The 'Downton Abbey' Season 2 Finale Is a Christmas Miracle
It was a wedding present from a frightful aunt. I have hated it for half a century.
Downton Abbey Season 2 finale is a genuinely incredible episode of television. Not because it’s perfect. (Far from it, in fact!) But because when it works, it represents the absolute pinnacle of what this show can be and do. This is probably the episode that springs to mind when most people think about this show — and with good reason.
Few scenes on television feel as utterly romantic or as thoroughly earned as Matthew’s proposal in the snow, and for all the show’s flaws elsewhere, it’s the kind of moment that makes almost everything else before it feel worth it. This hour — which originally aired as the show’s first Christmas special – is Downton at its most lavish, ridiculous, and utterly heartfelt best, and it’s difficult to argue that any episode for the rest of the series will ever truly match it.
Downton is actually incredibly lucky that this finale is so strong. This is an hour that features both a shooting party and a murder trial, with everything from dognapping and some casual communing with the dead thrown in for good measure. But those aren’t the things this finale is or should be remembered for. It’s honestly so good, and has so many long-awaited payoffs, that it almost immediately glosses over every other soapy twist or painful cliché the rest of the season foisted upon us, making everything, if not quite all right again, at least forgivable.
