See what an easy choice that would be? And doesn’t Barrow look more like a Clive anyway?
I don’t think Daisy is going into teaching. I think she’s getting a diploma (or something similar), so if she ever needs proof of education, she has it. If she is working toward becoming a teacher (which again, I don’t think so), this is the step to move her toward the equivalent of teachers’ college, but not to say she’s ready to actually teach.
IIRC, since becoming widowed, she and Mr. Mason have struck up a father/daughter relationship. They talk, he counsels her, she visits him on her days off. The relationship with the son was more or less a sham - but the relationship with her father-in-law is very real. That said, she needs to shut up.
The entire situation, though, is pointing at Fellowes not being a very good writer. Anyone in Daisy’s position would know better than to keep bugging Cora about the tenancy as both her livelihood and Mason’s livelihood were at stake. But he wants to do something that he considers dramatic, so he’s sacrificing character to do so.
Master Bates?
Robert bought it after Rose’s constant nagging. The staff was allowed to stand at the back of the room during the speech, and Violet immediately stood up when he started to speak. Also Mrs Patmore needed reassurance that the king couldn’t actually hear them too.
Someone at one point (Robert?) mused about where Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes/now Mrs. Carson would LIVE, and I don’t think that was followed up on … so I’m thinking maybe the solution that came to him was that they should live at the Drewes farmhouse. I think Bates and Anna also live in one of the tenancy houses. Then Daisy can have someone else to aim her unhelpful and seething resentment at.
(I also find this particular plotline – that Daisy is being too vocal on this issue – out of character for her, as just about every other issue in her life she has worried over privately and had to have Mrs. Patmore drag it out of her.)
Perhaps Daisy’s outspokenness on this issue is supposed to exemplify that the servant class is less willing to be subservient as the feudal system is dying?
Probably, but it doesn’t really work, I think.
Why you don’t see the vicar much on DA: Home - Episcopal Journal
Uh-oh. Robert’s pain is getting worse. Are they going to drag this out like the demise of Isis (the dog)?
Baxter is a real Sad Sack. Why did she want Molesley in the room with the cop if she didn’t plan to tell him anything?
I’m glad this Drewes farm thing is finally settled; Daisy was unbearable.
Obviously they are setting this up to prove that they need to modernize the hospital. No subtlety on this show. Even Violet will agree when Robert almost dies.
She didn’t know what the cop was going to say for sure. She wanted a witness and someone for council.
And what a prick Barrow is. Everyone knows it and he knows everyone knows it.
It seems you need reminding that HE’S THE BUTLER.
He was seriously reminding me of Frank Burns in this episode. I was half-expecting him to order them all to pick up and move across the street because Colonel Potter was away and he was the commanding officer, dammit.
Who thought it would be a good idea for Mary’s new potential love interest to be involved in car racing? “Gosh, that seems dangerous!” :smack:
I would think she wouldn’t want a suitor who likes to drive cars fast, considering.
I really thought Anna miscarrying again would be the proof for the hospital, but it’s looking like Robert is going to be in dire of need of immediate medical care not available close at hand. And why isn’t Cora bugging him to see a doctor? She’s seemed rather nonchalant about is ongoing pain.
Nice to see Gwen again. Barrow is a jerk.
Mrs. Padmore seems a wee bit jealous of Mrs. Carson/Hughes learning the sweet mystery of life.
This thing with the hospital is getting on my nerves. Isabel is being a stick in the mud for no reason. Certainly they can make certain requirements during the takeover to make sure they keep local control?
Here is the recap from The AV Club. It criticizes the writing of the episode for favoring the nobles rather than the servants. It points, out, for instance, that when Gwen describes how she moved from housemaid to secretary to local government to helping to run a women’s college, Sybil is praised for her role, and not Gwen for her own achievements. And the lesson for Daisy appeared to be that she should just sit back and wait for the Crawleys to solve her problems.
On the other hand, it seemed clear to me that Daisy just ran with the idea that Mr Mason might get Yew Tree Farm and then was blaming the Crawleys for going back on a promise they never made.
And Mary seemed to realize that unlike her, Sybil was remembered fondly by others and that it might serve her to be nicer to people. Robert also told Barrow that he needed to be kinder. Really, except for social class and sexual preference, Mary and Barrow ought to get together; they’re two of a kind.
I’m also glad that storyline is over, but what an anticlimactic ending. They spend an awful lot of time (far too much, in my opinion) on Daisy being uncharacteristically hotheaded and outspoken and really built up a confrontation with Cora that never even happened. So what was the point of all this?
I think the idea is that Daisy is finally going to get off her ass and do something with her life. She complained that Gwen moved on, so why can’t she, but what has she done to move forward? There was a male servant in an earlier episode (can’t remember his name) who went to London to work in a hotel kitchen. And Gwen of course took secretarial courses and then found a job outside the house.
Meanwhile the younger footman (Andy?) mentioned that he wanted to live in the country; are they going to pair him and Daisy up and put them at Yew Tree Farm?
Nothing on Spratt and Denker, not that I’m complaining. I’m not really seeing the point of that storyline.
Comic relief. The writers learned it from Shakespeare. The idea, that is, not the proper execution!
Is the actress who plays Lady Mary anorexic? She seems unhealthily skinny.
I don’t know, within the show it makes perfect sense to me. When you are talking to people who have lost a child, telling stories about positive attributes of their child is a completely normal thing. OF COURSE Sybil’s family would like to hear nice things about Dead Sybil, and it is kind of Gwen to tell them (and also a fairly standard social grace). And I think the writers balanced that by having the folks downstairs talking about how Gwen took the initiative to move out of service.
New York Times recap. (Yes, it is snarky.)