In Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, the gays and women won, and that feels so right

“Julian really leaves the women in such a modern place in this story,” adds Froggatt. “I love that Lady Mary’s... involvement and her future is not based around a marriage, as life was for women back in that time.”

For Michelle Dockery, who has brought Lady Mary to life for a decade and a half, saying goodbye was challenging, but she was satisfied with where the journey took the character and how she evolved into embracing her own power. “I love that she's finally taken the reins, and she's now the lady of the house. She's running the show,” Dockery tells PRIDE. “It’s actually quite surprising where she's ended up. If you look at her in season one, she was slightly reluctant to take over, and this life she thought wasn't for her, and she was resisting that, and was a bit rebellious... but it feels right.”

Its treatment of women extended across class. “Anna as well, she's a working mother,” says Froggatt. “Women at that time didn't have babies and go to work. It was unheard of. So Julian's given us these characters that are incredibly modern.”

Indeed, each of the women in the final film are given a moment to shine and step into their power, while also having a road laid out before them for more opportunity to grow and find joy and autonomy — whether it’s Edith taking a would-be scammer to task, Mrs. Patmore exploring her sexuality for the first time, or Daisy stepping up to a new role of leadership downstairs. There’s certainly wish fulfillment here, but it’s been earned over years of watching each of these characters grow.

This too can be said of the series’s once sinister, now beloved gay, Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), who finally found the love and companionship he never dared to dream of with movie star Guy Dexter (Dominic West) in the second film, Downton Abbey: A New Era. This film continues that story with Thomas now living happily with Guy and working side by side with him, proudly and lovingly, in the theater. They’re joined by a new character, a playwright named Arty Froushan (Noël Coward), who is the talk of London and takes a keen interest in the Crawley family and the dynamics of their home, both upstairs and down.

It’s classic Downton but with a wonderfully queer twist, and what makes it so beautiful is that it offers audiences a glimpse into the life that Thomas has made for himself. Not only has he found real love, but also a place and purpose of his own and, best of all, a community. As much as the staff of Downton may have come to love him downstairs when he was a footman, he never fully fit in because the chasm of his queer identity and ability to be his authentic self always stood between them. Not so now. This is queer joy. Again, to some degree, it’s also wish fulfillment — but well earned.

All of which is to say that the film offers a warm and welcome respite from the darkness that fills our social media feeds and news push notifications. There’s a joy and a simple pleasure of being caught up in the nostalgia of looking back.

“It's slightly rose-tinted glasses, but I guess there's comfort in looking back on simpler times,” Kevin Doyle, who stars as butler-turned-screenwriter Joseph Molesley, tells PRIDE. “I think people yearn for a quieter life sometimes. Certainly, I do.”

It’s a theme that resonates strongly throughout the film, with Paul Giamatti’s character Harold Levinson calling it out explicitly: the comfort of the past versus. the fear of the future. It speaks not only to the feeling engendered in the audience on a meta level, but serves as a bit of a warning for what would be on the horizon for these characters in real life. The film ends in 1930, just three years before Adolf Hitler would rise to power and plunge the world into one of its darkest chapters. There is something perhaps intentional but unavoidable about the similarities between the times the Crawleys are about to face — and those we face today.

It’s not lost on Hugh Bonneville, who stars as Lord Grantham. “As we all know, history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” he tells PRIDE. “Yes, it's very easy to see parallels today, where rights are diminished, where the rule of law becomes thrown out in the face of authoritarianism. This was in the 1930s, of course, was in Europe where universities are shut down, where the voices of intellectual curiosity are shut down, and where people are afraid to speak up, and so I think we can learn lessons from that era.”

One thing we know for certain is that the Crawleys and Granthams would have weathered the storm, finding ways to serve their community — and no doubt getting swept up in an intrigue or two along the way. So, yes, we are saying goodbye to Downton and the world it created. But the sense of community, along with the hope and resilience at its heart, endures.

Also, good for Thomas.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is in theaters now. Watch the trailer below.