death had I been in Fellowes' shoes. What I am saying, however, is that every choice has a consequence and if it was important to choose death for the integrity of the narrative, then it is just as important to show the fallout of that loss. Or as Sonia Saraiya (A.V. Club) wrote, we need "emotional context."
So in keeping with my chosen theme, I want to see S4 be loyal to the memory of Matthew Crawley, who was second only to Mary in terms of importance to the central narrative. Whereas Robert is clearly the anchor of Downton, Matthew was the lead-off man; he represented the future of the estate, the family and the show and his doings drove the narrative in a way Robert's never have (unless you count a bad inter-canon financial investment which was the catalyst for much of S3). Honor the show's origins; honor the Downton we fell in love with and then perhaps the show has a fighting chance at starting over from scratch.
[Downton Abbey S3/S4 Spoilers Ahead]
It is a trifecta! In an effort to catch up (again), it made sense to take on not two but three topics today since, in my mind anyway, the next three on the list are thematically linked. What is the theme? In a word: loyalty.
Day 18 - Other than Matthew not dying, what is the one thing you'd have changed about Matthew and Mary in S3 to make it immeasurably more satisfying?
If I could have changed anything about S3, I would have let sleeping dogs lie or rather, sleeping ghosts lie. At the end of those glorious ninety minutes which comprised CS 2011, Matthew assures Mary that Pamuk would never "resurrect himself" and, though similar words were not actually verbalized about Lavinia, the implication from that scene and Matthew's "I was wrong, I don't think she wants us to be sad" was that his ghosts would not haunt them again either -- at least not enough to come between them. It may well have been the case that Matthew would always regret what happened with Lavinia (and to be fair, he should), but I had hoped against hope we would never get even a whiff of divided loyalties between Mary, his living fiancée and then wife, and dead Lavinia. Sadly, it was the first of a series of bubbles that S3 burst.
If the point of the Swire inheritance plot was to show different views about money or ethics or class or lifestyle, there were myriad ways of accomplishing this other than digging up that "sweet, dead girl" again. Granted, at a certain level, I do recognize the distinction between Matthew feeling guilty over his feelings for Mary (2x08-CS 2011) and Matthew feeling guilty about inheriting money that would, had she lived, have gone to a woman whose heart he broke on the eve of their wedding (3x01-3x03). Still, boiled down to its essentials, it smacked too much of Matthew prioritizing Lavinia -- who is dead -- over Mary. (And Dan Stevens -- surprise, surprise -- only aggravated my dissatisfaction when I read his comments in the press pack to the effect of "he tries to do right by them both [Mary and Lavinia]." Uh, excuse me, Dan Stevens, but Matthew has one wife, not two, thank you very much!) Loyalty is a push-button issue with me; divided loyalties can be a deal-breaker (depending on the situation and degree). ... Mary was probably more understanding in the end than I would have been.
Julian Fellowes really underestimated the extent to which everyone was glad to see the end of guilty!Matthew and, more generally, the end of the Matthew/Lavinia ship. I do not think viewers were actually glad to see her die, but if that was the only way to stop Matthew from making the biggest mistake of his life (making three other people miserable in the process), I think most people were prepared for her to be sacrificed. Put it this way: no one wanted to see her resurrected. And I think some fans' anger at Matthew -- including mine -- over his attitude in early S3 was exacerbated by the fact that whatever Matthew offered Mary by way of apology for what he said to her at Lavinia's graveside, we never witnessed it onscreen, so for many of us it was a wound that had just scabbed over when it was ripped open again with the Matthew/Mary pre-wedding fight in 3x01. For many, "I was wrong, I don't think she wants us to be sad" and "I would never be happy with anyone else as long as you walk the earth" were references that were far too oblique to make up for the poison he threw at her in 2x08 (though I understand he was lashing out like a wounded animal; he said those words in grief and self-hatred and I can forgive him -- but many of us needed the closure of hearing him acknowledge the pain he caused Mary as well as the pain he caused Lavinia and we never did). If we had seen a more open and direct Matthew on the subject, perhaps the Swire inheritance plot would not have riled up viewers as much as it did.
Day 19 - Name one thing you'd want to see in S4 if Matthew were still alive.
If Matthew were still alive, in the next series I would want to see Mary/Matthew achieve the potential they always had, to see them become that power couple we had glimpses of in the CS 2011 in particular (in fact, I would say we saw more of their potential there than we did throughout S3 -- unless you count their fabulously coordinated wardrobes, that is). In retrospect, I think we did not see more of it in S3 because ... it was never going to happen. Matthew was going to die so it was not in the cards for them.
But if Matthew were alive in S4, I would expect to see him and Mary become a true partnership, for Mary to become more involved in the plans for the estate, for them to be partners in raising their son, and dare I say it ... perhaps at the next CS, I would have liked to see Earl!Matthew and Countess!Mary (sorry, Robert). In short, I would have liked to see their loyalties totally united in service of the greater good: Downton, the family, their marriage, their child, the future. And even in the midst of such harmony, there still would have been plenty of tension and conflict to explore within the boundaries of (happy) marriage. (Are you listening, Gareth Neame? Take note.)
Day 20 - Name one thing you want to see in S4 now that Matthew is dead.
Well if I am entirely honest, I am really not looking forward to seeing anything in S4, but ... I have made it no secret that I find the idea of Mary moving on with a new love interest after six months or twelve months or even eighteen months pretty galling. I do not want to preempt what I will be writing about tomorrow, so I will keep my remarks here short. Suffice it to say, I do not think Downton can create a sea change of this magnitude and then ... just pretend it did not happen. Downton is at a crossroads: does it know what it is and where it is going from here? S3 was so different from anything we saw previously on Downton; Fellowes and his cohorts cannot have a season as heavy and bleak as the last one and then try to revert to the sunnier Downton of old. And I do believe it is a wish to escape the heaviness of the last series which is, in part, driving them towards finding a new romance for Mary as quickly as possible. I get it: Fellowes wants a happy ending for Mary. But first, should the show not acknowledge the loss of Matthew to the narrative? (And I am speaking of Matthew, not Stevens.) And to me, the best way to do that, is to show a grieving process that is realistic. Matthew's death impacted everyone in the show because he was the heir to the estate. He was integrated into the family and the story in a way that no successor or "replacement" ever will be. (And as a practical matter, Mary's grief is a proxy for everyone else's on the show: when she moves on, the show will move on.) If they were not prepared to deal with the aftermath, then different decisions should have been made about writing off the character. Please note I am not suggesting that I think the alternatives were better; I agree, actually, that given the choice between death and recasting or having Matthew abandon his family, I too would have chosen death had I been in Fellowes' shoes. What I am saying, however, is that every choice has a consequence and if it was important to choose death for the integrity of the narrative, then it is just as important to show the fallout of that loss. Or as Sonia Saraiya (A.V. Club) wrote, we need "emotional context."
So in keeping with my chosen theme, I want to see S4 be loyal to the memory of Matthew Crawley, who was second only to Mary in terms of importance to the central narrative. Whereas Robert is clearly the anchor of Downton, Matthew was the lead-off man; he represented the future of the estate, the family and the show and his doings drove the narrative in a way Robert's never have (unless you count a bad inter-canon financial investment which was the catalyst for much of S3). Honor the show's origins; honor the Downton we fell in love with and then perhaps the show has a fighting chance at starting over from scratch.