Have you heard the news about season four? We're still reeling from the finale! And yet, we have every intention of watching the full season three marathon on Sunday, 3/24.

Amie Simon brings us a final post wherein we drown our sorrows the old-fashioned way, with a cocktail (or three). Bottoms up!

So much happened this season on Downton Abbey, and SO much of it was tragic, I thought I’d offer up some cocktail recipes to toast a few of the good times and help relieve the pain Julian Fellowes caused us with the bad times. Feel free to sip slowly, or down quickly and pour another right away—whatever helps you get through it!

Amie Simon writes: It’s here! The Downton Abbey season three finale! (Already? Bummer.) This week’s 2-hour episode wraps up the season with love blooming in some very unlikely places, lots of hilarity, drunkenness, joy, and … an unexpected shocker. Here are the highlights—and season 4 cannot come soon enough!

We’ve been fascinated by the fashions in Downton Abbey since Season One. KCTS 9’s Hilda Cullen writes about the luscious vintage fashions that inspired Downton Abbey's designers:

Fashion bloggers have been calling it the “Downton Abbey Effect,” and it’s been springing up everywhere, from designer Tadashi Shoji’s Fall 2012 evening gown collection, to the New York Fashion Week runway show that Ralph Lauren hosted this fall at Highclere Castle, the real Downton Abbey.

We know we're still not over the loss of Downton Abbey's "sweetest spirit." But how long will the Crawleys officially wear black? And just what is “half-mourning”? Tara Austen Weaver explains the traditions of mourning:

Downton is a dark place these days—tempers fraying, stiff upper lips (I’m looking at you, Carson), and lots and lots of black. The house is in mourning, upstairs and down.

From our 21st century perspective, we have found it hard to sympathize with Thomas—but season three has changed all that. Tara Austen Weaver reports on a crucial plot element that comes to a turning point for Thomas in episode six.
 
Did you ever think you’d feel sorry for Thomas? Thomas—the guy who shot his hand through to leave the war, who sabotaged Bates at every turn. Snide, supercilious Thomas! Oh, how the mighty have fallen. O’Brien says, “Stand back and enjoy his fall,” but really, it’s hard to.
 

Amie Simon writes: This week brings us a two-hour episode filled with major changes for Downton, some excellent rapid-fired quip battles between Isobel and Violet, and perhaps the most scandalous moment ever to take place inside Downton’s walls!

Surely if Ethel can manage an edible Charlotte Russe, we can too – never mind that before today, we thought “isinglass” was a lyric from a Beatles song. Happily, Tara Austen Weaver has located a proper recipe, and so we shall not go without our pudding… 

Photo source: distopiandreamgirl on Flickr

How do we talk about the pall over Downton, when not even Robert and Cora are speaking? This week’s recap highlights a heaping helping of Dowager Countess zingers and some good news from downstairs… And now, our recap by Amie Simon.

What is toxemia or eclampsia? Could what happened in Downton Abbey be realistic? What about today? Tara Austen Weaver has researched and reports.