FAREWELL TO DOWNTON or, the Future Isn't Pretty, Mrs. Bates

In one of my recent posts I gave myself an idea. Well, it was really more like A VISION. 

(With all due respect to the current--EXCELLENT--Bates Motel, I propose this alternative "prequel")

Downton Abbey is now in its 19th and final season. 

It's 1931, and the investigation into Mr. Green's death has been dragging on now for what seems an eternity. The Downton writers have decided--FINALLY--that there is absolutely no justification for having Anna and John Bates just sit around with nothing to do but torment poor Baxter, who's now so old and infirm that Cora pushes her around in a wheelchair. (Molesly had a heart attack and died on the night before he was planning to propose to Baxter--they were going to buy some property together and open a little boarding house, of course.)

Robert and Violet died ages ago, Edith went crazy and was institutionalized, and Marigold went to America to star in motion pictures. She's GOOD! I mean, the name "Marigold" seems tailor made for a film star, no? 

Mary has finally renounced her wealth, her position, her absolutely HATEFUL demeanor. She's discovered she has a lovely singing voice, and has joined an order of Carmelite nuns in Salzburg, Austria. (Where she had gone to recover from the heartbreak she suffered when she discovered Charles Blake in the arms of another man--who turned out to be Lord Merton's younger son Timothy. The really handsome one.) This will cause problems for Mary a bit later on, but that's for another spin-off...

So Bates is found guilty in an off-camera trial (because, hey, we just need him to be gone and can't really spend time on the details), but, right before he goes to the chair (his last meal is Welsh Rarebit on toast), Anna reveals to him that she has FINALLY conceived, and is bearing his child! She's 45, but better late than never. Besides, it will give her something to remember her dear departed husband by.

So poor Anna packs her bags, bundles up little John, Jr., (who was born--and almost died, having suffered a deprivation of oxygen during delivery--between episodes 4 and 5) and heads for America. (She's thinking that good old Tom Branson will give her a job in one of his automobile factories in Detroit, you see.)

But she decides she needs a really fresh start, so SHE CHANGES HER NAME. To Norma, because, well, she's always LOVED the films of Norma Talmadge. (She has to retain the "Bates" out of loyalty.) But then there's a mix-up at Ellis Island, and the registrar misunderstands, and records Little John Jr.'s name as "Norman". When Norma/Anna catches the mistake, the registrar just stamps the papers and shouts "NEXT" and the error stands.

Well, when Norma/Anna and little Norman arrive in Detroit, it turns out that Branson Autoworks went bankrupt after the crash and ensuing Depression, and Tom Branson committed suicide by jumping out of his office on the 28th floor of the Branson Building (Warren and Wetmore, 1927-28). Sibby, his daughter, lives in a shack on the former Branson Estate (a modernist masterpiece designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1929, left unfinished) where she hoards old copies of the Detroit Free Press. Her sole remaining possession of any value is a beautiful miniature portrait of her mother, Lady Sibyl; she is never without it. She chases Norma/Anna off "her" property.

Discouraged, Norma/Anna heads West, as did so many others during the Dust Bowl. She hitches a ride with a family named Joad. 

She ends up in California, and, in fulfillment of a long ago dream of her and her late husband John, opens a motel. The Bates Motel.