‘Downton Abbey’ season 6, episode 4 reaction (PBS): The big news for Anna and Bates

If there is one thing that just about everyone has come to know about “Downton Abbey” over the years, it is that Anna and Bates have suffered … tremendously. We’re not sure that there are any characters on this show that have been through more, in between Bates being in jail, Anna being raped, and the extended investigation into Mr. Green’s death that at one point led to both of them being suspects. That was finally resolved earlier this season, which meant that for the first time in a long time, Sunday night’s new episode could be spent handing out something for them that actually can be classified as good news: They’re having a baby!

Anna finally revealed the news to Bates on this episode, and we do feel like it is the culmination of the entire story; but, did the producers for the show tell it in the right away? We argued that Julian Fellowes made a mistake in allowing the Mr. Green investigation to continue for as long as it did. By the time we arrived at the tail end of the affair, we have to say that we were really just over it all and wanted to move on to other things.

Meanwhile, as joyous as it is to know the news publicly about Anna’s pregnancy, it does come after spending a very short period of time on the story. Granted, this is the final season and there are other matters that the series must deal with, but wouldn’t it have been more economic to end the Green plot last year, and then give us a season or so of Anna and Bates figuring out how to start a family, or dealing with other matters of the home?

What this ultimately means for the two of them is that they can have the future they both want, provided of course that nothing else bad happens. Unfortunately, there are still many weeks left in the season.