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ALASTAIR BRUCE: Structurally and conceptually,
Downton survived the great war very well,
but, of course, the environment and the wind
that blows around the eaves of its wonderful structure
is hugely affected by change.
For the family, the aspiration is to go
straight back to the way it was.
I suppose after the turmoil of the war, Robert thinks in a way
that life will return to the way it was before the war,
and, of course, it never will.
Attitudes were changing.
People didn't just think, you know,
"It's a life of service for me and that's it."
People started to think outside the box and think,
"Well, maybe I don't want that life
"of working for someone.
Maybe there is something else out there."
They had survived something,
and they were never going to forget
what they had gone through.
They will always remember the smell of rotting corpses,
their friends' bodies in pieces
every morning as they looked out at stand-to from their trench.
And while they stand in here in this dining room,
serving at the table, those memories come back
and it changes their view about what they expect of the world.
It will take time, but this world is for changing.
The most obvious change that we see at Downton is Lady Sybil
marrying a chauffeur,
which is a stab in Carson's heart.
It was difficult for Robert to deal with,
different for all the family to deal with upstairs, I think,
but for Carson, it's just unforgivable
that somebody would cross the divide.
I think it's a genius piece of structural writing
on Julian's part
to throw the cat among the pigeons socially like that.
You know, they're forced to accept
that Sybil has married him and that she's now pregnant
and that that grandchild will be a Crawley,
and I think it's great to have
one of the central characters, as it were,
crossing from one side of the green baize door to the other.
And it's not just, you know,
awkward and strange initially for the family;
it's equally disconcerting for, above all, Carson,
who's really more trenchant in his views about society
than anybody in the show I think,
that things cannot change and there is an order,
and it doesn't compute.
Even just as an actor walking into that room,
I felt alien to it,
because it's only something I ever saw in the show.
And suddenly I'm sitting down and Maggie's sitting over there
and then Shirley joined, and I kind of felt, in a way,
"I shouldn't be here, I'm not part of this setup.
These scenes are never shot with me in them."
So in a way, it was great to draw on that, you know?
You're sitting there and you're looking around
and you're seeing all these faces that normally,
the only time we ever really would have met on set
was me opening a door or starting up the car, you know?
Dearest Papa.
Tell me, did you send the money?
Please say yes.
What money?
Hello, Tom.
Welcome to Downton.
I hope I am welcome, your ladyship.
FELLOWS: Robert has to come to terms
with the fact that the old Downton is gone
and Downton has to be, to a certain extent, reinvented
and placed on a more business-like footing,
and all sorts of considerations
that he would have considered vulgar and ridiculous
have to come into play.
You know, the way to deal with the world today
is not to ignore it.
If you do, you'll just get hurt.
Sometimes, I feel like a creature in the wilds
whose natural habitat is gradually being destroyed.
Some animals adapt to new surroundings.
It seems a better choice than extinction.
I don't think it is a choice.
I think it's what's in you.
Well, let's hope that what's in you
will carry you through these times to a safer shore.
It's remarkable the way Julian manages to pick issues
and topics which do reflect what happens today.
You know, the austere times that we're living in
are sort of very similar in many ways
to what the house went through in the '20s,
the whole aristocracy and upper classes went through
in terms of losing the wealth and the power
that they'd had before and become accustomed to.
There are rumblings of, I suppose, economic troubles.
It's not quite at the Great Depression in the late '20s,
but there are post-war wobbles
with various investments and things
which have an effect on Downton.
Lord Grantham makes a bad investment.
He loses the wealth of the family.
He's not a businessman.
He's a man who's lived
this relatively sheltered life, let's face it,
who apart from going to school,
his destiny in life is really, actually,
to remain within this environment.
How terrible for you.
It's not so good for you.
(laughs)
Don't worry about me, I'm an American.
Have gun, will travel.
BRUCE: This burden of responsibility that Robert feels,
that he's got to continue this inheritance
that, you know, his ancestors on the wall of his dining room
who look down on him judgmentally
at the way he guards and looks after the inheritance.
I won't give in, Murray.
I've sacrificed too much to Downton to give in now.
I refuse to be the failure,
the earl who dropped the torch and let the flame go out.
That sense of the destiny of the family
and the continuation of the line
is so absolutely paramount to him,
and the more we've done the show,
the more I realize that is who he is,
that's almost his sole purpose in life,
his sole duty in life is the preservation of Downton
and the continuation of it through the male line.
You know, he feels so reassured in many ways
that Matthew is going to be there to take over the reins,
so he feels that the succession is relatively secure.
He's now anxious that he and Mary have a child
and it to be a male in order to secure that line.
This is very good.
I hope you didn't open it for me.
Certainly I did.
To welcome you into this house as my son.
I can't tell you how glad it makes me.
Robert's grown up with this sense of the estate
being run as a... I feel like a sort of holistic environment
where everybody has to find their place within it
for it to function.
Matthew, of course, hasn't grown up with those values.
He's grown up in a professional household--
his father was, one imagines, a reasonably successful doctor.
He has the worth ethic, he's essentially a modern.
He thinks if things have to change then they have to change
and there's no big discussion to be had about it.
CARSON: Mrs. Hughes is short of a housemaid,
Mrs. Patmore wants a kitchen maid,
and I need a new footman.
Do you really?
Robert sort of as it were throws his toys out of the pram,
saying, "Right, well you don't need me anymore,
"I'm the old fuddy-duddy, I'm the old school,
I'm the old style that doesn't work anymore,"
and it's now for Matthew and his generation
to be the *** kids to handle it.
He insists that some changes are put in place,
and that's quite a bone of contention
between him and Robert,
and he sides with Branson early on, you know,
and really gets behind Branson in his new mold as, you know,
the outsider at Downton, which he has some experience of,
and a bit of a bromance develops there.
I want him to be my best man.
Bravo!
Well said.
Do you really mean it?
Honestly?
I've told you before,
if we're mad enough to take on the Crawley girls,
we have to stick together.
Oh!
Thank you, Matthew, thank you so much.
BONNEVILLE: Robert feels very comfortable that it's going to be Matthew
taking over the future of Downton.
He's become the son he never had,
and the fractiousness that was with Mary
has been resolved by her marrying Matthew,
so it's all set fair.
Or is it?
(laughing)
If we stay, you'll share the ownership.
It'll be your house, your estate as much as mine.
We will be joint masters.
And if you won't agree, I will sell
and it will all be your fault.
(chuckles)