Also, I don’t know how old Isis is, but she was around at the beginning of the show, right? So definitely over 10, maybe more like 15? That’s pretty firmly into the average lifespan for a Lab.
Poor Robert. Did anyone else get a little sniffly when Cora told Robert to put Isis in their bed?
It was never made very explicit, but apparently in season 1 it was a different dog. Isis has been around since season 2.
I’m predicted a Tom and Mary union (unless he’s quitting the series).
They played Pooh sticks!
Yes! That’s exactly what I said!
I loved how they were playing poohsticks. To my knowledge that game was invented by A. A. Milne pretty much in that era, which implies what Sybbie has been reading.
Geez, Tom sure deserves better. Mary is getting more unlikeable each season, and her recent self-absorbed superficiality and petulant nastiness toward Edith are quite unbecoming.
Never heard of it before - good catch!
Here’s PBS on Isis’s passing: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch-online/shorts/downton-abbey-5-remembering-isis/
Yeah. She’s awful. Tom at least tries to cling to his humanity. Mary seems to have buried hers with Matthew.
Sir Anthony Strallan saw him slip something in Tom’s drink during pre-dinner cocktails, and confronted him at the dinner table when Tom started acting drunk. Larry didn’t even try to deny it, and seemed completely bewildered that anyone took offence at his prank.
And come the 1930s they can fly over. 
I liked that Violet slapped down Mary for unkindness.
And given that Bates & Anna and Carson & Mrs Hughes are all thinking of what to do in retirement and considering opening hotels or guesthouses, I look forward to the follow-on series; Downton Inn. (Sort of a retread of Grace & Favour.)
Or Fawlty Towers…
That was my major annoyance about this episode: having Anna be all officious about having seen a farmer in a first class carriage With A Child is both inconsistent with her character as established previously, and also bizarrely unlikely.
What was it she expected Mrs. Hughes to do about it? Why was it an outrage? Are we to believe that Anna was concerned that Drewe was committing a crime? If not, why would she have such a sense of urgency about reporting it to the housekeeper?
Perhaps it was a failure of the direction as much as of the writing: if the director had told Joanne Froggatt to toss off the remark in an offhand manner–as in “I saw something rather odd, today, and you may be interested to hear about it” or the like–then maybe it wouldn’t have seemed so discordant.
Mary’s nastiness is reserved for Edith, and during the last episode I reminded myself that here has never been any love lost between the two of them. Remember that Edith is no saint: she betrayed Mary after the death of Mr. Pamook, and has said some very unkind things about her. We just feel bad for Edith because she has had such a run of bad luck, plus we know things about her that Mary doesn’t. I also feel like Mary’s comments regarding Edith are a very realistic portrayal of how siblings can be: except for our parents no one knows better how to push our buttons, and sometimes our attitudes/reactions toward them can be more knee-jerk than anything else.
Cora’s newest plan for this child is just as stupid as the old plans were - but now, the kid will be living in the house. Of course, she’ll be a second class child (behind the known grandchildren), setting her up to be treated as an afterthought just the way that Edith is an afterthought and to always behind George & Sybil. And Mary, being the horrible human being that she is, is going to be just awful to that child. Poor Edith. Poor Marigold. Also, Cora’s indignation at not being told was ridiculous. Had she paid any attention to her child at all, she would have known or at least noticed something was amiss.
My only interest in the Bates is to wonder why they insist on having secret conversations at work, where they can be overheard, instead of just waiting until they go home at the end of the day. I don’t really care about the content of the conversations themselves.
Indeed. Let’s not also forget that of all the Crawley’s the only one who seemed horrified about a black man, Jack Ross, being in their house was Edith.
She’s had bad stuff happen to her, but she’s not necessarily a good person.
I’ve been predicting that for months, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening.
That wasn’t as bad as the series of episodes maybe two seasons ago in which a bunch of people were considering having dalliances with someone they weren’t supposed to be dalliancing (it was when Lord Grantham almost got it on with a maid) and they kept kissing RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN. I mean, I don’t know why I should be outraged that people who are cheating should cheat badly but I kept yelling at the screen AT LEAST GO BEHIND A CLOSED DOOR YOU MORONS!!!
I just don’t see either of the Crawley girls ever being interested in Tom. He’s like a brother to them now.
I do kinda wish they’d find some open-minded society gal for him. He needs someone like Lady Sybil to keep him on his toes. Sure, he’s unlikely to land another daughter of an earl, but it seems like he’d be a good catch for someone. I’d hate to see his character shipped off to America never to be heard from again.
(Unless Fellowes has a mind to having him and Sybbie star in the next series he has planned, about upper class New Yorkers, in which case, by all means, put them on the boat!)
I feel sorry for Edith, but I do remember all the bad things she’s done. Given that I can remember all that, it says a lot about Mary’s behavior that I take Edith’s side. I think the Dowager called her out on it righteously… and also hilariously. She doesn’t have to love Edith or like her, but she’s just so awful, and it’s not like she herself behaved like Saint Sybbie.