The New ‘Downton Abbey’ Is Coming and I Can’t Keep Calm

Everyone needs a purely escapist show, I think. That show that you know has some iffy themes if you descend below the surface level, but that it’s just so pretty to look at and whose characters end up becoming so familiar you just keep watching — until you find yourself having done three run-throughs of a 52-episodes long show. Every correlation with the history I share with Downton Abbey is absolutely intentional.

I love everything about Downton Abbey — it’s a period drama, for starters, and I’m at my core a Period Drama Girl. It’s gorgeous from its sets to its costumes, a relatively quiet storyline where you feel that the stakes rising and falling but never becoming so catastrophically high to actually give you anxiety — even though the pathos and the drama are never too far away, as exemplified by the fates of both Lady Sybil and Cousin Matthew. I still can’t believe I put myself through that thrice. Plus, Downton Abbey has one of my absolute favorite characters of all time — Thomas Barrow, my underrated, underused and misunderstood beloved. I’ve loved you from your first snarky remark to your last smile.

You can imagine the kind of excitement I’m in now that the second movie, Downton Abbey: A New Era — following the first Downton Abbey in 2019 — is finally being released. Is it probably going to be some version of the same story we’ve already seen in 2019 and throughout the show? Probably. Is Carson going to be there for no reason at all because he should be retired? I don’t see how he couldn’t be. Could we predict every single story beat pretty much now basing ourselves on the trailer and the trailer alone? Most likely. Does all of this have any effect on my hype? None whatsoever.

So you can bet that I’ll put on my evening best and be in my local cinema once the movie drops— ready to cheer on my petty faves, from Thomas to Lady Mary to Lady Violet and bask in some old-fashioned United Kingdom vs France banter which will probably never grow old. The movie’s release date is scheduled for April 29th in the United Kingdom and May 20th in the United States. Sources also say that Downton Abbey: A New Era will be available for streaming in the US on NBC’s platform Peacock — some 45 days after its American release, as per Peacock’s policy.

(via: Wikipedia; image: Carnival Films)