MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Ring for the butler. Set a table for tea. The Crawleys are coming for the first time without Dame Maggie Smith.
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HUGH BONNEVILLE: (As Robert Crawley) If Mama were alive, what would she do?
KELLY: Six TV seasons, two previous films and now what producers are calling "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale." Our critic Bob Mondello sounds skeptical.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Finale? Come on. I mean, it is grand, but with the first two movies having taken in nearly $300 million, it's hard to imagine this saga won't go on indefinitely - the Crawleys riding out the blitz next time maybe, someday having the Beatles to tea. For now, though, it's 1930 and scandal is brewing. Lady Mary dressed in scarlet - wouldn't you know? - is dancing at a stately home in London when the hostess, who's just seen a newspaper headline, pulls her and her parents aside.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Lady Mary must go now. She's divorced.
MONDELLO: Divorced? Good - wait. What?
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MICHELLE DOCKERY: (As Lady Mary Talbot) I'm very sorry. I shouldn't have come.
MONDELLO: This is a woman who once had a Turkish diplomat die in her bed. But never mind, give series creator Julian Fellowes his plot points. There are, as always, a lot of them, from county fairs to the races at Ascot. And one financial one - this is the Great Depression, remember - that threatens the very existence of Downton.
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ELIZABETH MCGOVERN: (As Cora Crawley) Welcome back, my brother.
PAUL GIAMATTI: (As Harold Levinson) Cora.
MCGOVERN: (As Cora Crawley) The news is bad, isn't it?
GIAMATTI: (As Harold Levinson) How could you tell?
MCGOVERN: (As Cora Crawley) I've known you since you were born.
DOCKERY: (As Lady Mary Talbot) Hal's made a real mess of things, hasn't he?
MONDELLO: He has.
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BONNEVILLE: (As Robert Crawley) Don't you see what this means for Downton?
MONDELLO: Longtime viewers will be pleased to know that pretty much everyone is back, even, in a sense, those who've died. And there's also a visiting celebrity, playwright and entertainer Noel Coward, who delights in being provocative and who's always on the lookout for material.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Lady Mary, come and meet Noel.
DOCKERY: (As Lady Mary Talbot) Oh, I thought it was just a few locals. It's so good of you to come all this way.
ARTY FROUSHAN: (As Noel Coward) I was talking earlier to your uncle about your divorce. What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Don't worry. She'd rather not say.
DOCKERY: (As Lady Mary Talbot) No, I'll say. We fought like cats. He wanted to be kingpin. But I was the heiress, and he was just the husband. He hated that.
FROUSHAN: (As Noel Coward) How intriguing.
MONDELLO: He's soon conjuring "Private Lives," his most popular play, while we're checking in on the private lives of pretty much all the Downtonites. The old guard is retiring from the reluctant earl...
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BONNEVILLE: (As Robert Crawley) It's hard to accept that it's time to go.
MONDELLO: ...To butler Carson's still worried about silver polishing but waxing philosophical...
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JAMES EDWARD CARTER: (As Mr. Carson) You look back and think about all the changes you've witnessed.
MONDELLO: ...To Mrs. Patmore, who's handing the kitchen over to young Daisy.
LESLEY NICOL: (As Mrs. Patmore) You're the daughter I never had.
SOPHIA MCSHERA: (As Daisy Parker) I'll treasure those words.
MONDELLO: Then there's Mary.
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DOCKERY: (As Lady Mary Talbot) Families like ours must keep moving to survive.
MONDELLO: Like sharks, the point of all this movement, in narrative terms, is keeping audiences engaged. After being wildly successful at that for nearly 15 years, Fellowes and his crew aren't about to slacken in the stretch. They've introduced an American snake in the garden that is Downton to tempt Mary.
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ALESSANDRO NIVOLA: (As Gus Sambrook) Surely, you're entitled to have some fun.
MONDELLO: And they've put a lot of signposts amid the beaded gowns and elegies to a bygone age.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) This is Mary's time. She's in step with how to run this estate in the '30s, the '40s and the '50s.
MONDELLO: Which is why I'm not entirely convinced by all this talk of finales. There's a youngster named George on the sidelines here. He has nary a line, but as Mary's son, he will inherit Downton at some point. If I've got the chronology right, he's about 9 in 1930, meaning he'll be 18 when Germany marches into Poland, 31 when Elizabeth assumes England's throne, 42 when the Beatles release "Love Me Do." At which point, Mary and Edith will be approaching the age of the dowager countess and her frenemy, Isobel. So I, for one, won't be surprised...
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DOCKERY: (As Lady Mary Talbot) Long live Downton Abbey.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Amen to that.
MONDELLO: ...If this grand finale isn't all that final.
I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF FELIX PROJECT'S "SOVIET SONG (RADIO EDIT)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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