And apparently I’m not the only one. Either great minds think alike, or fools seldom differ. 
Hmmm. Intriguing!
Miss Fox doesn’t so much hate Mary as she is upset with Gillingham for flitting off with the next pretty face he saw after they were engaged. How does she know that he isn’t going to do the same thing again?
Then there should have been a hideously embarassing public screaming match between Ms. Fox and Gillingham and Mary and Mary’s former boyfriend where Ms. Fox tells everyone she refused to go to bed with Gillingham before the wedding because she wanted to come to the marriage bed a virgin, and Mary will try to smooth things over by telling Ms. Fox “don’t worry, dear, you’re aren’t missing much - he can’t get it up unless one spanks him with a cricket bat and lets him call you Mummie” and then Mary’s ex says to Gillingham “what, you like that too? I had no idea” and then Gillingham and Mary’s ex elope to India and leave Mary and Ms. Fox to commiserate about the infelicities of men and the servant problem.
Regards,
Shodan
The more I think about it, the more I think that it’s true.
Wait a minute, wait a minute. . . I thought it was obvious that Thomas was the cruel man who made her steal the jewels?!? If not, why did he bring her to Downton? He thought she would be “his creature” as Violet so charmingly put it.
I thought it was obvious that the cruel man was Thomas’s father, who hates Thomas because of the whole gay thing, so despite everything Thomas feels some kind of kinship with Baxter because they’ve both been screwed over by his father.
Except that Baxter said that Thomas’s father had been kind to her. Surely she wouldn’t have said that if he had persuaded her to steal from her mistress and then taken off without sharing the proceeds, leaving her to take the blame.
The assumption is whoever convinced her to steal the jewels did so by pretending to romance her, and I can’t imagine Thomas doing that. (More the fact that he seems charmless than the fact that he’s gay.)
I didn’t see it above, but does anyone know what Thomas is injecting to turn him straight? Estrogen, maybe, like they gave Alan Turing?
Bob
Plus that whole Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot unpleasantness. But yeah, it will be interesting to see how they play the inevitable anti-Semitic plot elements.
I was so glad to see Robert punch out Bricker. God, he had it coming.
I’d noticed that Robert and Tom are wearing black tie to dinner this season, and so did the Dowager. I loved that scene, wear she chides them for wearing “rompers” – clothing that nowadays one would only wear to one’s wedding.
I’m worried that Mrs Patmore’s investment would turn out to be a replay of the final season of Upstairs, Downstairs. (To recap for you youngsters: head house parlormaid Rose has a little money to invest. It’s the Roaring 20’s, and the eldest son of the household tells her to put it all in the stock market, where everyone is getting rich. The market crashes, Rose loses all her money, and the son blows his brains out. The End.)
Well there you go. Next season of Downton - everyone rents from Mrs. Patmore because they lost the estate.
The DA cast did a Christmas spoof for charity - don’t know why I didn’t see it before now:
“Papa don’t! You know what happens when people take the car out for a spin at Christmas.” 
I liked how Carson appeared on both sides of the Earl just before he left the room. And Thomas trying to get a kiss from Lord Hollywood. And Molesley’s tattoos!
No, it was Gregson who made her steal those jewels. His mental problems began long before he was lost in Germany: his multiple personality disorder is what gave him the funds to open up his fancy magazine. As “Meinhard the Merciless,” he had a whole network of ladies’ maids stealing valuables for him.
And as Meinhard, he has, of course, risen high inside the Nazi ranks. The poor old “Gregson” personality hasn’t got a chance of resurfacing.
(Thanks, Shodan! You’ve made DA interesting, again!^_^)
Yeah, I’m sure that would be MUCH less uncomfortable for Edith than “your father just punched out our house guest who was attempting to take advantage of me, thank god…” :dubious:
A real “Eeew, MOM!” moment if ever there was one…
My favorite part this week was the shout-out to the Glossops arriving at the Grantham’s cocktail party. My mom and I happen to be rewatching the Jeeves & Wooster episodes and have been giggling because Highclere Castle was used in that series as the family home of Madeline “every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born” Basset.
I have no sympathy for Edith. She doesn’t have any problems that she didn’t create for herself. Madeline may have been a loony but she wasn’t a total fool. I’d like to know more specifically what Thomas was going through. The current murder mystery is too dumb for words. As if Scotland Yard has endless money to blow on trips to Yorkshire and keeping plainclothes men lurking in Picadilly - looking for what, exactly? It’s a public thoroughfare. They probably get a thousand people a day through there.
Many thousands.
I thought I heard “Glossop” mentioned - all right! Nice Wodehouse shout-out.
Best line of the episode:
Violet: “Prior to 1914 no one thought about anything.”
I fear Isis is headed to the Rainbow Bridge. I only hope they let her go peacefully and don’t contrive some gruesome death.