It was made explicit that Bates didn’t kill his wife. She committed suicide to spite him because she’s that evil.
Fellowes really messed up on Dame Nellie. By this stage in her career she’d dined with royalty and was a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. If she was performing at a private party it would’ve been as a personal favour to the host, not for hire. Things would’ve gotten pretty ugly if she found out her dinner was being sent up on a tray so she would’ve mix with the guests.
The “little people” would do the lynching. The lord of the manor just doesn’t want the scandal.
Spoiler about what happens
the rapist has a fatal accident
While he WAS acquitted of murdering his wife he had no problems putting the fear of God in his cellmate. He physically threatened him outright with a knife.
I’ve seen series 4 so I know what happens.
Re: Bates killing his wife, while I know she committed suicide, if you notice Bates has never actually *said *he didn’t kill her. Julian Fellowes has said he was careful to never have Bates outright state his innocence.
that’s interesting. Do you have a cite for that for the water-cooler crowd?
Tip for spoiler-free Americans – do NOT search for information on whether Bates killed his wife, or you may end up reading unrelated spoilers you didn’t want to see. :smack:
Ok, turns out I was slightly off in what I remembered him saying. This is from the Series 2 complete script books:
The bolded bits are Julian Fellowes’ comments.
Is Gillingham just a gold digger? He seems more than willing to toss aside his fiancée for Mary.
Does the family know that Lady [del]Jan Brady[/del] Edith’s beau is married?
Trivia: Dame Nellie Melba lost most of her net worth in the Depression, and she still died a very wealthy woman worth £200,000 in 1931; that would be the equivalent of several million 2014 $ USD. In 1922 she would’ve been wealthier, and very possibly the wealthiest person at the table other than perhaps Robert.
Interesting. And how did Bates get the 30 pounds for Mosely? He told Anna he learned a lot in prision which does make one wonder about his methods.
While Dame Nellie might well have been very highly esteemed, I think the position of Carson and Grantham looking upon her as “hired entertainment” for the evening and nothing more goes to their continued “inward” thinking and not the world view of progressives of the times.
Even some of the male guests simply left the concert and made a bit of fun of Opera, They could not appreciate they had the worlds greatest Opera singer right in front of them. I don’t think Fellowes screwed up, I think he was trying to illustrate just how out of touch Grantham was and how much of a fossil Carson had become. In earlier times the entertainment was always separated from the guests, but the world was just starting to understand the cult of celebrity, whilst Grantham and Carson are clinging to class structure.
The family barely seems to realize Edith is seeing someone, so I doubt they know he’s married. Mary’s chief description of him to Robert was that he was “not dead.”
We saw him going to Isobel to ask her for the money and he explained why he wanted it.
He asked the Dowager for the money. We’ve seen that she likes Molseley and has tried to get him employment so presumably she gave him the money to give to Molesley.
(That was actually the first dialogue scene the two have had together in the whole series.)
Sorry. You’re right; he went to the Dowager, not Isobel, for the money.
I think the prison skill he was referring to was forgery.
Yup. He forged Molesley’s signature on the IOU.
I agree that Fellowes made a poor choice here. In general, I think it correctly showed the view that a hired singer, even a world-famous one, was still HIRED and would not eat with the family and guests. However, in his decision to use a real life person as the opera singer, he managed to pick one of very few individuals where this would not have been a slam dunk – Melba had already been given – literally – the royal seal of approval.
I would even have bought it if Carson had been dithering about it – oh, she’s hired help BUT she’s dined with the royal family, oh what to do?
I think Fellowes was trying to kill two birds with one stone – showing the old-fashioned attitude about performers, and using a real life person. The combination is what didn’t work. Of course, I think only a handful of Downton viewers would even care about this.
Due to a travel issue, I couldn’t watch on Sunday but managed to avoid spoilers all day yesterday (go me!) and watched last night.
I must have a cold, cold heart, but the dramatic scene reminded me of the Baptism from The Godfather as well … in that I imagined Fellowes sitting around trying to come up with a traumatic “terrible crime/high art” combo that would be like the famous movie. Arson and a symphony concert? Embezzlement and a chamber quartet? A ha, rape and an opera aria!
And Anna, of course it’s Anna because everyone loves her. So the whole thing felt very formulaic for me.
I am so annoyed with Tom and his whining. People are trying their best. The Dowager treats him horrendously … just like she treats the rest of the family (personally, I find their scenes together delightful!). How fast did he go from understanding he needed to completely avoid Edna to chatting her up? GOOD GRIEF.
I have discovered that if you go look up Nellie Melba on Wikipedia, you can hear several examples of her singing. This surprised me as I would have thought it a bit too early for such a recording to be made. I am no judge of singing quality but I find her singing quite lovely.