What I see is a whole bunch of those trite "let’s build up ridiculous misunderstandings into major but ultimately pointless dramas’ things you find in cheap romance novels. Where the whole plot crisis depends on the fact that the Heroine saw the Hero with another girl who turns out to be his stepsister who needed a lift to the market or something else totally innocuous.
And why is everyone letting Barrow get away with that whole poor me, how dare you think my word isn’t good or that I’d hurt Andy crap? Why doesn’t Carson flat out point out chapter and verse of some of the evil stuff that Barrows has pulled in the past, and that is why they’re suspicious of his good intentions now?
That Violet seems to think Downton Abbey is a “perfectly ordinary house” is about as clueless and out of touch as her asking, “What’s a week-end?” And then Mary was peeved that Anna was late returning from the doctor (“I though I was going to have to dress myself.”). Earlier someone asked how Anna was going to handle the baby and that’s a good question, given how unsympathetic Mary is. Perhaps they could open the nursery (where George, Marigold and Sybil are) to other children and turn Downton Abbey into the fanciest day care center in Europe.
And the fact that a fragile, pregnant Anna had to ride the bus back from the doctor?? Mary wants to pay the doctor’s bill but she can’t spring for a cab ride?
The scene of the ladies spectacularly failing to enlighten visitors about their home is probably the funniest in the entire series to me. “Well, they were all rather marvelous and sort of … living that life.” And the scene with Robert and the little boy was well done.
Were she just cold, they’d probably have told her. But she’s actively nasty to Edith and no one wants to give her another weapon (Cora’s actual words) or for her to begin being similarly awful to the child.
The Crawley’s really aren’t very good parents. (not that that was a thing 100 years ago, but you’d think that instead of just noticing the way their children treated each other, they might have said something directly to the child in question.)
They definitely mishandled telling the Dowager about the change in hospital leadership. Ouch.
My wife, son and I kept expecting Mrs. Carson to give her husband an earful for all his veiled (and not-so-veiled) criticism of her cooking. Next episode, I’ll bet.
Hope Moseley’s test goes well, and that he’s able to become a teacher or tutor, as he so clearly wants to be.
Lord Merton is such a puppy dog, still running after Isobel and even dragging along his future daughter-in-law to assure her that Pissy Snobbish Son won’t be an obstacle. Isobel’s treated him so badly, though, I’m surprised he’s still interested.
On the other hand, Lady Mary and Racecar Guy are clearly hitting it off well. Nice scenes in London. The chances of her developing a romance with Tom seem to be dwindling.
Thomas weeping by the fire at the end was a nice image. Being a conniving sneak for years and years just hasn’t worked out for him.
Daisy is being a terrible pill this season, and it’s tiresome, because it seems very different from her personality as established earlier in the series.
Also tiresome, the whole hospital business, although I did enjoy the Dowager pitching a fit. I find it a little ridiculous that they couldn’t come up with some honorary title to placate her, or letting her stay as “President Emerita” and giving Cora a new title that implies actual duties and work.
I think Rob James-Collier does an absolutely fantastic job with Barrow, because I actually have sympathy for him despite his years of past terrible behavior. I am hopeful that Carson will be sufficiently shamed when he learns what’s really going on.
I absolutely believe that Cora and the girls could be so clueless about the house, the girls wouldn’t have had any formal education to speak of, so they probably don’t have a very clear foundation of English history to pin anything on. Neither Edith nor Mary seems particularly bookish, so it isn’t as if they would have sought out the information on their own. I think this is the first time they mentioned the librarian for the estate, I wonder what his job description involves. Is this a full time gig? How much is he paid?
The scene with Tom and Mary on the stairs, when he deadpans “can this be love?” was adorable and I think a way of recognizing that some fans were hopeful for a Tom/Mary match (that isn’t going to happen).
It was hilarious when Cora said her first career was raising her children. She didn’t raise them, she had the nanny bring them by a couple of times a day. It wasn’t really like it took all that much of her time.
And in that reality Carson would spend all his time criticizing his wife’s housekeeping skills.
Not only that she know exactly how to hold the crowd’s interest!
Who’s to say Anna didn’t insist on taking the bus instead of letting Lady Mary pay for a cab?
Violet burned her bridges and pissed off everyone in Yorkshire. This is their way of making it clear they want her to have nothing to do with the new hospital, even on paper. The message is as clear as Bertie’s comments about his bachelor cousin spending all his time in Morocco painting the young men of Tangiers.
It was so hard to pick out that out, given the extremely subtle way it was presented. I’m sure the resolution will be just as nuanced.
(Plot twist for next episode: Mrs. Carson gets off on being berated and Mr. Carson is only criticizing her food to help her work through her squeamishness about sex).
The way I took it is that Thomas is really, really trying not to be gay. Mr. Carson basically told him that no matter what he does, everyone knows what he really is and it will always be hanging over him. Even if he does something nice, it will be assumed to be for a nefarious purpose.
In the real world, yes. In the contrived, hierarchy-adoring Downton world, it has quite a lot to do with it. Homosexuality, though it may crop up in the best of families, does upset the Natural Order; it cannot be seen to Triumph but must be seen to bring on Suffering and Ostracism. (And it’s worth recalling that Fellowes is a traditionalist Roman Catholic.)
Notwithstanding Thomas’s other many vices, the specific thing that drew Mrs. Patmore’s attention (which she then blabbed to Mr. Carson) was the gay thing. And it is the thing that we have, in previous episodes, seen him go to great lengths to deal with – in a way that, to the sensibilities of the day, would be the most virtuous possible.
I remember seeing an interview with Julian Fellowes in which he said that Barrow was trapped by the times; there’s no way for him to live openly. Fellowes seemed quite sympathetic to the character.
