The rumors were true. Today, PBS announced that the next season of Downton Abbey will be its last. We're accustomed to freaking out every time a show we loved at some point is cancelled, but ending Downton is the right thing to do.
This past season had its moments — Edith's accidental act of arson, Mary's sex positive ways, everything Maggie Smith did or said — but, as a whole, it felt like a trudge and the show's quality was nowhere near what it once was when Sybil was alive and well, showing off her harem pants.. With nothing to lose, Season 6 is a chance to return the show to its former glory. Here are some humble suggestions on what should happen to the characters we have grown to love (and the ones we just put up with):
You might think this show is all about Mary, but you're wrong. The true star is Edith, patron saint of all misunderstood middle children. I see Edith moving to Germany during the lead up to World War II and infiltrating the Nazi party so that she may exact revenge on whoever killed Michael a.k.a. that dude who knocked her up, didn't marry her, and promptly vanished. Edith decides to prove everyone wrong and change the course of history by assassinating Hitler. She inevitably screws it up because she's Edith and is put into a witness protection program under the pseudonym Jan Brady.
Speaking of tragic figures, poor Thomas has been pigeon-holed as the evil, miserable gay trope for the past five seasons. I see Thomas taking his spoon and drugs and moving to the big city, where he meets Virginia Woolf, while walking around Bloomsbury. She helps him get clean and begs to set him up on a blind date! "It's not just because you're both gay!" she promises. He relents and his blind date is no other than E.M. Forster, famed writer and fellow wistful closet case. Thomas' emo-ness cancels out Forster's emo-ness and they live happily ever after.
For once in her life, Mary doesn't get what she wants. She dies from shock.