Entertainment

The 'Downton Abbey' Movie Teaser Will Remind You How Much You'e Missed The Crawleys

by Kristen Perrone
Focus Features

Lords and ladies, assemble! The Downton estate is opening its doors once again for a feature film, aptly named Downton Abbey after the long-running PBS period drama. Although guests can't arrive at the manor until the project reaches theaters in September 2019, the Downton Abbey movie teaser promises that we'll be reunited with our favorite aristocrats and servants soon. It might not have hinted what's in store for the Crawleys this time around, but this promo definitely makes it feel like we never left Yorkshire.

After the original six-season series wrapped in the United States in 2016, news that the Downton Abbey cast would reunite for a movie broke in July 2018. When we were last at the Downton estate, the characters rang in the year 1926 with the birth of Anna (Joanne Froggatt) and Bates' (Brendan Coyle) baby, while poor Edith (Laura Carmichael) finally caught a break and married Bertie Pelham. Thomas (Rob James-Collier) and Molesley (Kevin Doyle) left their longtime jobs with the Crawleys, while Carson (Jim Carter) retired from his position as butler. Seeing as she must have been the oldest woman alive at that point, Violet (Maggie Smith) also accepted that Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) was the proper matriarch of the family now.

Fans are still waiting for confirmation of how much time has passed between the finale and the movie, but the teaser assures that Downton itself is very much intact. Opening with grandiose shots of maids bustling throughout the house's interior, the clip then cuts to shots of the staff waiting for an arriving guest, villagers at a parade of sorts, and soldiers riding on horseback. Echoing how the drama's pilot episode began with the arrival of post, the trailer also shows a mailman approaching the estate on a motorbike as that indelible theme tune plays in the background.

The teaser also confirms that the living characters who first welcomed us to Downton will be the ones to usher us back in. The footage includes a list of familiar names toward its end, and Lord and Lady Grantham are accounted for, as are Mary (Michelle Dockery) and Edith, who's listed under her married name, Lady Hexham. In case you forgot, Isobel (Penelope Wilton) also remarried at the end of the series, becoming the Lady Merton we see on this character roster. Crawley brother-in-law and former family chauffeur Tom Branson (Allen Leech) will likely remain the common factor between the upstairs and downstairs groups, while the longtime servants who worked at Downton throughout the series are also scheduled for appearances.

While we can probably expect minor characters from the show to pop up throughout the film, there are people who won't show for this family reunion. Lily James, who joined Downton Abbey halfway through the series to play Cousin Rose, confirmed to PEOPLE that she wouldn't return for the movie, and although Dan Stevens' recent group pic with Dockery and Leech suggested otherwise, Matthew Crawley probably isn't rising from the dead. Maybe we can keep our fingers crossed for flashback footage?

Despite some characters' no-shows, I'm definitely putting the kettle on to prepare for my journey back to Downton. Downton Abbey is in theaters on Friday, Sept. 20, 2019.