‘Downton Abbey’ closes its doors

From left, Laura Carmichael, Elizabeth McGovern, Matthew Goode, Allen Leech, Zac/Oliver Barker, and Michelle Dockery from Season 6.PHOTO:CARNIVAL FILM & TELEVISION/MASTERPIECE

(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL) “Downton Abbey,” themost-watched drama in PBS history, isabout to hang upits flapper dresses and maids’ aprons, and put away the dangling earrings, jeweled headpieces and chandeliers. The series, which has become a global phenomenon, airs its 90-minute swan song Sunday night on “Masterpiece.” Through six seasons, the show has followedthe aristocratic Crawley familyand its dwindling ranks of servants from the rule-bound Edwardian era through World War I and the Roaring Twenties.

Before we bid farewell, here are some burning questions about the series, its most-loathed characters andother highlights.

Spoiler alert:This article contains major “Downton Abbey” plot points up through the next-to-last episode of Season 6.

Biggest Open Question

After fans spent six seasons thinking that Lady Edith Crawley’s actual title was “Poor Edith,” the question before the finale is whether she will continue her “unluckiest ‘Downton’ character” streak. The penultimate episode sawLady Marynastily revealing toBertie Pelham—Edith’s 25th fiancé—that his intended, her sister, has an illegitimate daughter, Marigold. The news torpedoed the relationship, as Bertie, who is also the new Marquess of Hexham, likely can’t make the mother of a bastard child his marchioness. Another question just adding to the pressure on the middle Crawley daughter: Will Edith ever make her parents proud?

Worst Plot Development

Season 6 has been strong but was plagued by a lackluster subplot about a hospital takeover. Even more tedious, the subplot turnedMaggie Smith’s characterinto a harridan. If the Dowager Countess becomes someone we can’t stand, that’s a death knell for “Downton.” The subplot had to be short-circuited in a most improbable fashion: A Quentin Tarantino-esque scene of Lord Grantham vomiting blood at a dinner party.

Most-Mourned Character

The youngest Crawley daughter,Lady Sybil Branson, was killed off in the middle of Season 3, but her spirit burns brightly through “Downton.” One of the few purely good and forward-thinking characters, she succumbed to eclampsia. (Lesson learned? Never trust a fancy Harley Street doctor just because he’s a “Sir.” I’m looking at you, Lord Grantham.) But thanks to the Season 6 reappearance of Sybil’s protégée, former Downton maid Gwen Dawson, and her working-class husband, Tom Branson, Sybil has been remembered more than other kindhearted characters of seasons past. Just ask Lavinia Swire.

The cast of Season 6 of ‘Downton Abbey’PHOTO:COURTESY OF NICK BRIGGS/CARNIVAL FILM & TELEVISION LIMITED 2015 FOR MASTERPIECE

Worst Career Move by a Lead Actor

Four episodes after Lady Sybil died, “Downton Abbey” heartthrob Matthew Crawley was killed in a car crash at the end of Season 3. No,creator Julian Fellowesdidn’t have a morbid fixation. Instead, actor Dan Stevens wanted to become a movie star. Since leaving “Downton” he has yet to light up the big screen, but that could change next year when he stars as the Beast in Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast.”

Cruelest Character(s)

This is another tough one as “Downton Abbey” has been peppered with contemptible individuals since the get-go. The winner is Lady Rose’s mother, Susan, the Marchioness of Flintshire. Toward the end of Season 5, Susan arranged for Rose’s fiancé,Atticus Aldridge, to be photographed in the arms of a scantily clad female, which nearly derails the engagement. A close second is Lord Merton’s soon-to-be daughter-in-law, the shifty Amelia Cruikshank, who wants to turn Isobel Crawley into an unpaid nursemaid. Amelia fails to realize that her cocky fearlessness of Isobel and her BFF the Dowager Countess doesn’t make her brave, it just makes her stupid.

Maggie Smith plays the tart-tongued Dowager Countess in ‘Downton Abbey.’PHOTO:CARNIVAL FILM & TELEVISION/MASTERPIECE

Sleaziest Move by a Servant

The shadiness perpetrated by under-butler Thomas Barrow and lady’s maid Gladys Denker could fill a book, but this distinction goes to Cora’s former servant Sarah O’Brien. In Season 1, under the misinformed suspicion that she was about to be sacked, O’Brien strategically placed a bar of soap at her pregnant mistress’s foot following her bath. She intended a mishap, not mayhem, but Cora’s slip meant she lost the baby—and heir—she was carrying.

Long-Lost Character Who Should Make a Cameo in the Finale

So many people passed through the doors of Downton Abbey but never got to say goodbye. If we had to pick one lucky chap to get a return invitation, it would be the disfigured World War I soldier who claimed to be Lord Grantham’s heir, Patrick Crawley, back in Season 2. He and Edith seemed to have something during his brief convalescence, and as of this moment, she is available. Besides, at this stage in life, she can no longer be choosy.

Spinoff That Needs to Happen

“Spratt & Denker.” A single “Downton” episode has so much mischief between the Dowager Countess’s butler and lady’s maid that to not give these two their own half-hour dark-comedy series would be a real disservice to fans.