Why did Downton Abbey kill Matthew Crawley off so unexpectedly?

The death of Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey is still heartbreaking on a rewatch. Think back to what it was like for people in the UK watching the episode on Christmas Day!

Of course, fans still want to know why Downton Abbey wrote Dan Stevens’s character out of the series. Well, it comes down to the decision of the actor and the only viable way to write the character out of the series.

Dan Stevens wanted to leave Downton Abbey

While the majority of the cast stuck with the series to the end—and still come back for the movies—it was different for Dan Stevens. He wanted to branch out and try out new roles. There’s no doubt that he’s had that opportunity and we’re grateful to see him get that chance, but it came at the expense of Matthew Crawley.

Stevens made it clear to Julian Fellowes that he wasn’t interested in the story being left open for him to return. He wanted a clean break, maybe to avoid the risk of wanting to fall back into a familiar pattern.

There was only one option to write out Matthew Crawley

If Fellowes could have done it on a less permanent basis, it would have been possible to write Matthew out without a death. He could have been off somewhere doing work or helping out other properties. We’ve seen how the show has written this in when actors couldn’t make schedules work for the movies.

However, with Stevens wanting a clean break, there was only one option. Considering the storyline set up in Season 3, there was no way that Matthew would just suddenly leave Mary. And there’s no way the series would have wanted to do that to the fans. They had come to know Matthew, and they saw the love story between Matthew and Mary grow. They needed a realistic ending, but that meant a heartbreaking one.

The death was very similar to the death of Lady Sybil. Jessica Brown Findlay was “freaked out” by the fame she gained from the series, according to Comic Book Resources. She asked to leave the series, and with Sybil’s storyline, the only way to write her out was through the death of her character. And yes, that still hurts!