Soapy British franchise goes out with a scandal

It would be a dangerous drinking game to take a swig every time a character in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” mentions that times are changing.

But their obsession with moving on — not to mention the put-a-fork-in-it title — would seem to confirm that the 15-year-old “Downton” franchise is finally finished.

Ta ta! The six-season TV series was a scrumptious, decadent upstairs-downstairs drama about a British stately home, its noble residents, the Granthams, and their hardworking servants below. Sure it was soapy, but at least the suds were Molton Brown.

They quickly turned into Head & Shoulders. Two movies were made. Two overblown, charmless, long and extremely successful movies.

A fan of the PBS show, I loathed them like the Dowager Countess loathed electricity. 

The third, portentously directed again by Simon Curtis, narrowly won me over, though. Perhaps that’s because from the off it feels like the final episode of a TV series that’s past its prime. Even if your favorite characters have seen better days, you’re still sad they’re hitting the road.

Nostalgia is a prime factor, yes, but the story is legitimately engrossing this time, however recycled it may be, rather than a lazy stack of trumpeted entrances and exits and half-witty asides that marred the 2019 and 2022 films.

Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) causes a scandal when news of her divorce from Henry Talbot hits London. She becomes a high-society untouchable, which throws Downton into chaos because Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) plans to give her the keys. 

And the household doesn’t need any more upheaval since it’s already facing money woes brought about by visiting Harold (Paul Giamatti), the American brother of Cora (Elizabeth McGovern). 

Harold also drags along his tricky friend Gus (Alessandro Nivola), who, in a throwback to the first season, indulges in some after-dark mischief.

Greatly missed is the late Maggie Smith’s sharp-tongued Dowager Countess, who died in “A New Era.” Her eruption of acid is needed to cut through “Downton”’s richness. 

While the earl, countess and ladies are practically ripping their hair out with stress, down in the kitchen the developments are refreshingly nice ones.

Chatty Daisy (Sophie McShera) is inheriting the ladle as head cook now that Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) is retiring, and Carson (Jim Carter), who’s married to Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), is waving goodbye to his butler fineries. Anna (Joanne Froggatt) is pregnant. Times are changing. Take a shot! 

What threatens to scuttle “The Grand Finale,” but is ultimately essential to its tidy resolution, is the weird addition of Noel Coward to the plot.

The “Blithe Spirit” playwright is a friend of actor Guy Dexter (Dominic West), the down-low boyfriend of former servant Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier). They pay Downton a visit as a favor, and Arty Froushan’s high-pitched Coward sings songs and cracks jokes. When Lady Mary’s travails inspire him to write “Private Lives,” ’tis a groaner.

“Downton” and the famous Brit come off like mismatched socks.

It does the character no favors that he pals around with Barrow, whose questionable arc of going from pure evil to repentant closeted gay man is “Downton”’s worst. 

The wrap-up is clean as the glistening china. And the final scene sees Mary remembering her family members who were tragically lost over the years — her sister Sybil, her husband Matthew and of course the Dowager Countess.

Both Mary and us are reminded that times are, indeed, changing.

You know what to do.