ITV reveals who dies in final episode of Downton Abbey

IN THE SAME breath as it triumphantly announced that there will be a third series of the highly successful period drama Downton Abbey, ITV made a rookie error yesterday by inadvertently indicating who would not be making it past this Sunday's final episode by producing a cast list for Series Three.

Subtract this season's cast from next season's and you can see who dies on Sunday. Picking up on the "unwitting" error, The Daily Telegraph, reports that the "bungle is likely to anger Downton Abbey fans" who have been left "on the edge of their seats" after the episode preview for Sunday's finale showed several characters becoming ill and Maggie Smith's Lady Grantham standing by a grave. In the preview, Cora the American Countess of Grantham, Matthew's fiance Lavinia Swire and Carson the butler are all shown falling prey to the deadly Spanish flu outbreak that swept across Europe in the wake of World War One. So who fails to survive the flu in Sunday's episode of Downton Abbey? For the sake of fans, The Daily Telegraph declined to reveal the names.

The fact is, it's not that easy to work it out. It means finding ITV's full press release about Series Three (not printed by most papers) and cross-referencing the list of actors mentioned with a cast list from Series Two.

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You can put away the smelling salts, M'Lady. It's not quite the terrible bungle the Telegraph is suggesting.