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Lady Mary Crawley's love life has always been a narrative cornerstone for Downton Abbey, so it's both unexpected and intriguing to see her end the final movie as a divorcee. In a series that prides itself on being as cosy and nostalgic as humanly possible - particularly during Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale's unashamedly sentimental sendoff - this is as close to subversive as it gets.

In the wake of the previous movie, Downton Abbey: A New Era, Mary (Michelle Dockery) has divorced her second husband, Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode), citing their strained relationship and his habit of prioritising car racing over their family.

(He really was an underwhelming husband.)

Spoilers ahead for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.

How Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale grapples with a happy ending for society at the time vs. the people living in it

The rest of the Crawley clan agrees that divorce was the right move, but since this is England in the early 1930s, Mary's decision is seen as a major scandal among their upper-class peers. Her marriage hasn't just ended; it's 'failed.' And as the Crawley family's curmudgeonly butler points out, plenty of wealthy couples protect their reputations by staying legally married but living separate lives. There's a tacit implication that Mary should have gone with that option instead of causing all this fuss by dumping a subpar man.

Soon, Mary is a social outcast, beginning with a London party where the host learns about Mary's divorce halfway through, and hurriedly ushers her out of the house. In one of many moments that highlight the absurdly restrictive social mores of the British aristocracy, Mary and her parents must literally hide under a staircase so they don't bump into a visiting member of the royal family. Apparently, it would be a huge faux pas to force a princess to interact with a divorcee, even if it was just a 30-second greeting in a private hallway.

Mary's new status as a social pariah is one of the main plot threads in The Grand Finale. As one of her relatives notes, Mary is used to being the belle of the ball, so it's something of a culture shock for her to suddenly be excluded from society events. When her mother, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), invites some local friends to dinner, everyone turns her down, clearly too snobbish to rub shoulders with Mary post-divorce. She's essentially being punished for rejecting the socially expected happy ending of 'a Good Marriage' - even though privately, it wasn't that happy at all.

Of course, this being Downton Abbey, this situation doesn't last forever. By the end of the movie, Mary has been accepted back into the fold, both by her family's wealthy pals (who are won over by a party featuring Noel Coward) and by the Crawley estate's working-class tenants. But amid all this, Mary doesn't get another serious love interest. She does have an ill-advised one-night stand with a sexy American financier (Alessandro Nivola), but he turns out to be a con artist, and Mary's sister Edith (Laura Carmichael) ejects him from the house before he can do any more damage.

The real meaning of happily ever after in Downton Abbey

While it might have been tricky to introduce an entirely new love interest just for the final movie, a happily-ever-after with a new man is what we probably would have expected for Downton Abbey's defining romantic lead. Within the historical setting, Mary and her sisters were explicitly raised to find a good husband. And from a storytelling perspective, we're trained to perceive marriage as the ultimate happy ending in this kind of show. That's what we see for Edith, and for Mary's parents, and for several of the main servant characters.

But in keeping with the film's recurring reminders of social change in 1930s Britain, Mary's grand finale is more about independence, as she takes charge of the Downton Abbey estates following her father's retirement. In an earlier era, this likely wouldn't have happened at all - in fact, season 1 is predicated on the necessity of shipping in a distant male heir because the three Crawley daughters can't inherit their father's earldom. Two decades later, however, Mary is welcomed as a relatively uncontroversial successor, continuing the Earl's legacy while gently modernising the family properties.

Seeing Mary take charge as the manager of Downton's massive estate, we see just how far she has come since the first season. While the rest of English high society still comes across as wildly old-fashioned and inflexible, Mary herself has evolved a great deal, going from a young heiress whose primary goal was marriage to a confident leader who is more than qualified to take over the family business alone. She isn't exactly a radical, but she does represent a plausible route for her family's culture to survive and move with the times - a message that reflects screenwriter Julian Fellowes’ obvious affection and nostalgia for the old days of the British aristocracy.

Despite the unexpected nature of Mary ending up as a divorced single mother, there's a romantic undertone here as well. In the film's final scenes, after several of the older servants have retired from Downton Abbey and Mary's parents have moved into a smaller house nearby, we're treated to a brief flashback to earlier seasons. Looking around the house, Mary sees a montage of fond memories, including now-dead characters like her sister Sybil and her first husband Matthew.

For many Downton Abbey fans - and possibly for Mary herself - Matthew is still the love of her life, and no other man could really replace him. In that context, reinventing Mary as the lady of the manor is a more satisfying conclusion than rushing through one final romance - and it's a fitting end to a film that's all about handing Downton Abbey over to a new generation, while reassuring fans that the main characters are still safe and sound.

The period drama Downton Abbey allows us to return to a bygone era and see how two distinct classes live in early 20th-century England, and allows us to go beyond the caricatures and into how real people would live, love, fail, succeed, and become better over time. Whether you're new to Downton or a long-time resident, here is our essentials for getting into the spirit: 

• How to watch the Downton Abbey TV series and movies in order
• The star-crossed connection between Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age, and the crossover fire creator Julian Fellowes can't help but keep stoking
• Better angels and online demons: A trip down the rabbit hole of Downton Abbey fandom
• The late Maggie Smith is "still very much in the atmosphere" in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, says Elizabeth McGovern