‘Downton Abbey’ season 4: Could [spoiler] end up returning, after all?

While the death of their characters seems to set in stone the inability of both Dan Stevens and Jessica Brown Findlay to return to “Downton Abbey” moving forward, the same cannot be said for another actress who recently made the decision to depart the series in Siobhan Finneran. Why is that? The answer is frankly rather simple: her character of Mrs. O’Brien is not dead.

We ultimately now that O’Brien really ended up going out the way in which series executive producer Julian Fellowes hoped to see both Stevens’ Matthew and Findlay’s Sybil leave, in that there is a door open for another return to the show. However, there is a logical reason for her to take off from Downton Abbey for a while, in that she may have been dismissed and found another job elsewhere. It’s a little bit more difficult when you are playing not only the member of a family, but also a parent and a spouse.

Speaking in a new interview on “This Morning,” here is what Finneran specifically had to say about possibly returning to the show some day, despite earlier comments that she was simply not interested in doing the show anymore:

“The door has been left open to return. We don’t know what happens to her … She may well fly back on her broomstick at some point.”

While the O’Brien character (despite being a rather nasty one) will surely be missed, one of the things that does come out this change in the cast is that it provides additional possibilities for the writers to come up with new characters and dynamics for the world downstairs.

Do you think it would be right for Finneran to return to the show at some point? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below, and you can read some more news on Steven’s post-“Downton Abbey” makeover at the link here.

Photo: ITV