Will The Gilded Age Stage A Crossover With Downton Abbey In Season 4? 'There's An Opportunity To,' EP Says
With the third season of The Gilded Age ending this Sunday, and the third Downton Abbey movie hitting theaters next month, we couldn't help but wonder... when the heck are these two Julian Fellowes-created franchises finally going to collide?
It's a question we've been asking since The Gilded Age first premiered in 2022, but now that Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) has married into British nobility, the time feels more appropriate than ever. Come on, who didn't get Downton vibes from the Duke's house?
"Well, obviously there's an opportunity to [stage a crossover], because they are both in England," Fellowes tells TVLine. "Things like the shooting season or whatever would incorporate many great houses for all of these families, as they would travel around England. We can bring about a conjunction whenever we wish, really, but we haven't got one planned yet, so we'll have to see."
To be fair, this is a much more encouraging answer than executive producer Gareth Neame gave us when we spoke with him back in The Gilded Age's first season.
"[A crossover is] not in the thinking at all," Neame says. "It's a separate universe, but they're both fictions set in the 1880s. Downton Abbey, in its own fiction, was definitely there. A younger version of the Maggie Smith character would be living there, I guess. But it's not really planned."
A younger version of Smith's iconic Dowager Countess? Hey, he said it, not us. Wouldn't it be fun, if even as a fleeting cameo, to catch a glimpse of someone from the Crawley family on The Gilded Age? The first season of Downton Abbey began with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, meaning it takes place less than 30 years after the current season of The Gilded Age, which would put the Countess somewhere in her 40s. Just something to think about.
Gilded Age fans, would you like to see the show collide with the world of Downton Abbey, even if it's just a nod? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.