The British Are Coming (Back): The New 'Downton Abbey' Teaser Trailer Is Out, and We Have Questions - Arts & Culture

The Crawleys are back, and they’re going to France for a sojourn.

“Do we need a Downton Abbey movie?” I asked this two years ago, when the 2019 movie came out, four years after the end of the final season. We clearly didn’t, and yet, I watched it, we all watched it, and that’s why there’s a part 2.

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Downton Abbey: A New Era will be out on March 18, 2022. I will still watch it, and so will all of you because even if we don’t need to, we all need a balm to our souls.

How are you still alive?

If the last ridiculous plot focused on a royal family visit in 1927, this new ridiculous plot seems to be the Crawleys on vacation. In France! I am slightly disappointed we are not going to get any Crawleys in America hijinks, seeing as Cora, Lady Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern) is American, and her mother is Shirley MacLaine but this movie seems to be taking place in the 1930s.

America in the 1930s is mired in a little-known event called The Great Depression, which probably won’t make an enjoyable movie. I might cry if I have to see Shirley MacLaine eat on a paper plate.

In the last movie, Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (Dame Maggie Smith), said that Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is ready to take a bigger role in representing the family. It seemed to be a retirement of some sort: Dame Maggie Smith herself says it was getting a bit ridiculous that the Dowager Countess is still around. During the last season, she said she suspected the character must be around 110 years old.

According to the Downton Abbey Wiki page, she was born in 1842, which would place her at 85 in the last movie. No one actually knows, but it’s Maggie Smith. We need Maggie Smith.

The British Are Coming: The Downton Abbey: A New Era Teaser Trailer Is Herev
Bonjour!

Here’s what seems to be happening: The Dowager Countess says that before her marriage to the previous Earl Grantham, she had a previous entanglement and that she is now the owner of a Villa in the South of France. There are shots of said Villa: it looks amazing, as expected.

The British Are Coming: The Downton Abbey: A New Era Teaser Trailer Is Here
Lord and Lady Merton, Lady Rosamund Painswick, Lady Mary Talbot, Caroline Talbot, Master George Crawley, Lady Maud Bagshaw, Tom Branson, Lucy Smith, Robert, the Earl of Grantham and Cora, Countess Grantham, Edith, Marchioness of Hexham and Bertie, the Marquess of Hexham, and Marigold

There is also a wedding. I love a good Downton wedding. Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the widow to the youngest Crawley daughter Sybil, is marrying Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton), companion and heir to Lady Maud Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton).

Smith and Lady Maud were introduced in the last movie: Lady Maud is a distant relative to the Crawleys and the inheritor of a fortune from her husband, which will go to Smith, her illegitimate daughter.

The British Are Coming: The Downton Abbey: A New Era Teaser Trailer Is Here
We don’t know who you are but you look fierce
The British Are Coming: The Downton Abbey: A New Era Teaser Trailer Is Here
Nice stairs

There’s also an unknown woman haughtily walking into the home, and one walking down the staircase of what seems to be the French Villa. It’s all very exciting.

The British Are Coming: The Downton Abbey: A New Era Teaser Trailer Is Here
Upstairs
The British Are Coming: The Downton Abbey: A New Era Teaser Trailer Is Here
Downstairs

Someone is conspicuously missing in the wedding photo: Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode), Lady Mary’s second husband. His name isn’t listed on the list of participants and he’s not on the IMDB page. In the last movie, he arrived only at the end, which makes me wonder what has happened. I’m hoping nothing bad: Lady Mary has been through enough.

So far, the teaser seems to focus on the upstairs crew: no updates on the downstairs, but on the list of names, Assistant Cook Daisy (Sophie McShera) is now listed as Daisy Parker, which means she must have married Footman Andy Parker ( Michael Fox) in the interim. I hope Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier) is still with his new boyfriend (and his side part is back to the right because the switch to the left was a little disconcerting).

Interestingly, two new names have jumped out: Hugh Dancy and Dominic West. We don’t know who they are playing as of yet, but you don’t add those two and expect them to play merely bit parts.

I know I said it’s probably a good idea that Crawleys aren’t in Depression-era America, but this does make me wonder what the movie is going to show about 30s-era Great Britain. There is a reckoning amongst the aristocracy: Prince Edward, then the Prince of Wales is making tongues wag with his highly inappropriate dalliance with an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.

Diana Mitford, daughter of 2nd Baron Redesdale leaves her husband for Oswald Mosely, head of the British Union of Fascists. Her sister Unity becomes obsessed with Hitler, Jessica, another sister, runs away with Winston Churchill’s nephew and becomes a socialist (the Mitford sisters deserve a Netflix series too).

A Kennedy marries into the aristocracy. World War II is on the horizon. After World War II, the families that of the Crawley’s ilk were all mired in debts and had to start giving up their country homes.

If this new movie isn’t the last in the franchise, questions will have to be answered. What is the future of Downton Abbey? Will the family still be living there in the present day? Is The Dowager Countess an immortal? And as always, I, and I am sure you, will be watching.

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