I like it!
And Lord Grantham boffs Jane, producing male triplets-- new heirs who displace Matthew, wood newly restored, spending his time screwing Lady Mary behind Rupert Murdoch’s back. Yeah.
Does anyone think Major Bryant isn’t dead, and there will still be a confrontation with Ethel?
While it’s not outlandish that he would have died at the battle of Vittorio Veneto – I googled it and there were British soldiers involved and thus British casualties – it’s damned convenient. Lady Grantham writes to invite Major Bryant, who’s been ducking Ethel’s letters including one hand-delivered by one of Grantham’s servants, and lo and behold a letter arrives: "Major Bryant can’t come to your house. He’s dead. Signed, [del]Epstein’s mother[/del] Major Byrant’s father. 
Ethel seemed profoundly desperate when she learned that Major Bryant was dead. Moreover, she suggested going to see his family. Hopefully, her desperation leads her not to kill herself (as someone speculated) but to go to the Bryants, where she will finally have her confrontation with the bloody cad. 
On a separate issue, does the new maid seem way too forward in a very modern way?! Thomas and Ethel may have spoken bluntly at the servant’s dining table but they were very formal and deferential to Crawleys and guests. I’m sure the writers of the show aren’t going for a “Lost in Austen” modern-woman-ends-up-in-a-romantic-earlier-age thing. This is a soap opera, but not sci-fi/fantasy. Thus, sticking to the “real” 1910s-20s, I find myself channeling my inner Carson and presuming that her prior household service was to middle-class families that treated her like a member of the family, a la Alice from Brady Bunch.
Quite a bit of tension between her and Lord Grantham too. Won’t be surprised to see something happen between them (though I’m hoping Lord Grantham is strong enough to resist the temptation).
It’s possible, but holy cow, we’ve already got a lot of plates spinning on sticks.
I completely agree. And it is possible she wasn’t a maid at all before? Or at least not trained as a housemaid in a big house? If I recall from my research back when I was an Upstairs Downstairs addict, no servant in a house like Downton was **ever **allowed to speak before being spoken to except the butler. The butler was also allowed to enter a room without knocking, but no one else was. The idea of Jane saying to Lord Grantham “May I get you anything?” without being addressed first by him was as unthinkable as the chair itself speaking to him.
HOW MANY EPISODES ARE LEFT THIS SEASON?
From next week’s preview it looked like
Lady Grantham will become very ill (Spanish flu?). Perhaps she dies and then Grantham and the maid will become lovers in that whole spirit of the collapsing monarchy.
I’m disappointed in Carson for ratting out Mrs. Hughes over her taking food to Ethel. C’mon, Carson, hasn’t Mrs. H proven herself loyal by reporting the conversation she overheard between Bates and his missus?
I’m of the opinion that “Patrick Gordon” was an imposter. Anyone remember the scenes in Groundhog Day where Phil kept teasing info out of Nancy so he could use the info to seduce her?
And remember this is the 20th century, so socialism, communism, anarchism, and women’s suffrage are all part of the zeitgeist. Emily Davison ran onto the race track and got trampled at the Epsom Derby in 1913. The Russian Revolution was in 1917. Republicanism was growing in the late Victorian era, not long prior to the setting of this series.
Perhaps he’ll have a little bitty Carson appear on his shoulder and say "It’s a two letter word… “No”.
Carson’s disapproval of Ethel seems less for moral reasons than for her lapse of judgment and breaking of a class barrier. Though obviously he’s as sexist as most men of his time (“men will always be men”).
Is there an attraction between him and Mrs. Hughes, do you think?
Of course Julian Fellowes swiped the Patrick/Peter Gordon storyline from the real story of Arnaud du Tilh whose story was so ably told by Natalie Zemon Davis in The Return of Martin Guerre. If Fellowes had any nerve he’d give Peter/Patrick the same fate of the poor Arnaud.
In fact, I can see it now… Downton Abbey meets The Wicker Man for a right proper English auto-da-fe.
Scene: Downton Abbey lawn, Spring 1919. Peter/Patrick Gordon hangs limply in stocks erected on the lawn. In the background Farmer drake erects a scaffold while his wife gleefully stacks the faggots.
Lady Sybil stares slack-jawed in wonder at the new structure, catching flies, towel wrapped around her head.
Lady Edith silently weeps at the thought that her most recent lover, Peter/Patrick, will soon be hanged by her former lover, Yeoman Drake.
Lady Mary stands in stony silence, upper lip properly stiff. At her side her future husband, Sir Richard Carlisle twirls his mustache with one hand while holding the torch to light the pyre with the other.
Lavinia Swire wheels Matthew Crawley’s wheelchair into the scene.
Matthew (under his breath): Lucky bastard! I bet fire gives a man a hell of an erection.
Enter Lord and Lady Grantham and Maggie Smith.
Lord Grantham: The burning is going to be hell on the grass. The groundskeepers are going to be working for months to get it to grow again.
Cora: Oh, Robert. You know we must maintain all these quaint English traditions. It is part of the responsibility you must uphold as Peer of the Realm.
Maggie Smith: Oooh! I haven’t been to a proper witch-burning since I was but a girl.
Lady Mary (coldly): Oh, grannie, you know he is not being burned because he’s a witch, he’s being burned because he took Edith’s virtue.
Maggie Smith: Of course you’re right, dear. And I heard he was Canadian.
Lady Mary: That’s right, Granny. My flower was taken by that Turk, Pamuk and Lady Sybil banged the Irish chauffeur. What would society think if they heard that Edith was deflowered by a Canadian. If they knew it would be years before we could hold a proper garden party.
Lord Grantham: And I just know, Cora, that the crowds are going to absolutely destroy the daffodils.
(As long as I’m stealing story lines how about a little Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee.)
Enter Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson, Cora’s mother. In one had she holds a half eaten turkey leg and in her other a huge tumbler of Scotch that sloshes onto Lord Grantham’s white suit.
Shirley MacLaine: Sir Robert’s got a problem with hoi polloi? Is that it, Sir Robert? You afraid the peasants are gonna track mud through your begonias? Is that the problem, Sir Robert, ya Imglish pissant.
Maggie Smith: My word!
Shirley MacLaine: You gotta problem, ya battle axe? Ya don’t like Canadians, I hear. What’s wrong with Canadians? I know it wasn’t the late Lord Highfalutin who first stuck it in you. Who was it, hanh? Was it the butler or some sodbusting yokel stinking of manure?
Maggie Smith (sounding wistful): No…It was in Rome. During Carnivale. I was on the Tour and after watching the execution of a brigand by the mazzuola, I was swept up in the excitement and the next thing I knew we were outside the city walls. While the rest of my group continued on to view the frescoes in San Gimignano, I found myself held captive in the catacombs. For three days the brigand Luigi Vampa rode me like a Siennese jockey on the last lap of the Palio. It was utterly exhilarating!
Lady Mary: Oh, Granny, sometimes you can be so dramatic.
Maggie Smith: Well, Mary, you may be able to understand how, after having had a Roman thief for a lover, I might find a Canadian just so – well – pedestrian.
Lady Mary: Oh, Granny.
Shirley MacLaine: Ya know for an old broad, you’ve sure got some class. I know we’re going to get along just fine.
Maggie Smith: Quite!
Lady Sybil: You know it seems somehow wrong to burn a man who was so badly scarred in service to the crown. I just don’t think it’s right.
Cora: Sybil sometimes you can be such a twit. If you had your way the Prince of Wales would marry a commoner.
Bring in the filthy extras from the Outer Hebrides. Hang Peter/Patrick. Light the fire. Fade to black.
Why the hell aren’t you writing this show?!? 
I think! They’ve been telegraphing this since the first episode of the first series!
She acts as though she had not been in service before starting at Downton, but wasn’t there some mention of her having very good references? If so, from where?
Maybe she had been a maid for a middle class household(s) before. If so, her duties and expected behavior would have been very different from a place like Downton. It’s similar to the difference ou’d expect in a waitress at a Cracker Barrel and and a server at a 4 or 5 star restaurant; if your Cracker Barrell waitress makes personal chit-chat it’s not unusual or socially unacceptable, but you do not expect it if you’re paying $300 for dinner and wine.
Of course a waitress at a very expensive restaurant is probably going to make a lot more in tips than one at a family place. Jane is probably going to make no more working at Downton than she would working for the village cheese merchant and the hours probably longer, though the benefits (meals and even something like a health plan) would probably be better.
Nah, I think Fellowes cribbed this bit from the Tichborne Case myself.
And I agree with toucanna; you should be writing the show.
I think he was faking the accent. Peter Gordon knew he could not have convincingly imitated Patrick Crawley’s voice to those who knew him best, but faking a foreign accent could confuse things enough that they might be fooled.
Here’s a question asked with near perfect ignorance of high fashion today as well as in the WW1 era:
When Robert is trying on the tuxedo and says it’s only for informal evenings of course, what is the big difference twixt tux and formal wear? When he’s in uniform he wears a red jacket, but if not in uniform is formal wear white jacket/white tie only?
Of course it brings to mind the Norma Desmond scoff “Tuxedoes are for waiters”.
I wondered that, too. I think his regular “formal” attire is white tie & tails. The black tie / dinner jacket without tails was the “informal” for just him & the missus.
That WWI Canadian infantry regiment in which maybe-Patrick served is still around:
Formal evening wear is white tie and tails (and a top hat when outdoors). A tuxedo (“dinner jacket” in British terminology) is not formal. It doesn’t have tails and it’s worn with a black tie, not a white one. And you wouldn’t wear a top hat with it.
That being said, the Earl is being somewhat conservative here. By 1918, a dinner jacket was perfectly acceptable for going out and entertaining in all but the most formal of situations.