Note: This post contains spoilers about the final season of Downton Abbey, which has just concluded its run in the UK on ITV. American viewers can watch the final season starting Jan. 3 on PBS.



After more weddings, deaths, fights and sibling rivalry than we could count, it's finally time for Downton Abbey to bring itself to a close.

The penultimate episode of Downton Abbey left us with a sense of restlessness, in no small part because the show's most forlorn character, Lady Edith, was left empty-handed yet again. Is Edith really so doomed? Will Barrow find happiness away from the Abbey? Will Mr. Molesley get the future he deserves? There were a lot of loose ends to tie up — but tie them up the writers did.

Henry and Lady Mary receive even more good news - but what of Edith?

'Spinsters live alone'

We left Edith abandoned like a spare tyre at the Abbey, with only little Marigold to keep her company. Edith has found solace in her career and is considering a move to London, sans Bertie. She points out to her father that she is now a spinster, and “spinsters live alone.” Poor, miserable Edith.

Isobel finds love at last

Lord Merton, Isobel’s male companion, has been MIA. So she pays him a visit — but all is not well. He has anaemia, he confesses. Pernicious anaemia, which is terminal.

“I’ve had a good innings…" he tells Isobel. "I should like to have been married to you. But no man can have everything.”

I can’t think why I turned him down, Isobel muses later to the Dowager. It was because his offspring are sociopaths, Isobel. Sociopaths.

Despite this, Isobel is really rather shaken up. However, Miss Cruikshank — who mere weeks ago couldn’t wait to offload her husband’s aging father — has altogether changed her mind about Isobel’s involvement, now that he might die and she might get her hands on his fortune sooner rather than later.

“Of course when you thought you’d be saddled with him for years, I was a necessary evil,” Isobel points out, while dollar signs practically beam from Cruickshank's otherwise soulless eyes.

So Isobel does what anyone would do in such a precarious situation: She summons the Dowager. “If reason fails, try force!” the Dowager tells her. She’s right, of course, and Lord Merton escapes his horrible children to marry Isobel at long last.

Will Lady Edith get her happy ending?

Third time’s the charm for Edith?

Lady Rosamund asks Edith to dine at the Ritz. But when she shows up, it’s Bertie standing sheepishly by the table — and Edith’s understandably peeved.

“You broke my heart," she tells him.

“I want you back," he responds. "I couldn’t live without you…The only thing I’m not ready for… is a life without you.” Aw!

But just when it seems everything is back on track, Edith’s honesty threatens her pending happiness.

Despite their reunion, Edith still isn't sure that Bertie is prepared for the reality of her weighty secret. What if everyone finds out? What if his mother finds out? With the engagement announcement a few days away, Edith still can’t enjoy her happiness. She takes herself off to Bertie’s mother, where she prepares to reveal her secret love child to the only woman with the power to stop her marriage.

At first it doesn’t look good. Bertie tries to make the case for Edith, citing her honest nature — but Mother Dearest isn’t interested.

“Is that supposed to make her sordid revelations more fragrant?” she demands. “She’s ruled herself out of the running –-and what is more, she knows it.”

But Bertie at last shows a bit of backbone, and politely asks to leave. He’s pressing forward, with or without his mother’s approval — which makes him head and shoulders above Edith’s past gentleman.

However, his mother surprises us all by announcing the engagement with some gusto, later explaining that Edith’s unimpeachable honesty was the clincher.

“She was prepared to deny herself the great position to say nothing of happiness rather than claim it by deceit. We must applaud her! “

Lady Edith finds happiness in marriage.

Then Edith and Bertie have a romantic kiss as their parents fondly look on — which sounds weird, but isn’t that much different from weddings, I suppose.

Later on, we find out the reconciliation between the lovebirds was Lady Mary’s doing, as a sort of olive branch for consistently ruining her sister's life.

“We’re blood and we’re stuck with it,” she says, sweet as ever.

From left to right: Mr Bates, Lord Grantham, Branson and Moseley

Lady Mary gets her way (again)

Henry finds car racing rather unpalatable after the death of his friend Charlie, so he’s been racking his brain on how he contribute to his marriage beyond giving Mary the odd lift to the village.

Never fear, Henry and Branson have an idea. They will run a motorcar shop together, and eventually go into motorcar production: Talbot and Branson Motors, a proper shop . Henry, a secondhand car salesman? The very thought would have made Lady Mary fit in Season 1. But now, Lady Mary has her mind on other things: She and Henry are to have a child! Hoorah!

Something’s very wrong with Carson

Carson’s barely able to hold a bottle without incontrollable shaking, and eagle-eyed Mrs. Hughes has spotted the symptoms — even if Carson won’t admit anything at first.

Carson's incontrollable shaking is becoming difficult to hide

Though he tries to deny it, Carson knows what it is the matter after all. “My father had it, and my grandfather,” he tells Mrs. Hughes. “Grandad called it the palsy." Then: “I’m done for.”

However, with Barrow back from his new employment to celebrate Lady Edith’s wedding, the family has had an idea: What if, as Carson’s being put to pasture, they were to ask Barrow to be the new butler?

The look on Barrow’s face when he hears will melt your heart.

Daisy, Daisy, quite contrary

Poor Daisy. She’s never been lucky in love, and Mrs. Patmore has her number: “You know your problem? You despise anyone who thinks well of you. If a man likes you, you think he must be rubbish.” We’ve all been there, amiright?

Still, dopey Andy’s attempts at chatting Daisy up are feeble to say the least: “I don’t think you need to change your hair," he tells her, only to be met with a snide, “What, are you a fashion expert now?”

However, when Andy begins to ignore her, Daisy magically sees him in a whole new light...

A very eventful wedding

Edith has certainly given Lady Mary a run for her money in her wedding and her dress –- it seems they’ve saved the best till last in this season, with this wedding resembling the grandiosity of Mary’s marriage to Matthew instead of the rather rushed affair with Henry. Even better, Dr. Clarkson informs Lord Merton that he has anaemia -– but it’s nothing terminal.

We’ve barely had time to digest the news of Mary’s pregnancy, Dickie’s miraculous recovery and a wedding before it’s Anna who has a go at stealing Edith’s thunder when her water breaks. Holed up in Mary’s room, she and Bates get their lifelong dream of having a child of their own –- a son.

Elsewhere in the Abbey

Lord Grantham gets a chance to see Cora in action in her new role at the hospital — and judging by the way his chest puffs up, we can say he’s really rather proud after all.

Lord Grantham has a new-found respect for Cora.

Daisy, desperate to revive her look, hacks all of her hair off. Not to worry — lovely Anna fixes it for her, causing Andy to breathe that she looks like Clara Bow.

Oh, and Molesley is going to accept the job as a teacher full-time.

So there we are. The Christmas special was Downton without the drama ... but here at the end, maybe that’s all we needed. Take some solace in thinking of the Crawleys living somewhere in our imaginations, watching the children grow as they settle into their respective futures.

And one last zinger from the Dowager

“Don’t be mysterious. It’s the last resort of people with no secrets.”