The major theme of the second season continues from the first: that happiness and strife are independent of socio-economic status. How right that is.
The ensemble cast returns to a world engulfed in war. Many themes of war are picked up properly. One servant suffers from shellshock, first witnessed in WWI trenches; the ‘political’ chauffer uses the execution of the Russian royal family (1918, a year after the revolution) as a parable for his new life with the third eldest Crawley daughter; women gain importance as nurses. The war spells tragedy for Downton. A servant dies protecting the heir, Mathew Crawley, who is initially crippled but later regains his health.
The tragedies continue in the post-war outbreak of Spanish flu, from which 3% of the population died. Alas, poor Yorick, death is the greatest equalizer of all. Despite the widespread infections both upstairs and downstairs, the only casualty was the heart-broken yet perennially loving and self-sacrificing fiancé of Mathew, Lavinia Swire. Her death was the happiness of Mary and Mathew, their love finally unhindered. It is an accomplishment for the series to have the audience to so thoroughly share in the joy of two beneficiaries of wealth, appearance, pedigree and frankly, someone else’s death. There is nothing that precludes the well-to-do from eliciting sympathy and relief thereafter. Just as the poor can attain insurmountable highs, the rich can plummet to lows.
A heartwarming scene near the end hosts the servants’ ball, where the nobles dance with their servants. Hierarchies are still respected. The patriarch Crawley is reserved by head housekeeper; the Butler twirls with Crawley’s American wife, Cora.
The second season is almost as successful as the first by virtue of characters and wit. Cora, played by Emmy nominated actress Elizabeth McGovern, has a magnificent accent similar to that of Atlantic City mobsters in Boardwalk Empire (a new season of which starts soon!). As her fellow Americans, she is ever so open-minded, industrious, crafty, calculating and decidedly less noble-minded than her British counterparts. Viewers no doubt were pleased that Lavinia was sacrificed in Cora’s stead.
Unfortunately, a few tangents led nowhere or were less than meaningful. Patriarch Crawley, a Major and an aging suitor all have illicit affairs out of wedlock. We get the point. People were just as salacious a hundred years ago, just that society was less accepting (and found fault with the woman more often). Aside from that, the affairs were at best, boring. At worst, they were unbelievable in an otherwise genuine series.
I am sad to finish the second series with the third not yet available. Despite some follies, the second season comes as vociferously as the first, filled to the brim with emotions both euphoric and lugubrious in a holistic and pertinent yet often comical depiction of the lives of the rich and poor.