The cellmate, who doesn’t like Bates and is running something with the guards, planted something in Bates’ bed–definitely seemed like white paper rolled and wrapped in a piece of burlap (dope? hash? opium?). During their exercise (which I definitely a slight limp on Bates there) another prisoner warned Bates. He dug around and found the item as the guards popped in, he was able to jam the item into the mortar of the wall.
Bates time in prison will be stressful and hellish since he will cosntantly have to watch his back.
Is aresenic deadly poisonous to touch? My thought with the detail about Vera washing her hands so roughly was that she had intended to make the poison pie for Bates, and accidentally poisoned herself in the preparation.
They offered to recognize the child and raise him, but without Ethel. The cover story they came up to tell him was that Ethel was a nurse, married their son, and died in the Flu Pandemic. Ethel decided to keep Charley and now regrets it.
I think it’s the humiliation of having someone from her old life know just how far she’s fallen.
Julian Fellowes & Brendan Coyle have said in interviews that since the limp is due to an old war injury, it can flare up and be pretty bad or could be better at times. (Which of course is really just an excuse in case he forgets to limp during a scene, but at least there’s an in-story reasoning.)
He needs to friend a guard himself and plant the same opium on his cellmate. Shouldn’t be hard for the wealthy folks who believe in him to slip a guard a pound or 2(hundred).
Since this wedding was to have happened so quickly, why was there no Martha Levinson? She claimed to not know how long she would stay, and since another granddaughter is getting married, I don’t understand why she is gone with no mention. Very odd.
That was my thought. She was going to poison Bates, but then he didn’t come back that evening or something and she ate it herself? I don’t know, but if the arsenic was baked in the pie, they can hardly think baked it.
Guilt. It’s a powerful thing. In his heart, Matthew feels like he murdered Lavinia by betraying her through his kiss with Mary. He wants desperately to absolve the guilt he feels. First he planned to punish himself by never having a relationship with Mary. Now that he has failed miserably in that attempt and married her, he sees a second route to absolution through an act of charity – he gives away all of “Lavinia’s” money and his sin will be wiped clean. Fortunately it looks like Mr. Swire’s letter has finally released him.
There is a clear parallel here to Mary’s guilt over Mr. Pamuk. She too felt she needed absolution, and tried staying away from Matthew as punishment for her actions.
I was horrified for poor Edith, which still surprises me because I hated her so much in S1. I do wish she had gone all Wedding Singer on him: “Things you could brought to my attention YESTERDAY.”
He implies that he’s doing it because he loves her, but he embarrasses her and her family in front of everyone they know (except her other grandmother, apparently… and Bates). For the social class and mores of the time, she’s effectively ruined, whereas just about any other time would have been embarrassing, but a little less traumatizing.
While I hate that it was like that, the truth is, what is left for her now? Under all the circumstances, it was a good match for her. Now she’s a jilted woman, tarnished, aging, in a country bereft of men fitting her station and snobbery, much less ones she likes who conveniently live near her family.
IIRC, she got a job as a maid in another house (the Flintshires, I think?) who had known the Turkish ambassador, and heard about the scandal from another maid who worked there. Vera pretended she already knew the details, as she said that her husband works in the house where Pamuk died, so that the other maid actually told her what happened.
That was a curious scene (in the first episode) with Lady Crawley offering wedding-night advice to Mary. Wasn’t she one of the people who helped remove Mr. Pamuk from Mary’s bedchamber?
I felt sorry for Edyth. I thought it was pretty clear that Strallan got cold feet only after overhearing the Grandmother loudly condemning the marriage right before the ceremony.
Maybe Edyth can hook up with the newly divorced dude.
I like that they’re thawing out O’Brien. Still not sure why they keep Thomas around, except for the ratings.
Agree that the subplot where Lavinia wrote to her father on her deathbed was ludicrous.
So, let’s see. Your future father-in-law married a woman for the sole purpose of bailing out Downton Abbey. He loses it all. While I might bail out Downton because it was MY future, no way would I give one red penny to the man who was so stupid he put all his money into one venture.
Once again, I felt like there were scenes left on the cutting room floor, mainly involving Mrs. Hughes learning the results of her biopsy.
Vera’s neighbor’s story was odd. She said the last time she saw her, it was drizzling out, and Vera was “glowing” like she had a halo. That’s got to be a clue to something, but I don’t know what.
Thank you for this. I do believe I may have solved the mystery!Would taking arsenic for a period of time cause a glow? Maybe because it collects in the hair? As in a famous mystery story from around the same period, which I won’t name because that would be more of a spoiler, could Vera have planned to murder Bates all along? She took arsenic in small doses over time to develop an immunity, then baked it into her pie, intending to serve both of them and have only Bates die, herself seeming innocent because she ate the pie too. Then Bates didn’t partake, but Vera did, and somehow miscalculated and overdosed herself? I could definitely see Downton going this classic British mystery route.
