‘Downton Abbey’ Season 3 Starts with a Wedding
Nothing succeeds like excess.
Downton Abbey’s third season kicks off with another super-sized installment which originally — and correctly, we might add — aired as two separate episodes in the U.K. Everything surrounding Matthew and Mary’s wedding would have been plenty for the Season 3 premiere to handle, and given the plethora of other plots that kick off in the second episode, a bit more time to breathe. But, alas, it was not to be, and we’re left with a gargantuan whole that simultaneously pays off one of the series’ longest-running storylines and lays the groundwork for what feels like a dozen more.
Not content to allow us to enjoy watching Matthew and Mary get married in peace, the show immediately throws the Crawley family back into both financial and emotional turmoil. It turns out that Robert, who really should not be managing the estate’s finances on his own, invested nearly Cora’s fortune in a speculative railroad fund, a move that has turned out to be just slightly more advisable than taking it into the backyard and lighting it on fire. The fund has gone belly up, the Crawleys are seemingly a stone’s throw from poverty, and they’ll like as not have to sell Downton to keep the estate — and themselves — together.
(Guess Matthew having a job doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?)
