The second season of Downton Abbey addresses many of the issues with the first; namely its staidness, and its refusal to allow very dire threats to affect the Crawley household. To the degree that they ever could in a PBS costume drama, the gloves come off this time, producing some compelling drama, but also moments that veer closer to soapiness than anything in the initial outing promised to. The show has raised the stakes but it may have done so at the price of its most valued asset: its dignity.
In the final moments of the last season, the Earl of Grantham announced Britain's involvement in the first World War; as we return to Downton, the war effort is in mid-motion. A number of the series's young luminaries have disembarked for the front, while displays of support, both effective and symbolic, are conducted at home. While nobody save the obligatory socialist in the crowd (in this case, Branson, the Irish driver) would dare speak out against the war, there are strong differences over just how much the Crawleys should sacrifice on behalf of others.
To hold an honorary position in a local club and march around in an army uniform are one thing, but to open up the grounds as a recovery center and send the help away to fight are entirely another. Predictably, most of the amusing commentary on this comes from Maggie Smith's aging matriarch, whose comic relief has come to provide more the show's spirit than one ever might have guessed.
Before it aired in the US, there was a good deal of consternation in the show's native UK about a mid-season (and single episode) plotline about a wounded war veteran whose possible identity threatens to undo everything the prior series had constructed narratively, and it is precisely as ridiculous as Americans have feared (though probably not as infuriating as a late-season game-changer involving Matthew Crawley). While such a plot twist could be imagined in the work of Dickens, it is the series' refusal to commit to it that is perhaps most frustrating. Had they sought to make an ongoing story arc out of this development, the show would probably never regain its reputation as the second coming of the period miniseries, but it would not suggest a show with such a serious identity crisis, for which no expository fact can be taken as irrevocable if the powers that be find it expedient to change them.
The biggest problem with the first series had been its unwillingness to actually put the screws to Lord and Lady Grantham, and force them to make decisions that might turn their staff against them. That cannot be said of this season, but it must be noted that the constantly shifting sands on which the story is based render any such conflict meaningless. Robert is allowed to take hard-line stances against things anathema to his character (dishonor, cowardice, the Irish), but also to take them back when it appears that he might become unsympathetic, or even complicated. Downton's desire to keep its ruling figures unblemished by even the most basic human characteristics is matched only by its hostility to those who threaten its structure, namely dissatisfied servant Thomas (also the show's only gay character) and new money magnate (translated: person who works for a living) Richard.
But even before the burn victim, or any number of other regrettable moments following it, there is an instance where something truly dramatic threatens to happen, and it doesn't(you could probably figure out what it is); had it, it would have been the moment the Crawley home was truly invaded by the outside world, and would have shattered any hope of collecting their niceties together again. But it doesn't, and the show draws a clear boundary between where it will and won't go. At the end of the second season, it has yet to approach that boundary again, and doesn't seem as if it will at any time in the near future. Should Downton fail in the third season to apply any significant human dimension to its aristocracy, it will most likely fade in American esteem as quickly as it has risen. But then, even that position might be crediting the show's writers too hastily; any position taken might be easily reversed should they need to provide a cliffhanger.
SPECIAL FEATURES
There are a few featurettes, entitled "Fashion & Uniforms", "Romance in a Time of War", and "House to Hospital".
"Downton Abbey: Season 2" is on sale February 14, 2012 and is not rated. Drama, Television. Directed by Andy Goddard, Brian Kelly, James Strong, Ashley Pearce. Written by Julian Fellowes. Starring Brendan Coyle, Elizabeth McGovern, Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jim Carter, Joanne Froggatt, Laura Carmichael, Lesley Nicol, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Phyllis Logan, Rob James Colliers, Siobhan Finneran, Sophie Mcshera, Amy Nuttall.
