‘Downton Abbey’ season 4 spoilers: First look at Gary Carr’s Jack Ross

Now that we’ve shared the new official cast photo for “Downton Abbey” season 4, we’re back to our new series highlighting some of the major new characters coming on board this year.

Following our spotlight of Tom Cullen’s Lord Anthony Gillingham, we have a character who is going to be very intriguing to watch in Gary Carr’s Jack Ross. This is the first major black character to appear on the show, and thus someone who is going to be important in showing British race relations in the 1920s. North American audiences tend to be reasonably short-sighted when it comes to their history of race relations, and do not know much about what was going on in Britain at that time; therefore, this could be more than just entertainment for many of them.

Carr’s character is a jazz musician, and there have been sightings of him filming with Lily James’ character of Lady Rose. Given that she is almost the personification of the “modern London woman” within the world of the show, the interesting part of the story could come from seeing how other characters react to the two of them.

Carr’s run on the show is believed to be for multiple episodes, but details are sketchy like they are for many other actors on the series. Executive producer Julian Fellowes and the rest of the team are extremely careful not to give away any major spoilers during production, given that when you have writing that is so dialogue-heavy, there are only so many surprises that you can give to an audience. (Of course, we cannot say the same to the poor souls who have to watch the show in America months after the fact, which requires steering clear of Twitter.)

We have some more teasers from Michelle Dockery on the new season here, and be sure to stay tuned; we’ll have more from the “Downton Abbey” world as it becomes available.

Photo: ITV