‘Downton Abbey’ season 4 spoilers: Julian Fellowes happy Dan Stevens’ exit over

Is “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes sad to no longer have Dan Stevens as a cast member? Sure, but at the same time, he is also rather pleased that he managed to deal with the death of Matthew Crawley prior to the start of season 4 … even if it did cause a few people out there to have a not-so-merry Christmas.

Speaking in an interview with xfinityTV, Julian Fellowes basically describes that thanks in part to the timing in which Matthew passed, they really could jump forward in time with the new season, not focus so much on the death itself, and have at least a pretty sizable chunk of the mourning period take place before the opening minutes of the show’s first episode back:

“Originally I thought we would kill Matthew at the beginning of the new series [Season 4], but the way things worked out, we didn’t have that option … Actually, I am quite glad of it now because being away from it for six months, we don’t have to do funerals and all that. She has had six months to go through the first mourning period.”

Will Mary have gotten over Matthew by the premiere? Not exactly. Michelle Dockery has said on many occasions that this is something that will take time, and she will not heal from what happened to her late husband overnight. There will be suitors awaiting her whenever she is ready to move on, but who knows when that will be?

What’s your take on Fellowes’ comments: Is it a good thing that Matthew died last season, at least so that we can do try to move forward a little bit? If you want to also read some more news on the show’s Emmy submissions, you don’t have to look any further than the link here.

Photo: ITV