That’s appropriate, as she was Miss Moneypenny.
This show is just too soapy for its own good, now. Instead of exploring the life of a noble family, it’s just down to who’s sleeping with who.
Funny. I just caught a repeat of the first two episodes of Season 2. Now I thought S2 was a huuuuge let down after the first one–Matthew can’t walk, oops now he can, Lavinia is a millstone, great she dies, and the waste of the Sir Richard Carlyle character–but after watching those first two episodes again, they are much better in retrospect.
It seems like every character had a scene that contributed to their storyline: Robert put on a uniform thinking he would be active in the war effort, Edith was seducing a farmer, Sybil decided she was going to nursing school, Thomas was shooting off his hand at the front, Bates was being blackmailed by his wife, Moseley was trying to avoid being drafted, and O Brien was brilliantly manipulating Cora–she always looks and sounds drunk–to help Thomas and, at the same time, when Carson collapsed, she was right there to volunteer to help serve dinner, no fuss, because to her it was inconceivable that she would not “help the family”. (That episode really defined her character) All that plus the main story, Mary’s farewell to Matthew at the train station.
Maybe it’s because I know how all these stories played out that makes re-watching these two episodes seem so jam-packed with plot.
Or maybe it’s just that recently there’s been too much focus on characters I don’t care about: Carson, do not give a sh*t about his non-wife from 40 years ago; the rape story insofar as it’s another excuse for Bates to go into martyr mode; Daisy et al. I mean, is Edith still supposed to be writing a weekly newspaper column?
I just wish they would stop focusing so much time on the Ivy/Daisy/Jimmy love triangle. I don’t care, no one I know who watches the show cares, it has gone nowhere for how many damn episodes now, and it is so boring and takes time away from the stories I actually want to see.
Well maybe Anna didn’t, but Lady Edith is another story. The episode after she has sex with Michael for the first time she visit’s a doctor’s office (a specialist of some kind) in London without telling anybody? :eek: On one hand this is textbook soap opera, but on the other hand it would be interesting to see how an upper class woman like Edith deals with having a bastard out-of-wedlock (we already saw the working class version with Ethel).
I’m getting tired of Molesley the butt monkey , but he had that coming. I think Carson really would’ve found something for him if he accepted on the spot (or at least if he was less obnoxious). Baxter seems nice, but it wouldn’t be Downton Abbey without a scheming bitch downstairs. It does look like she grasps the sheep’s clothing part a lot better than O’Brien though. At we finally got a little info on what Thomas was trying to do with Braithwaite. And I hope the gardener boy does turn out to be a thief just to see the expression on Isobel’s face.
I thought the scene between Bates & Anna where he reveals to her he knows what happened was beautifully played by the two of them.
(And thank the gods there is no rape baby. I was really fearing Fellowes would go for that old soap cliche.)
I suppose Edith could’ve been visiting the doctor to get some birth control? or is that still only available at Mary Stopes’ clinic? No, I’m sure she’s preggers (there WILL be a baby for the Christmas Special) and I am hoping that boyfriend is in the wind and that old Sir Anthony Strallan is dragged back to do the decent thing.
But bigger news, Branson is hinting about moving to America. It makes sense from his point of view but I was surprised that Mary did not tell him that she needed his advice/support running the estate.
Is this guy that just showed up to see Mary supposed to be the successor to Matthew? Seems like before the war, there was a dearth of suitors and here they are popping up in every episode. The difference being that now she brings Downton with her.
Downstairs, a lot of time devoted to Alfred’s sudden interest in cooking. I know it was mentioned briefly when he first arrived but since then he’s spent all his spare time mooning over that other girl so was this just an elaborate exercise to get my favorite Moseley some screen time? And speaking of sudden, Cora’s decided that downstairs needs one of them newfangled refrigerators… it’s a sign that Mrs Patmore is not long for this world.
Evelyn Napier was the one who brought Kemal Pamuk with to a house party. I think Fellowes just doesn’t know what to do with Mary ether than have her try to find a husband.
Good news for Daisy since she’s apparently decided to just stay at Downton waiting for the old woman to die instead of taking over the Mason tenancy or go run a kitchen of her own in a smaller house. Hell, I’d like to see Daisy take a shot getting into M. Escoffier (assuming they’d even consider a female applicant; cooking in a hotel or restaurant kitchen being considered a man’s world even today).
Same deal with Thomas; I knew the job market for butlers isn’t that good, but he has a good reference and is younger & more employable than Molesley. You’d think he’d jump at a position in another household rather than stick around at Downton, surrounded by people who have dirt on him, waiting for Carson to die. Come to think of it Mrs Hughes is the only member of the trio who doesn’t have somebody in the wings waiting to take over the moment she drops.
Thank you for that. I hate it when they introduce dear old friends whom we’ve never heard of before. Reading up on his character, I see that he appeared in the first season and was instrumental in discovering that Edith was the source the rumor linking Mr Pamuk’s death with Mary. Previously he was thought dull. Now he seems to be charming.
Oh wait,
Rumor is that the Charles Blake character is destined to be The One.
Lord Fellowes sure wasn’t being subtle about that this episode. :eek: And to say Rose is playing with fire is a bit of an understatement. While Jack might not have to worry about a lynching in England this can’t possibly end well for either of them. As for Edith; the word “trimester” was the only thing I noticed about the letter, but I immediately rewound & paused. Also I’m sure Michael is either dead or a comatose John Doe in some German hospital. Nice to Jimmy see in Thomas’s shoes more or less. At least Thomas has the tortured sexy bad boy thing going for him; Jimmy’s just obnoxious.
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…And I hope the gardener boy does turn out to be a thief just to see the expression on Isobel’s face.
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OK that didn’t happed, but that scene was still fantastic. 
And the Dowager even apologized for thinking he was a thief instead of just having the gardener tell him his services were needed after all. Isobel truly does run on indignation. I wonder what her next project will be; she seems to have lost all interest in the fallen women of Yorkshire once Ethel left.
I think this was possibly the funniest episode! I laughed so much at Isobel & Violet’s sparring, Moseley vs Carson, Cora, Bates & the maitre d’ at the restaurant, etc.! A much needed light-hearted episode after all the darkness we’ve seen so far this series. Though it looks like more heartache is coming from the preview for next week… 
Violet won’t die, Julian Fellowes has said the show will last as long as she does, but Green is back, the bastard.
Wow, great episode! Things are very tense with Anna, Bates, Edith, a fantastic scene for Mrs Hughes, comedy relief with pigs, possible love interest for Branson. Not sure why Robert was needed in New York except that it was an elaborate set up to convey Anna’s ordeal to Lady Mary. Amazing that the Alfred-Daisy-Other Girl triangle still manages to hoover up precious minutes just when we thought we’d seen the last of it.
Funniest bit: after Lord Gillingham arrives and after the pig episode, Nice Boring Guy says something to Mary in the hallway about more competition (for her hand) and she just rolls her eyes.
Someone upthread noted that it was interesting that Missing Loverboy went to Munich instead of the more logical Berlin so I agree that it’s an attempt to wedge early Nazis into the storyline and that he’s lying unconscious in a hospital after getting caught up in a riot. Although it has been… a month or two since he disappeared? Even with the miraculous medicine practiced on DA, that’s a long time to be unconscious if he’s going to recover enough to
show up in time to stop the wedding of Edith and farmer tenant guy.
And next week is the last episode (except for the Christmas one)? Any word on another season? It seems like this one just started!
There is a fifth season.
I will say, the have done well. I thought after Matthew’s death, the show was finished, being without its central tension.
I really hope there is no murder, the Bates prison story was the worst I ever saw.
Edith’s bastard will be taken care off. Like the homosexuality of Barrow last year, that is something aristocracy know how to handle.
I must say. Lincolns Inn makes a fine 20’s London. My own Inn after all. And moreover the abortionist’s clinic in the Temple, so Edith would not have to worry about finding a lawyer.
That was me, and while the Beer Hall Putsch wasn’t until next year 1922 wasn’t a good year for Germany either. Among other things Germany’s half-Jewish foreign minister was assassinated in June, hyperinflation was getting worse, a lot of cities saw rioting, and a state of emergency was declared. I just hope Gregson doesn’t turn up alive, but suffering from amnesia.
I’m usually not a fan of the Good Girls Avoid Abortion trope, but in this case it works. It fit’s with Edith’s personality & upbringing & her relationship with Michael. I can’t wait to see Cora’s reaction, let alone the Dowager’s. Oh, and Mary’s causal joke about the stewards was funny, but not nearly as funny as Robert’s reaction. BTW was anyone else utterly shock that she new how to make scrambled eggs? :eek: How the hell did she learn to do that?
Edith and who? 
Yep, though from what I’ve heard…
…it’s set during the summer of 1923, not during Christmas. And the Levinsons (both Martha and Harold) will be visiting. Egyptian stuff should be fashionable by the. 
BTW isn’t Lady Rose supposed to be 20 or 21? I predict next season she’ll be in full Bright Young Thing mode. Treasure hunts and cocaine anyone?
The farmer from two weeks ago who was about to be turfed out because his father had been behind on the rent. The previews made it look like he was going to step in to make an honest woman of her. Although that would be *very *fast work. It’s possible that I’ve misread the situation; I was half-asleep by that time. Could make for some interesting class issues but I believe he’d be more acceptable than an Irish chauffeur.
I’m pretty sure you misread something. I don’t recall Edith even having a scene with that character.
So I was watching the latest episode, and I was looking at Bates, then at Mr. Green, and then at those pigs, and I was wondering whether a solution hadn’t just presented itself. Any of you guys see Snatch?
So Edith & Rosamund are off to Switzerland with no real resolution of what happened to Michael, and when next we see them a year will have passed. Rose hates her mother even more that I thought; that should be fun next series. And I wonder what was up with Barrow’s comment are America being “modern”? It’s probably nothing, but Cora’s brother is likely to show up with a valet in tow.
PS; the Dowager trying to set Isobel up was just awesome. And Isobel’s just as oblivious as she was with Dr Clarkson. :smack:
Not sure I like the “did he or didn’t he?” question about what Mr. Bates was up to and if he had anything to do with Mr. Green’s unfortunate accident. I know Anna was worried that Bates would do something bad if he found out who her attacker was and he certainly seemed suspicious of Green but I really don’t want to see her worries confirmed and have Bates actually be a killer.
My money’s on Lord Gillingham having killed Mr Green.
She asked him to sack Mr Green, for a reason she wasn’t prepared to share with her would-be beau. She assured Lord Gillingham that he would he aghast if he knew the real reason and Lord Gillingham didn’t object or even press her for a proper reason. He said he didn’t really like Mr Green and he was swift to say he’d pack in his fianceé if Mary asked him to, so we already know he is a cad and a bounder.
Why would he have bothered to go to Yorkshire from London to tell Mary that Green was dead? He could have just phoned and said that he’d sacked him, as she had requested. It’s not like Mary needed to know he was dead or would have found out.
Maybe he sees it as a a demonstrable measure of his devoted adoration of Mary; to kill a man who had offended her. Because the even if his death was reported in the papers, the apparently accidental death of a man called Mr Green in London, would hardly attract the attention of anyone at Downton Abbey, upstairs or downstairs.
I finally got caught up with the latest episode. (I was actually on vacation for the past few days in London to see Brendan Coyle onstage in a play!)
Well that was an altogether terrible episode. Possibly the worst of the entire four years.
*Nothing *really happened.
Was that supposed to be the resolution of the rape storyline? Green randomly dies offscreen, we don’t get any kind of confrontation between him & Bates, he doesn’t get any kind of punishment? Narratively, that is just a terribly unsatisfying ending.
But yay, half the episode was devoted to Alfred/Ivy/Daisy. Because the audience just *loves *the love triangle between those three. :rolleyes:
And was it just me, or did something feel off about the editing? I kept feeling like scenes were out of order or something, and couldn’t get a grasp of what the timeline was supposed to be.