“Miss Bunting wants . . .” tact. the girl needs to figure out when it’s appropriate to discuss politics and when you don’t. It’s never good to just go telling everyone what your politics are. It’s just so very one dimensional. Like there is only one thing you think about or care about. There are more important things, like sympathy and human understanding.
I loved Mary’s zinger to Grandmama. “I learned a lot of new things I didn’t know before.” snort I thought she didn’t like perverted jokes. Apparently they are fine when you can shock your Grandmother with them.
From a recap elsewhere, Barrow said on the phone, “I’ve read your advertisement in The London Magazine, ‘Choose your own path.’” I assumed he was responding to a job advertisement, perhaps for something outside service. I also wondered if the telephone bill would detail the number he called, so if Carson or the family was curious, they could look it up.
I wonder about the lady’s maid Baxter and Coyle, the guy on whose behalf she stole the jewelry. I wonder if he is Barrow’s father (perhaps out of wedlock, explaining the name difference). Baxter seemed interested when told that Barrow was seeing his ill father.
Regarding Lady Edith, obviously the farmer Mr Drewe knows the baby is Edith’s but his wife does not. Or does she suspect?
And the fact that Anna stored the contraceptive for Mary’s future use indicates that it’s probably not a condom, but a cervical cap or diaphragm. (Presumably Bates is going to think the contraceptive is for Anna’s use.)
I was reading up on ants the night before, and in particular, on a behaviour known as “slave-raiding” or “pirating” whereby one ant nest will raid the nest of a different species, and steal their eggs and pupae, and raise them as a worker caste. I was struck by a passage in which the author claimed that some ant species are so specialized for ‘slave-raiding’ that, without these ‘slaves’, they can’t even feed themselves - their mandibles are the wrong shape (too specialized, oversized). Apparently, some scientists took ahold of a colony, removed the ‘slaves’, and the ‘masters’ all died of starvation. Also, the ‘slaves’ do all the rearing of the ant’s young.
Anyway, in the deam, I saw the aristocrats from ‘Downton Abby’ sitting around a fancy table, with all of the fancy siverware, looking quite sad - there was no food on the china plates. All of the servants were gone. The aristocrats were wearing the height of fashion, but above the collar, they had grossly oversized mandibles … :eek:
Baxter said that the elder Mr. Barrow had always been kind to her, which doesn’t fit her description of the man who pressured her into robbing her previous employer.
She’d probably be a lot less freaked out by Edith if she did suspect. If they didn’t trust her to keep Edith’s secret then it probably would have been better to go with the original cover story of Edith trying to find a home for the illegitimate baby of a friend. There’d be a much greater risk of the wife guessing the truth, but she would never be able to prove it, and Edith wouldn’t seem so creepy and desperate for wanting to be involved with Marigold.
Malthus: your dream sounds like Miss Bunting’s view of the Crawleys and other “aristos”.
As to the Russian guy overreacting: he was literally venerating some wedding tschotsckes like holy relics. He wasn’t going to tolerate any criticism of the Tsar, no matter how softly couched. Mind you, it’s understandable as a sort of PTSD/shell-shock (curiously, mentioned in another context in the episode) for his nation’s, and probably his own, traumatic experiences in the Russian Revolution.
Nitpick (and pet peeve of mine) aimed at nobody in particular*: Baxter didn’t rob anyone, nor since she worked in the home did she burgle it. She committed theft. Nobody in centuries of the common law has robbed an empty house nor robbed anyone by sticking their property in her pocket when nobody was looking. Robbery is theft by force or threat of force.
*Really. IIRC, one of the characters in the show referred to Baxter’s crime as robbery. So I blame Fellowes.
BTW, the recap in the New York Times mentions offhand, “Is Bricker really the best name for a would-be cad and seducer? It sounds like something that goes wrong in cricket. ‘Hedgepeth bowled a real bricker that last innings ….’” Slightly amusing to me, given the name of a certain poster here.
You may be right–other than the first-season ‘slips on the soap and loses baby’ development. Nice to see both Elizabeth McGovern and Dame Maggie get a bit more to do than usual.
As for the Miss Bunting storyline: has there ever been a more ham-handed, contrived strawman (“leftist thinkers are boors”) than this one?
The subplot involving the Russian emigres was interesting. We all know that the royal family was shot, but it never occurred to me to wonder about the fate of the other royals and other members of the nobility. And did anyone else find it slightly odd that the Crawleys would devote their charitable efforts to relief for deposed royals and other nobles? Presumably there were poor refugees coming out of Russia as well.
I didn’t read any plot spoilers, but this is my working theory. They’ve been establishing his motivation over the past few episodes. It’s a retread of Bates Season 1. Perhaps Mrs. Hughes will ride to the rescue again.
I think Bates did go to London and kill that guy. And I say, “Good on him!” I wish that whole plot line would just go away.
Edith is much more attractive than Mary IMHO. I do love a prominent nose on a woman. Edith is Jennifer Grey pre-nose job, and Mary is JG post-nose job, IOW, looks like every other unremarkable “pretty girl.”
I wonder how Lord G is going to take the news that he doesn’t measure up?
Loved Violet’s line a couple of weeks ago, “Avoiding people one doesn’t like is easy. It’s avoiding one’s friends that’s difficult.”
It’s kinda a no brainier.