BTW did anyone else catch this trailer for Michelle Dockery’s new cop show on TNT?
Yeah, I thought the same. Maybe that’s why it only took 50 quid to buy her off.
Mod note: Can you change the title of this thread to reflect that the series is now showing in the USA.
And to the OP: do you want to restrict discussion just to the current episode, i.e., no spoilers for events down the road?
Sorry…gotta know these things…
I agree that a real Mary would not have been intimidated by the blackmail threat. Geez…at her age, a widow, unmarried, I’d have thought people would be more shocked to learn that she had ABSTAINED from sex than that she had indulged. And WTG Lord Grantham for buying the chambermaid off at $.02 on the dollar (as it were). Contrary to what he said, that incident did NOT prove Mary’s worthiness to run the estate.
The Birds and the Bees talk with Carson was sweet, and his heartfelt remarks to Mrs. Patmore brought tears to my eyes… which spilled over and ran down my face when he and Mrs. Hughes kissed. I’m with Mrs. Patmore: I’d love to know a man felt that way about me at my age. (Or any age, frankly.)
Mary falling off the horse–what was the point of that?
The Bates’s finally got some relief in a completely anticlimactic way. Talk about ending with a whimper and not a bang.
I only caught a glimpse of her, but is it my imagination or is Marigold (the actress) a dead ringer for Lily on Modern Family? (Call me crazy.)
Daisy’s outburst at the auction-- eee-YOW! I was hoping the New Guy would be a good sport and assure her that her FIL would still have his spot on the estate. But no.
Violet got in a couple of good zingers. Should have fired Denker on the spot.
The auction was excruciatingly sad for me. I moved a few years ago and walked away from half a houseful of stuff that was then sold and (I’m assuming) a lot of it trashed. None of it was treasures to anyone but me. Still hurts to think about it, but I couldn’t fit all of it into this small house and didn’t *need *most of it anyway. I think the sadness and upheaval of losing your past and your familiar way of life wasn’t treated with sufficient gravity. Maybe the weight of that theme will accumulate at the season moves on.
The whole episode seemed like a boat that has gone off course into an eddy and was circling lazily, not able to find its way back to the main current. A series of small arcs rose and fell within the episode without any of them driving the main vessel back into the flow.
It was because of her noticing crazy-blackmail-lady on the bridge. Means of introducing her as an “ominous presence”.
It seemed really out of character for Daisy. Even she knows that you don’t get much out of yelling at the aristocrats. It seemed like a “whatever has to happen to move the plot along” scene.
I think we established last season that Violet keeps Denker and Spratt around largely because there is nothing on TV.
I thought they could have dragged out the blackmail story line for at least an episode or two.
Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes are too cute for color TV. Yes, ladies, once you realize your man finds you beautiful no matter what…
Yes, Edith, get your butt to London NOW. No need for you to bear Mary’s snarkiness one moment longer.
I miss Tom.
Anna and John are out of the woods, so I presume they’ll be accused of arson or kidnapping shortly.
If it’s been 13 years in DA time, shouldn’t Daisy have been promoted or found a Head Cook position elsewhere?
The actual reason is that the actress who plays Daisy was still willing to work on DA, but in-universe, labour expenses are going up and the great houses are reducing staff quite a bit, so there may not be a lot of higher-level positions available for her to fill. If she’s not willing to change careers, she may be at “entry level” forever.
What about Marigold? Edith will have to find a London nanny, and the girl will miss out on the “village” that cares about her at Downton. (For as long as it lasts anyway.) Or will she just run off and abandon her? Has the shine of motherhood already worn off?
No kidding.
No, she brings Marigold. There is a governess at DA, no need there can’t be one in London.
RE: Daisy…it’s been 13 years. How long does an assistant cook before she can consider a promotion? I know she started out at a kitchen maid but Mrs. Padmore did move her to undercook (?) some time back.
Daisy is the Commander Riker of Downton Abbey: someone who should have promoted up or out ages ago but stays in their position to keep the [del]show cast[/del] crew/staff together. 
If she’s so eager to advance herself, she should’ve taken Harold Levinson’s offer to be head cook in (presumably*) a better-funded household in America.
*Because his money comes from ongoing businesses and not from being a hereditary landowner. On the other hand, he may have lost money as well as reputation in the Teapot Dome scandal.
It seems like every other working-class outsider who makes it into the house is looking to blackmail someone inside. Charlie Grigg, Vera Bates, hotel chambermaid…
I don’t think the amount of time has much to do with it. Some kitchen maids eventually became cooks, but this wasn’t a guaranteed career path or anything. That Daisy has been promoted to assistant cook makes her luckier than many, and there’s no higher position available at Downton Abbey as long as Mrs. Padmore is cook.
Seeing the DA marathon* leading up to the season opener reminded me that Grigg has appeared twice.
The first time, he was the wheedling obnoxious blackmailer of Carson who, like the hotel maid, Lord G paid a fraction of what he asked for and sent him on his way with a flea in his ear. Grigg blustered to Lord G that “you won’t always be on top, your lot will fall and mine will rise” but Lord G snarked back to the effect that “maybe, but this is not that day.”
The second time, Grigg was the down-and-out old pal who Carson was wrongly ignoring in his time of need until Mrs. Hughes and Isobel Crawley came to his rescue and Carson had a last-minute one-foot-on-the-platform change of heart.
WTF? 
*Not every episode, I have a life after all. 
At this point she’s just bidding her time until Mrs Patmore drops dead. IIRC Mrs Bridges from Upstairs, Downstairs got her first promotion when the cook died in the middle of a dinner party & she had to take over!
£50 in 1925 is about £2,713.97 today, £1,000 would be £54,279.33. :eek: And I still think Lord Grantham overpaid. Mary & Tony’s weekend in Liverpool just wouldn’t be considered that scandalous in 1925 (at least unless Tony had an active political career).
Is there any consensus as to the reason for the continuing popularity of this show?
My wife and I watch MT pretty regularly, so of course we watched this. But it never impressed us as anything terribly spectacular in terms of costume dramas. Beautifully staged and costumed, but pretty mediocre writing and (most of the) acting. I mean, it is a fine soap opera, but why did THIS soap opera become so terribly popular?
Also, do people think the actress who plays Mary acts well? Impresses me as terribly wooden. And I had no idea why her dad thought that her sleeping with a guy - or being willing to have it hit the papers - qualified her to run the estate.
I repeat, the filming and costuming is beautiful.
It’s actually not a fine soap opera. It’s pretty bad as a soap opera. (I mean, seeing a woman on a bridge, somehow knowing that it’s a mysterious malicious presence and falling off a horse? Modern soap operas would never do anything that cheesy. The follow up blackmail scene was plain bad writing as was the entire thing surrounding the wedding.). I’m in it because I watched from the beginning, there are only a few episodes left, and it is beautifully costumed.
IIRC, the first season was a bit more novel and actually had better plotting and writing.
I’m just assuming she has cancer, because why wouldn’t she?
Yeah, it’s really mediocre especially compared to some of the other MT offerings.
She sure seems to have aged a lot!
Since it’s the last season, I didn’t think Fellowes had time to start another “disaster for Bates and Anna” story arc. But you might be right - Anna will die nobly in the pentultimate episode, and then the last episode will be closing down the Abbey and firing all the servants.
Best part of the ep was Maggie Smith (as usual). Does she nail the character, or what? Not the argument about the hospital - I don’t care about that - but how she has eighty years of experience in handling uppity servants.
The Mrs. Hughes-Carstairs thing almost worked, but not quite. Close, but not 100% - too obviously staged in the usual “his Real Feelings break thru the crust of convention”. It might have worked if Carstairs showed that his marriage to Mrs. Hughes would be based on real friendship, but that real friendship between a man and a woman could include being a FWB. And I would have enjoyed playing up the embarassing parts of the conversation between Mrs. Patmore and Carstairs - it needed to be a bit more over the top.
As to the rest - OK, Mary’s a bitch and being blackmailed, Sybil is whining, Daisy makes a noble speech, ho hum. I still hope Daisy’s father in law proposes to her when he gets kicked out of his tenancy - then they move to London and open a restaurant.
I assume the 1929 Crash will be the focus of the last episode. And lots more characters dying. Maybe Cora is not long for this world, and Lord Robert can be devastated while the Dowager Duchess shows her strength and resiliency.
I have high expectations for the final ep - hopefully on a par with The Bob Newhart Show, and not MASH*.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s only 1925 in the show, unless they time-jump in the last episode. I’m predicting Robert kicks the bucket in the last few episodes. The overarching plot of the show is “What is the future of Downton after Robert dies?” so it would just make sense.