Lady Cora Grantham is getting a brother. The mistress of Downton Abbey already has an American mother, played by Shirley MacLaine. Now Paul Giamatti has been added as Harold, Cora’s playboy brother. We can presume his name is Harold Levinson, since that’s Martha’s last name and that of her late husband Isidore. The Levinsons bailed the Granthams out financially when Cora married Robert, and there was a proposal afoot for Martha to do that again when Robert made bad investments.
And this raises once again the pressing question of whether or not Lady Cora is actually Jewish. It sure sounds like it. And now casting Giamatti– who, let’s face it, doesn’t look patrician in any way–brings the question forward. For if the Levinsons are really Rothschilds in disguise, this makes the Grantham children Jewish by default. And that puts a definite twist on “Downtown Abbey.” Good lord, what will the Dowager Countess say about this? Giamatti will appear in the season finale, a double episode.
