‘Downton Abbey’ season 6, episode 6 reaction (PBS): Has Lady Mary made a choice with Henry Tablot?

For those of you who opted to watch “Downton Abbey” on PBS tonight rather than the Super Bowl, hopefully you found a great deal of drama to be worthwhile! (Warning: Spoilers ahead!)

There was a lot going on here, in between Downton opening its doors, Mr. Carson continuing to be a terrible critic to Mrs. Hughes on the subject of her food, and of course that terrible hospital story which to us serves as the blight in this final season. You can hear about more of this in our full review from the show’s British airing on ITV this past fall.

For the sake of this article, let us talk a story that has been years in the making: Michelle Dockery’s character of Mary finally making the big choice when it comes to matters of the heart: She is going to try to make things work with Henry Talbot. She has finally let go of her attitude and sentiment when it comes to class, and in this episode she also finally decided to let things go to a certain extent when it comes to the issue of his job as a car racer. We’re not saying that this is a permanent sentiment she will hold on to, but she makes it clear to him that much of her problem ties back to Matthew and the car accident that caused his death at the end of season 3. It’s nice that the series has not forgotten that, and the past for Mary is certainly playing a part in her present.

Now that we’ve said this, we also must praise the show for a different aspect of Mary’s choice: Patience. It would have been rather easy to pair her with either Tony Gillingham or Charles Blake at the end of seasons 4 or 5 and have that be it. However, the series took a different approach, allowing us time for her to find the right person. Maybe if that person never came, Mary would still be single. The show did a very nice job selling this as believable.