'Downton Abbey' Returns with a Slightly Feminist Turn: The New Yorker O'Brien has hastily departed, leaving Cora without a lady's maid. Lord Grantham is a stick lodged deeper in the mud than ever. Mary is in a dreadful mood (her beloved Matthew has died - but it's been six months, for heaven's sake!). Blooming Cousin Rose has taken to flirting with the local farmers at dances in town. There's an evil, classist nanny. And Ms. Patmore is terrified by the appearance of an electric mixer in her kitchen. We're back in Downton, and it's ... pretty much just the same as it always was. This sameness is the principal pleasure of "Downton Abbey" - similar to the feeling of arriving home for the holidays. Yes, your parents" refusal to properly heat the house drives you crazy, you have always been allergic to your first cousin, and you don't understand why a bizarro nut compote - an old family recipe - is left untouched in the middle of the table every year. But the old dysfunctions, and your favorite chenille blanket, are just where everyone left them. It's good to be home. Last year, Matthew Crawley, a favorite character and the engine of the show's most amusing love affair, was cruelly killed in a car accident on a bright day right after the birth of his first child. (Dan Stevens, the actor who played Crawley, escaped through a trap door and became a judge for the Man Booker Prize. He's also starring in some films.) It was very sad to see a promising young man mowed down in his prime. (After he'd survived the war! And his paralyzed legs were miraculously healed!) Even sadder was the rude amputation of the show's central plot line. What good is a period melodrama with airy drawing rooms, tart dialogue, fabulous clothes, plotting servants, and no love affair? This season, we find the widowed Mary, paler and thinner than ever, balefully staring out the window dressed in black silk, while the rest of the family debates the proper way to handle her grief. The ever-more-clueless Lord Grantham encourages the family both upstairs and downstairs to handle her with kid gloves - or, as Branson (no one can bring themselves to call him Tom, even though he is now their brother-in-law and not their driver) puts it: "He sees her as a little woman who shouldn't be troubled by anything so harsh as reality." The gauntlet has been thrown. This season's variation on the question of "How will Downton adapt to the rapidly changing times?" has a feminist twist: Will Mary continue to sulk, or will she obey the dictates of Matthew's newly emerged last will and testament, and take an active interest in her share of the estate? Mary's depression is the occasion for one of Downton's specialties: rousing, moralistic pep talks delivered with weirdly moving conviction from normally buttoned-up characters. The Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith, the best) makes the unusual move of outwardly declaring her love for her granddaughter and tells Mary that she faces a stark choice "between death or life." Sweet, sturdy, baggy-faced Carson also has a go at reviving Mary, who first gives him a wicked tongue-lashing for overstepping his bounds, and later collapses in his arms in tearful apology. Carson tells her that she is "strong enough" (cue Cher), resulting in Mary changing her outfit from black to lavender, and making an appearance at the estate's annual tenant's luncheon, to her father's surprise and chagrin. Mary is taking charge. Rather than hatch elaborate behind-the-scenes plots in her dressing room like her grandmother before her, Mary has been given a seat at the table, and the theme of the season is how she will use her power. Meanwhile, ill-favored Edith, who has spiffed up her wardrobe and is now dressed in sea-greens and coral-reds, is adored for her verve and intelligence by a free-thinking newspaper editor in London. She's stepped into the big city and into the loosening world. The pair even kiss in a restaurant. The catch is that he is not yet divorced from his mentally ill wife, and he will have to become a German citizen in order to do so. Uh oh. Mary, whose intelligence, chic beauty, and sense of irony seem to grow with every trial she endures, is the show's most interesting character, and it will be fun to watch her clash with her well-meaning but tiresomely traditional pa-pa (prediction: many newspapers will be angrily flung at the breakfast table, many fuming looks silently exchanged, many rooms abruptly departed from). But the show's appeal is not in its conflicts - it is in its continual argument for the values of honest pay for hard work, loyalty, and small acts of unseen kindness. It is in Carson emerging from the fog on a train platform to settle a conflict with an old friend before he is lost to time; Ms. Patmore earnestly meddling in Daisy's sad love life and Daisy thanking her for her true friendship; Bates's charming plan to lend the hapless Mr. Mosely money to get back on his feet; Mosley's staring up at the starry night and gently wondering about the future. Are these sturdy values or weak clichés that crumble at first contact with the rapidly growing global economy? It depends on the angle of the light. This season's slightly feminist and pro-labor gambits notwithstanding (several side plots have been established about highly trained servants being forced out of their jobs), the show not-so-implicitly argues that although circumstances evolve, solid family values will endure. Especially if you have kindly old servants watching your back. The show's plummy, self-satisfied conservatism has been pointed out many times before. But that won't stop me from rooting for Mary, the newly-hatched Downton executive. Please pass the excellent, electric-mixer-made pudding, even if it may put Ms. Patmore out of a job. She'll find another.