‘Return to Downton Abbey’ Episode 5: Two Weddings & a Funeral
Plus: Carson in love.
It was the best of times (at last, joyful wedding bells ring out for Matthew and Mary!); it was the worst of times (RIP, darling Sybil; we are all still haunted by your death scene). If you believe in the scales of fate requiring balance, no matter how wrenching it is to achieve, Downton Abbey’s third season has it all.
If Mary and Matthew’s blessed union is to be achieved, then Edith’s must end in humiliation at the altar. If Sybil is to die, then Mrs. Hughes will be spared a cancer diagnosis (bonus: we will thrill to the “awwww!”-inducing sight of Mr. Carson singing to himself after he learns the good news. He loves her! He doesn’t know it yet, but we do!).
Mr. Bates is in prison (yes, still. Yes, we are still very annoyed about it), but at least we get a number of scenes featuring Anna Bates, Crackerjack Girl Detective, as she tracks down a witness whose account of Vera Bates’s last day on Earth will, against said witness’ will, exonerate Bates at last. Everyone but Matthew seems to be terribly annoyed and put out that Branson has the temerity to not only be Irish, working class, and married to Sibyl, but also possessed of a fine political mind and opinions which he insists on sharing out loud where members of the colonizing British aristocracy are obliged to hear them. Better still (or worse, if you’re Robert), this does seem to awaken something in Edith, who is starting to take an interest in women’s suffrage.
All in all, Season 3 has something for everyone to relish, to critique, and to mourn.
We look forward to bringing you coverage of the second half of Season 3 in a few weeks!
Downton Abbey Seasons 1 through 3 are re-airing this summer, from mid-June through mid-September 2026, at 10 p.m. ET on most local stations and on the PBS app. All six seasons are available to binge on PBS Passport for members and on the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.
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Since this podcast renaissance is something of an experiment, we are currently running a special subscription tier for it, priced at $48/year (or $4.88/month) for 12 episodes. Your subscription dollars – for which we are eternally grateful! – will help fund future episodes. The more listener subscriptions we have, the closer we get to a regular biweekly (or, dare to dream, weekly) podcasting schedule.
The 12-episode podcast (two episodes per season) will span most of this year and take us into 2027. Masterpiece is rerunning the entire series, soup to nuts, on Sunday nights at 10 p.m. ET; Seasons 1 through 3 will air back-to-back, starting Sunday, May 17, and running through mid-September 2026. As always, we will follow the airing schedule. The debut dates for Seasons 4 through 6 have not yet been announced; once they are, we will follow accordingly.
