'Downton Abbey' Season 3 Spoilers: 5 Things to Know About PBS Show's Next Season

By Melanie Jones: Subscribe to Melanie's RSS feed

February 20, 2012 11:05 AM EST

"Downton Abbey" may have just aired its second season finale in the U.K., but fans of the PBS Masterpiece TV show are already eager to get whatever season three spoilers they can.

It's been a busy few years so far.

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Matthew Crawley was briefly paralyzed after being wounded during World War I, while his fiancee Lavinia died of the Spanish flu just after seeing him kissing his cousin Mary. Mary, meanwhile, became engaged to the increasingly domineering Sir Richard Carlisle, who used the knowledge of her past exploits with one Kemal Pamuk to blackmail her into marrying him. By the Christmas-themed finale, Mary has come clean about her past and cast off Sir Richard, becoming engaged to Matthew at long last.

Beyond the show's main upstairs couple, younger sister Sybil finally gave in to her love for Branson, the family's socialist chaffeur, while Edith had a (very short-lived) liaison with a local farmer and Lord Grantham became infatuated with a new maid named Jane. Isobel Crawley, Matthew's mother, turns Downton Abbey into a hospital before going to help WWI refugees, while a veteran named Patrick Gordon asserts that he is actually Patrick Crawley, Downton's heir thought lost on the Titanic.

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Downstairs, meanwhile, the slippery Thomas attempts to make an honest living through some good-old-fashioned black-market dealings before falling back on his old quest to gain Mr. Bates's job. Kitchen maid Daisy married the dying William after he was mortally wounded in battle. After several episodes agonizing over the fact that she married him out of kindness, not love, Daisy at last comes to terms with the fact that her action has given her a surrogate father, Mr. Mason.

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Our favorite downstairs couple, Anna and John Bates, continue to never catch a break. His unscrupulous estranged wife, Mrs. Vera Bates (in a gloriously nasty guest turn by Maria Doyle Kennedy), systematically blocks every route of happiness for the couple, refusing to accept a divorce and determined to ruin her husband. Her mysterious death clears the way for the pair to get married, but ends with Bates convicted (we can only hope unjustly) of murder. In the final episode, he is spared the noose but sentenced to life in prison.

What will come for the characters we love (and love to hate) in season three of the critically and commercially successful PBS show?

Will Mary and Matthew actually tie the knot? Will Mr. Bates ever get out of prison? Will Maggie Smith continue to be her fabulous, prickly self? (If the Dowager Countess has anything to say about it, we're guessing the answer is a resounding yes.)

Here, get all the season three spoilers so far, courtesy of series creator Julian Fellowes, executive producer Gareth Neame and Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Downton Abbey grande dame Lady Cora.

1. The Americans Are Coming!

Sound the alarm: Cora Crawley's New York relations are coming to "Downton Abbey."

At the end of season two, it wasn't yet clear whether Mary (played by Michelle Dockery) would still be going to America now that fiance Matthew (Dan Stevens) knows about her past.

But even if the eldest Crawley daughter won't need to "find a cowboy out West," McGovern promises that several of her relatives will be making guest appearances on the show, be it in scenes from the U.S. or at Downtown itself.

One addition to the cast should come as an especially welcome surprise to "Downton Abbey" fans. Starting in season three, Shirley MacLaine will portray Cora' mother, Martha Levinson.

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