# Downton Abbey, Series 2 (PBS) \[Please, no unaired spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2012, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368 "2012-01-13T04:06:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/321 "2012-02-13T18:40:49Z")
“This is the end of us” “Of course it is!” My sweet fanny. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Really? She caught us kissing and then dies of the flu. “Oh, if only she hadn’t seen us we’d have a life time of happiness but as it is I suppose you’ll have to go ahead and mary the sinister pretender while I toddle off to a life of lonely drinking and hair shirts.” Pfffft! ! ! Soooooo disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/322 "2012-02-13T18:50:24Z")
Every single plot point in this episode was just so utterly awful, I can’t even choose one to hate the most. It’s almost shocking how horrible this season was compared to the first season. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/323 "2012-02-13T18:51:09Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > “Did you wake up with a Canadian accent and then bang this out on a typewriter?” > Despite all the preposterous plot points, I actually don’t have a problem with Major Gordon’s Canadian accent whilst claiming to be the English Patrick Crawley: [Foreign Accent Syndrome](http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/6359). I wonder if there was a scene cut from the final show in which Doctor Clarkson explained F.A.S. to Lord G? I don’t think Julian Fellows knew about that illness before he used that ridiculous plotline. Lord G. was irritating as heck in this episode. Why was he so nasty to poor Cora? To provide justification for his silly flirting with Jane? Wouldn’t the staff have known about his affair with the housemaid? ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/324 "2012-02-13T18:54:57Z")
> [@Archergal](#): > > My husband has gotten tired of the Mary/Matthew drama and the continuing Woeful Tale of Mr. Bates. I kinda have too, honestly. Same. I mean, I realize “the course of true love never runs smooth” but this latest wrinkle is stupid. I could accept it if it turned out that Matthew was more in love with Lavinia than he thought he was and needed some time to recover. I could accept it if they postponed getting together because it was unseemly to get married before the body was cold. But “we’re cursed” ??!!? That’s just dumb. Anyone who says that doesn’t deserve true love and Mary should dump hiis ass and Sir Richard’s as well and head to New York and be fabulous and sensational in 1920s America. Anna also deserves better than Mr. Bates and his…whatever it is he’s doing. Mary should take her along. I did love the Dowager Countess’s (paraphrased) “He’s political? And a journalist? I can make something of that.” ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/325 "2012-02-13T18:58:53Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > They should have called in an artist to preserve “The Martyrdom of St. Lavinia” as a new stained glass window for the drawing room. Exactly, and now with Matthew on the same track, we realize how truly right they were for each other! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/326 "2012-02-13T19:03:55Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Ah–alright, unlike Hizzoner Lord Fellowes, I am happy to admit when I am wrong. I am just \*so \*insecure about my social position! Oh quite alright dear. You’re posher than we are and that’s what counts. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/327 "2012-02-13T19:15:36Z")
Oh, I just remembered: as thrilled as I was to hear Theda Bara referenced, they \*should \*have said Gloria Swanson. \*She \*was the one with the exotic de Mille bathroom sets. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/328 "2012-02-13T19:17:39Z")
I’m trying to get approximate ages. I believe they said Sibyl was 23 didn’t they? So she would have been born around 1896 and she’d have been ~16 at the start. Mary must ben around 28 and ~21 at the start wouldn’t you think? And Matthew was already a lawyer in 1912, so that would make him at least early 20s, so he’s around 30. Cora’s miscarriage was around 1913 or 1940, and she had young adult daughters, so she was probably in her early 40s. (Lord Grantham referred to her pregnancy as “biblical”, which I thought a bit odd; probably more women percentage wise were having children youngest child close in age to oldest grandchild then then now.) On average the aristocracy tended to marry _younger_ than commoners since money and finding a position wasn’t as much of a necessity, so I wonder if IRL the Crawley girls would be seen as the posh old maids by this time. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/329 "2012-02-13T19:33:11Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Every single plot point in this episode was just so utterly awful, I can’t even choose one to hate the most. It’s almost shocking how horrible this season was compared to the first season. While season two is unquestionably worse than season one looking back at the first season in hindsight I think it’s fair to say that the hactackular plot elements have been there right from the start - they were just covered up by the pretty costumes and glorious scenery. O’Brien and Thomas’ one-dimensional nastiness, the lascivious Turk, Bates’ dark past and the very contrived initial set-up itself are all straight out of the rejected ideas pile from the trashiest of day-time soaps. Personally the gilding had completely worn off the turd during the episode where William died, so I was spared the Canadian pretender, Matthew’s miraculous recovery and Bates’ arrest for murder. It’s a shame really, that all the great work done by the set-dressers and costumers have been in the service of such poorly-written rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/330 "2012-02-13T19:53:25Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > While season two is unquestionably worse than season one looking back at the first season in hindsight I think it’s fair to say that the hactackular plot elements have been there right from the start - they were just covered up by the pretty costumes and glorious scenery. O’Brien and Thomas’ one-dimensional nastiness, the lascivious Turk, Bates’ dark past and the very contrived initial set-up itself are all straight out of the rejected ideas pile from the trashiest of day-time soaps. Plus, Carson used to be a music-hall star? I keep waiting hopefully for him to burst into a rousing chorus of “Any Old Iron,” but it never happens. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/331 "2012-02-13T19:56:01Z")
I missed the first bit of the show. What was the deal with Mary dissing Carson? ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/332 "2012-02-13T20:41:15Z")
[QUOTE=Acsenray] Whooshed me! [/quote] Don’t be so hard on yourself, m’dear. “Poe’s Law” and all that, don’t you know. [QUOTE=Acsenray] …It’s almost shocking how horrible this season was compared to the first season. [/QUOTE] Sophomore jinx. The entire production (creators, executives, crew, cast, tea trolley lady) were caught off-guard by how wildly popular the first series was, and weren’t completely prepared to soldier on fully complemented into the next series. I think\* the third series will be better, as they’ve all had time to prepare. Once we’ve had a good look at the Christmas special, we’ll have a better idea of whether they’re going to take the quality of series 3 seriously. \*Well, _hope_, more than anything at this point. [QUOTE=Acsenray] …What was the deal with Mary dissing Carson? [/quote] Sir Richard offered Anna money to report to him on Mary’s movements (i.e., spy on her). She told him she just didn’t have time to help him. Anna told Mrs. Hughes and Carson. Carson told Lady Mary he would not be able to follow her to Haxby Park. Lady Mary felt Carson was abandoning her. When I watch the episode again, in about 30 minutes, I’ll fill in the details, if requested. [QUOTE=LavenderBlue] I don’t think Julian Fellows knew about that illness before he used that ridiculous plotline. [/quote] Bet he’ll use the George Lucas Switcheroo (Pat. Pend.) and say he always meant for “Can’t-you-see-I’m-Patrick-Crawley?!?” Gordon to have suffered from FAS. 😃 [QUOTE=LavenderBlue] Wouldn’t the staff have known about [Lord G’s] affair with the housemaid [Jane]? [/QUOTE] I think Mrs. Hughes hinted at this when she settled with Jane about her wages due. [QUOTE=Sampiro] I’m trying to get approximate ages…I wonder if IRL the Crawley girls would be seen as the posh old maids by this time. [/QUOTE] I know I asked about this in a thread about the first series (which I can’t find now, of course). When I rewatch the episode, I’ll find out where exactly mention is made that Sybil is 21 years old (it’s in the context of not needing her parents’ permission to marry Branson). I think Lord & Lady G and the Dowager Countess were beginning to worry about Lady Mary “being left on the shelf” after (the real) Patrick Crawley [del]died[/del] was declared dead and Mary refused to consider other suitors. The elders were also worried that Mary’s procrastination would hurt Edith’s chances as it was highly unusual to marry off a second daughter before the first. I also seem to remember we discussed whether L&L G were going to have to delay Edith’s first London season (her debutante season, in Yank-ese) because Mary was still unmarried. Once rumors about Mary’s indiscretion with “The Turkish Gentleman” began to circulate, the race was on to get her settled before her reputation was so tainted as to make her not only unable to marry into British high society, but also unwelcome in the homes of the nobility and gentry. Mary _had_ to marry money (because the bulk of her mother’s premarital assets were tied to the estate), and she had to marry into a family whose reputation, or influence, was unassailable enough to restore her tarnished name. Had she been the youngest daughter, her family might have shipped her off to maternal relatives overseas, but as the eldest…much of the family’s reputation and her younger sisters’ marriage options depended on getting Mary settled well, and quickly. But, I’m off on a tangent, so never mind me and pray, carry on. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/333 "2012-02-13T21:00:29Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I will not tell you what “to suck the mop” means, though: go to p. 314 and look it up. (Not dirty, sorry.) I read it, and I still have no idea. It’s something to do with horses and nursing and omnibuses. Kim dear, are you entirely sure it’s SFW?!? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/334 "2012-02-13T21:12:01Z")
Maybe with Sibyl married off Edith will be given something to do other than briefly recall she loved Patrick. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/335 "2012-02-13T21:22:53Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I read it, and I still have no idea. It’s something to do with horses and nursing and omnibuses. Kim dear, are you entirely sure it’s SFW?!? 😛 Made no sense to me either, till I looked on page 239 of the same publication & saw this: > [@](#): > > Nurse, a curious term applied to competition in omnibuses. Two omnibuses are placed on the road to NURSE, or take care of, each opposition “bus,” one before, the other behind. Of course the central or NURSED bus has very little chance, unless it happens to be a favourite of the public… Who knew??? ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/336 "2012-02-13T21:35:13Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Plus, Carson used to be a music-hall star? I keep waiting hopefully for him to burst into a rousing chorus of “Any Old Iron,” but it never happens. I suppose Fellowes had to keep \*something \*back for the third season. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/337 "2012-02-13T22:02:51Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > I suppose Fellowes had to keep \*something \*back for the third season. SPOILER: In the third season Lady Edith is going to become the companion of Downton’s visitor, a man in a blue box known only as ‘The Doctor’. All goes well until Cousin Isobel calls up friends at her refugee league, Torchwood, and has them open fire on the doctor’s blue box, after which people begin to think she’s in ill health for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/338 "2012-02-13T22:03:40Z")
Thinking about timelines… So it was established that Lady Sybil is 21 in 1919. Didn’t we see her first Season in the first series? If women usually “came out” at age eighteen (maybe that’s where I’m off here…), and her debut Season was the winter after the Titanic sank, means she was eighteenish in 1912-1913. Shouldn’t she be more like 23 by now? Nitpicking, I know, and maybe she was sixteen at the beginnning… And isn’t Lady Mary well into spinsterhood by now? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/339 "2012-02-13T22:10:28Z")
> [@PeskiPiksi](#): > > If women usually “came out” at age eighteen (maybe that’s where I’m off here…) Yeah, I think it would be 15 or 16, not 18. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368/340 "2012-02-13T22:11:34Z")
> [@PeskiPiksi](#): > > Thinking about timelines… > > So it was established that Lady Sybil is 21 in 1919. Didn’t we see her first Season in the first series? If women usually “came out” at age eighteen (maybe that’s where I’m off here…), and her debut Season was the winter after the Titanic sank, means she was eighteenish in 1912-1913. Shouldn’t she be more like 23 by now? Nitpicking, I know, and maybe she was sixteen at the beginnning… > > And isn’t Lady Mary well into spinsterhood by now? ## Not nitpicking really. If she’s 21 in 1919 she’d be 14 in 1912 and unless Mrs. Patmore’s secret ingredient is puberty hormones she wasn’t. And Lady Mary had been engaged to Patrick for at least a few months, it was implied for a year at least. The Crawleys would likely not even allow their daughter to publicly announce an engagement until she was at least 17 or so, meaning she’s at least 18 in 1912 and probably older, so that would make her at least 25 and probably older in 1919, which was definitely over the average marrying age (21 +/- at the time for a well brought up girl). Speaking of titles, when/if Matthew becomes the Earl, I wonder if Isobel would have any title other than “Mrs. Crawley”. Neither she nor her late husband was born to one, but at the same time an Earl’s mother having no title is… ‘so terribly common’. (In _Titanic_ Rose was 17 but even the movie spoke to how unusual this was, plus she wasn’t an actual aristocrat; it was Cameron’s way of making her conceivably young enough to be alive in the late 1990s.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-series-2-pbs-please-no-unaired-spoilers/609368.md?page=18)