It’s no surprise that HBO’s The Gilded Age and Downton Abbey have a similar fanbase, so could the two period dramas ever have a crossover? Well, Julian Fellowes, the creator of both shows, thinks a plot in the upcoming season 3 could make it a possibility.
This season, two families come together in a way that could set up something totally different. “I kept hearing that Downton was going to be connected to the Gilded Age, but the story in Downton starts in 1912,” Fellowes shared with Deadline.
Fans and creators of the shows are both into the idea of a crossover but there is one issue holding it back. Well, the biggest issue is that both shows air on different networks. The Gilded Age is an HBO show and Downton Abbey airs on PBS in the United States.
“The being on different networks puts a problem in the path of that, so we’ll just have to wait and see,” creator Julian Fellowes explained. Fellowes is the mastermind behind both period dramas and also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for 2002’s Gosford Park.
How a The Gilded Age and Downton Abbey crossover could work
There is one character who could be the perfect link between Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age. Elizabeth McGovern’s Cora Crawley (nee Levinson), the only American main character in Downton Abbey, could make this crossover happen. She was born in 1868, and The Gilded Age is set in the 1880s. As Cora didn’t marry Robert Crawley, the 7th Earl of Grantham, until 1890, she would still be living in America during the era The Gilded Age is set in.
It's very likely that Cora’s family would be present in 1890s New York, even if she would only be about 15 years old. The Levinson family could easily fit into the world of New York romantic and familiar drama.
However, Deadline had other theories about how the two dramas could interconnect. There are other ancillary Downton Abbey characters who were living in the United States during the 19th century, like the family of Tom Branson (Allen Leech) who were based in Boston. When the outlet asked Fellowes about this, he cagily said “Maybe. We’re not done yet, so we’ll see.”
While we understand why Fellowes didn’t want to connect the two immediately and wanted The Gilded Age to stand on its own two feet, now could be the time to create a universe. The Gilded Age season 3 seems like the ideal time to start building up to a crossover event.
The Gilded Age season 3 returns on June 22 on HBO and HBO Max, and Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale will hit theaters on Sept. 12. So while we might not get a crossover any time soon, there are lots of opportunities for fans to keep following the Crawleys, the Brooks, and the Russells.
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