I loved all the innocuous things James said that Tom was clearly interpreting as a signal that he (James) was receptive – like the remark about orthodoxy and his comment about not having a girl.
This was my reaction as well. In fact, it was so pathetically stupid in its resolution that it really made clear how awful the whole tangent really was. Ultimately there was no point, and the elements that could have been made interesting (how exactly the first Mrs. Bates died, how they would prove it, what legal drama might follow) was irrelevant.
I got a chuckle reflecting on the fact that the whole subplot was (almost entirely) depicted as Bates walking around in a circle.
Does anyone have any idea what was the POINT of the whole Bates circular arc? Either in the real world or the story’s world? Did the actor need time off for a face-lift or something? I mean, they probably filmed Bates’s part in one day, and he didn’t even change costumes or make-up.
A LOT has changed at D.A. since his absence. Is THAT the point? To show conflict as he moves back in? He wasn’t there all that long to begin with. He wasn’t an old family retainer like Mr. C. And anyway, we hardly need more conflict or storylines. We’re up to our asses in them as it is.
Thanks for clarification on the remaining episodes.
During all of the other exercise scenes there were guards close by who noticed and reprimanded if someone whispered too loud. This time they didn’t notice Bates pulling someone out of line and threatening him at knifepoint.
I came away feeling that nothing really happened in this episode.
That was my reaction exactly.
He has a few weeks before he is released… don’t assume his arc is over!
I have a lot of sympathy for Robert. He was raised from birth to not only respect tradition, but that varying from tradition was the worst mistake one coud make. Everything he was trained to be and to do is being ripped away from him at a dizzying speed. He’s a man born to one world and living in a changing one, while still expected to be relevant and useful.
Do you think he opposes Matthew’s trying to improve the management of the estate because it breaks from tradition of benign neglect — or because of the implied (or overt, I guess) criticism of his abilities with money? Or both? He just just seems totally pissed that anyone wants to do something different from the way he does up to and including the health care of his daughter.
As a Catholic, all the :eek:Catholics YIKES:eek: stuff is amusing to me. Probably not amusing to anyone who’s been persecuted for it, but it’s hard to see myself or beliefs as threatening to anyone. Interestingly, I have exactly one English friend and she’s Catholic.
I think Robert is completely ill-equipped to deal with anyone who challenges the assumption that he knows best. He hasn’t the tools to do it (look at the fact that he routinely ignores advice of people who work for him, like the investment deal that went so wrong) because he was trained to have complete confidence in his own judgement. He now has been proven over again that his his judgment is fallible and the cognitive dissonance of that fact must be staggering. Not that he doesn’t need to step up and realize that the long-term goal remains the same, security for his family. The mechanism is just changing and he has to change with it.
I’m Jewish and I sometimes find anti-semitism almost amusing so I get what you mean. It’s like you’re afraid of what? My grandmother’s Yiddish? My matzo ball soup? Albert Einstein? Okay yeah I find the Haredim crazy but most Jews are more concerned about the same issues as everyone else rather than the very minute details of the torah that ultra Orthodox focus their lives on. Considering that Cora’s mom is Mrs. Levinson I’m really surprised the show hasn’t made more of anti-semitism.
It was nice to see the women basically shrug at Robert’s horror over the possibility of a Catholic grandchild and tell him to suck it.
I think the point of the Bates arc is that in order to escape the nightmare he was in, he had to be driven within a millimeter of being what he was accused of in the first place.
In other news, wherewill he and Anna live when he returns? Woudl they have their own room in the servants quarters? Which side of the door?
Thomas is doing a great job of the goofy in love grin and bouncy walk. Too funny. When James said “She’s not my type” I though he was going to dance ont he table.
Isobel tasting the soup while discussing the luncheon menu with Ethel :Grimace: “We don’t have to decide that right now.”
I was shocked that Ethel would have “outed” Mrs. Patmore for helping her. Seems to me she’d have recognized that Mrs. P could get fired for it. Glad Cora stood up for her immediately.
Mary’s silent, hollow stare afetr the funeral, and Tom’s part crazed part shell-shocked one. Incredibly subtle and excellent acting I thought.
Violet won my heart again with her quick “Well, it is so hard to find good help these days.”
I predict that Tom is offered the job of managing the tenant farms, and ends up marrying Daisy.
When Matthew and Tom Branson were walking past the neglected farm, I thought that Matthew would suggest that Tom start farming, so that he could be independent of the main house but still close by. And I was amused at how offended everyone was by the idea that they ate a meal prepared by a former prostitute, as if they would be contaminated by doing so (and that Isobel employed the woman in her house).
The dowager countess is so conservative that she’s liberal. I love Maggie Smith.
Customarily, I believe they would be given their own little cottage on the estate or in the village. A married couple wouldn’t be permitted to stay together in servants’ quarters in the house.
I think they briefly lived in their own little cottage after they got married and before he was carted off an accused murderer.
I like the first part of that but not the second.
Alfred seems to be finally noticing Daisy, but with Daisy’s luck, he asked her to teach him to dance so he can impress the new girl. 
How badly does Tom want to leave Downton? I’d like to see him go, just because there are too many characters, and Fellowes is having trouble coming up with good story lines for all of them.
Can someone explain what in that lady’s testimony got Bates off the hook? Something about pie and time of day? I’m very lost on that whole point.
She saw her making the pie crust after Mr. Bates had left so he couldn’t have poisoned the pie.
She poisoned herself knowing that Bates would get blamed.
While my preference is to run away from that subplot and never look back, that is only one of many elements that I just never understood. Additional questions: why did the cell mate and guard in particular have it out for Bates? Just the one initial confrontation that they had? That doesn’t seem like motivation for such a concerted conspiracy to affect Bates.
How did this particular inmate and guard have the ability to interfere in Bates’ case and associated witnesses outside of the prison, and why would they want to do so?
What was the real motivation of Bates’ inmate guardian angel?
Given that Bates had already once set up the inmate and guard with contraband, why did his essentially threatening to do it again, at shiv-point no less, change the dynamic?
As others have noted, how did Bates pull off the shiv-point threat when the inmates are walking around in such a small circle and when their previous level of monitoring could detect whispered conversations?
Is the system of justice so fragile that it can go from nearly enacting the death penalty to complete exoneration simply by a witness remembering what time of day someone was making a pie?
I can’t answer the rest, but my sense is that the cellmate and the guard resent Bates for his privileged position. (Yes, he is/was a servant, but he’s a servant to a high-ranking person and therefore relatively lucky.)
Possibly my favorite exchange of the series.