‘Downton Abbey’ Mini-Cap: Is Lady Mary Really A B*tch?

Downton Abbey is finally coming to an end. To salute the internationally-acclaimed drama, we’re examining one particularly potent scene or storyline from each episode in the sixth and final season.

On last night’s penultimate Downton Abbey, Lady Edith Crawley (Laura Carmichael) finally tore into her uppity elder sister with all the fury of hell. After an entire lifetime of being bullied and beleaguered, outmaneuvered and squeezed down, she finally called Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) “a bitch.” Well, to be precise, she called her “a nasty, jealous, scheming bitch,” but the word “bitch” was used all the same.

Besides being shocking, it’s a pivotal moment for Downton Abbey. Not only is the usually prim and proper show indulging in adult language, but Lady Mary is finally being held accountable for her cold and selfish ways. From the very first episode, Mary has been as self-centered as she is glamorous. When she discovers her cousin (and secret fiancé) has perished on the Titanic, she doesn’t respond with grief, but concern that she’s going to be relegated to a gloomy wardrobe. While Mary has been thwarted, blackmailed, and insulted, she’s never really been called a “bitch.” At least — that we know of — not to her face.

Now, things are different. She’s no longer protected by her cool confidence or society’s deference towards the delicate feelings of ladies. When she pushes Henry Talbot away with the grace of a toddler in a temper tantrum, he responds with a brutal appraisal of her character. It’s not exactly the bashful yearning that Mary’s used to from her suitors. Even Tom Branson, Mary’s best friend, lashes out at her. “You’re a coward, Mary! Like all bullies, you’re a coward.”

However, it’s not just Edith, Henry, and Tom who are going for Mary’s jugular. The criticism is wafting downstairs and into the servants’ hall. Even before everything reached a boiling point, Mary’s tetchy personality was a topic of conversation.

“She’s a bit a of a bully, your Lady Mary,” Bates tells Anna after supper. “She likes her own way.”

Anna, who is Mary’s best friend, employee, and long-time confident, admits, “She is and she does. But there’s another side of her.”

This is the crux of the episode and perhaps the whole series. Who is Lady Mary Crawley? Is she a bully or a victim? A villainess or a heroine? Is Lady Mary really a bitch? No matter how it’s been re-appropriated, the word’s root slang is a derogatory term for a woman. It implies that she is selfish, mean, unpleasant, and shrewish. Mary certainly has shown herself to be selfish, mean, unpleasant, and shrewish throughout the course of the series. In fact, she kind of outdoes herself in this episode. She rolls her eyes and sneers through the house. She cruelly dispatches Henry and then sulks about it. She picks a fight with most of the family and when news hits that Edith is marrying a marquis, she ruins her sister’s chances at happiness with one slip of gossip at the breakfast table.

So, yeah, she is kind of a bitch, but as Anna argues, there is another side of her. There’s the generous and loyal Mary who will do anything for those who loves. There’s the heartbroken Mary who struggled after Matthew’s death. There’s the selfless Mary who nursed her future husband when he was disabled by shrapnel (and engaged to another woman!). But what unites all Mary’s acts of kindness is she doesn’t want them out in the open. Indeed, her grandmother even lectures her later in last night’s episode by saying, “You are the only woman I know who likes to think herself cold and selfish and grand. Most of us spend our life trying to hide it.”

Lady Mary definitely behaves like a bitch, but that’s because she wants you to believe she’s one. She is secretly, as Tom says, a coward. She’s afraid of being hurt, looking the fool, and most of all, losing. She erupts at Henry when he refuses to submit to her will and dashes Edith’s hopes whenever it seems her younger sister might outpace her. Lady Mary can be selfish, cruel, and horrible, but she’d rather be that than a victim.

In any other nighttime soap opera, Lady Mary would be painted as the villain, but on Downton Abbey, she is the beguiling protagonist. She drives the action of the story and seduces us layer by complex layer. The show has always been about the compassionate heart that beats beneath her sophisticated exterior, just as it’s always been about the love that pulses through the massive and foreboding-looking estate.

The series finale of Downton Abbey will air on PBS’s Masterpiece on March 6.

[Watch Seasons 1-5 of Downton Abbey on Prime Video]
[Watch Season 6 of Downton Abbey on PBS]