‘Downton Abbey’ Season 4: Fans Not Happy With Recent Anna Twist [Spoiler]

This photo released by PBS and Carnival Film and Television Limited shows, from left, Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary, and Joanne Froggatt as Anna Bates, in a scene from season four of the Masterpiece TV series, "Downton Abbey." (AP Photo/PBS/Masterpiece, Nick Briggs)

“Downton Abbey” saw a recent plot twist that some aren’t happy with.

 

SPOILER ALERT:

The BBC reported there were a number of complaints last year when the episode ran a year ago.

In the latest episode, the maid, Anna, is raped and beaten by Lord Gillingham’s valet, Mr. Green.

“The whole point of the way we do things on Downton is we don’t do them gratuitously. We are interested in exploring the resultant emotions and the effect these things have on people,” show creator Julian Fellowes told the BBC.

But on Sunday, a great deal of fans expressed their displeasure with the episode after it aired on PBS.

“Julian ruined downton for me with Anna being ‘assaulted,’” wrote one. 

Added another: “OMG Downton Abbey poor Anna.” 

“Not watching this season of Downton Abbey because I heard what happens to Anna, and I don’t want to watch,” tweeted another. 

The show’s executive producer Gareth Neame told TV Guide: “Like the death of the Matthew Crawley character, audiences are very protective of these characters and view them as an extension of their own families.”

However, he said the Anna plot twist wasn’t inserted in the show for shock value, adding that it’s “not us just being flashy and trying to get attention.”

He said that the rape of women in the 1920s was “definitely something that was an issue at the time and women did not have any of the recourse that they would have now.”