In Frank Miller’s influential graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, a lion-in-winter tale about an aging Batman’s final hurrah (until the sequels came out, anyway), the Caped Crusader’s trusty butler Alfred Pennyworth is faced with the grim task of destroying Wayne Manor and the Batcave so that the outlaw vigilante’s enemies cannot exploit them. As the bombs detonate and the whole complex collapses into the earth, a stroke fells the faithful servant simultaneously. The narration spells out what passes through Pennyworth’s mind in these final moments: “‘Of course,’ he thinks, as his head goes light. ‘How utterly proper.’”
Any resemblance between Downton Abbey and the Dark Knight is almost certainly coincidental. But there was indeed something utterly proper about the downfall of another devoted butler, conveniently occurring just as the show, if not the estate itself, shuffled off this mortal coil. Carson, the captain of the upstairs/downstairs ship and a far more ferocious guardian of its class system even than those who truly benefited from it, suddenly developed a tremor in his hand and ended his days as the head of the household. As symbolism goes, it’s a bit less brutal than Batman’s manservant dropping dead in the middle of burning his mansion to the ground, but it’s no less blunt. The old ways, those who practiced them, and the show that chronicled them, now must all step aside.
I reviewed the final episode of Downton Abbey, a show I treasure, for the New York Observer. It is likely the only such review to compare the show to The Dark Knight Returns.
