O’Brien Not Only Ditched Downton Abbey, She Abandoned Those Bangs Too

Siobhan Finneran, otherwise/only known as Mrs. O’Brien on Downton Abbey and the third major character to leave the show and break our hearts, has finally spoken up about what made her leave.  I have to admit, I was surprised to hear the reason because I just naturally assumed girlfriend had enough of dem bangs!  But those little corkscrew tendrils had nothing to do with her departure, apparently.  Hmmph.

“I signed up to do three series and that was all I wanted to do.  I talked it through with my family and it was the right decision for all of us. I had great fun doing it but I just didn’t want to do it any more. I decided this before we even did the last series. When I stop loving something, I stop doing it.”

Umm, O’Brien?  We don’t care if you stopped loving it.  Never mind that we don’t get how you could stop loving it.  We mostly care because we still love it, goddamn it!  How will they replace your feisty-ness, your evil baby-killing schemes, your frenemy-ship with Thomas?  And now with Sybil long dead and Matthew axed off, Downton doesn’t hold out much hope for me with season 4.  You continue to baffle me:

“Downton has really pushed me to a new level in my career.  But it’s not like I have a big career plan. They are about as useful as a birth plan; they should be burned.”

Umm, O’Brien?  You just contradicted yourself.  You realized that you sounded like every other actor who left a hit show right when it was at its best because you feel big for your britches now… and then you realized you didn’t want to sound like that so you backtracked. (Dan Stevens, anyone?)

Well how about you backtrack right on back to Downton?  Because I’m not buying this whole “I stopped loving it and I just want to be happy” junk.

(Photo: PBS)