OK. I take it all back.
Every snarky word I’ve ever written (and believe me, there have been a considerable number) about Downton Abbey and its creator Julian Fellowes’ staunch refusal to ever let anything that might be less than flattering to modern ears slip through an aristocrat’s congenitally stiffened upper lip: the noticeable lack of concern over Cora’s paternal Levinson-ness; the less than a flicker of any sense that perhaps the plight of those newly impoverished post-Revolution Russian refugees might feel slightly less tragic if one paused to consider the brutal oppression and systematic terror those of their class had inflicted on their countrymen for generations. (I’m not saying Communism was perfect, Miss Bunting; I’m saying there was, at one point, a fairly logical reason for it.)
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