‘Downton Abbey’ season 5 spoilers: Hugh Bonneville on Isis the dog speculation

We’ll go ahead and start up this “Downton Abbey” story with the following disclaimer: If you are American or haven’t watched the new season yet, stop reading now! You’ll regret it otherwise.

On this past episode of the ITV series, we witnessed a series of scenes suggested that Isis the Dog was not long for this world, and the ending of it may be the first time on the show that we’ve straight-up felt the tears. We don’t know why this sort of thing gets to us so much, but it does.

What has complicated this story are all of the rumors that this was a deliberate move by Julian Fellowes and company in response to the ISIS military group who have started international headlines, and that the show wants to disassociate themselves in every way possible. Sources have already denied that this is the case, and now star Hugh Bonneville has done the same.

In a new post on his official blog, the man behind Robert has made it clear that there is no connection at all between headlines and story decisions that were made:

“To clarify recent speculation, the labrador that appeared in Series One (1912-14) was a dog called Pharaoh. From Series Two (1916-1920) onwards, the labrador has been a b***h named – in keeping with the Egyptian theme – Isis. Anyone who genuinely believes the Series 5 storyline (1924) involving the animal was a reaction to recent world news is a complete berk.”

We were always hoping that this was the case, mostly because the idea of the show bending to this sort of pressure would be ridiculous. Obviously, there is no connection between a dog and a military group in the Middle East, and any viewer would know that.

The finale of “Downton Abbey” airs this weekend on ITV, and you can read some more teasers about it over at the link here. Also, sign up today to get some other updates on everything we cover right now via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo via ITV.)