So… if you bought the season on Amazon, the entire show dropped last week, so I will avoid discussing too much here, but watch it all!
Also, 1 thing. They addressed my issues with the dog.
Best bitch slap in history last night.
Assuming you’re alluding to Mr. Bricker, yeah, it had to come to a head at some point. Now Cora’s in the doghouse.
BTW, I wonder if that’s the last we’ll see of Miss Bunting?
I wish that Mr. Drewe would just go ahead and tell his wife that Edith is the child’s mother, and maybe Mrs. Drewe would chill the F out.
I get where Mrs. Drewe is coming from though. There is a definite class divide that we are only seeing one side of on Downton abbey. I am sure she has heard stories of friends of friends having upper class people promise them things only to fall through. Sadly, the upper class/royalty in england is pretty similar to the celebrity culture we have today. This would be akin to Kim Kardashian (oh, this is edith… maybe Khloe) coming to your house to hang out with your kid. Weird. But seriously, Edith means well lady, give it a rest!
Also, as soon as I saw Bricker enter the house, I knew he was going to make another awkward, unwanted pass at Cora. Bad timing there.
The rest of the season does a good job of moving storylines forward ala Mary/Tony, Police/Bates, Barrow/(all of his issues).
I love this show. It does an excellent job of building a sense of place, you feel transported to a different time when you watch it (Mad Men is great at this as well).
We’ve just started seeing this, and Season one was awesome. Even though some of the servants scheming was almost unbearable to watch. Now, we’ve started season two, and I really cannot stand the Bates plotline. I’ve only seen the first episode, but it was a bit boring, and the Bates thing is…I just can’t watch it if it continues.
I almost think I’d like a version of this with no conflict at all…just a lot of talk, with Maggie Smith doing her thing which one can never get enough of.
The conversation on the stairs made it clear that he’s doing some sort of self-administered aversion therapy. Something like “think about saucy men, and then hurt yourself for doing so.”
I don’t want to turn you off to the show, honestly, but yes, it continues. In some ways, it’s really never ended. Easily my least favorite part of the show as well. That said, I still enjoy it overall and would recommend sticking with it.
Yeah, the conflict is always there, but Drama is conflict. Also, the Dowager/Mrs. Crawley interactions are amazing all the way (so far) season 5.
Big doings on last night’s episode! If Bates didn’t do it, who did? Also, Edith and Mrs. Crawley both make bold moves!
So no reactions to Sunday’s episode? Wonder whether Edith’s motherly enthusiasm will wane without the army of servants to help her take care of the child.
I have seen the entire season, and I am wary to say stuff as I don’t want to spoil things.
Well, if it helps and you can remember which episode was which, this last was the one where Baxter takes Barrow to the doctor because he’s gotten an infection due to his “treatment,” Bates admits to Anna that he bought that train ticket to London but then thought better of going, Lady Mary and assorted swells take part in an equestrian steeplechase, during which Lady Edith takes her daughter back from the Drewes in a dramatic scene, and leaves Downton Abbey.
I have to say Lady Edith didn’t impress in that episode. “How dare you plan a picnic when I’m feeling bad!” On the other hand, Mary’s response made her out to be an a-hole as well, but I’ve never liked Mary, and I’ve thought it unfortunate that the show so often centers on her.
Carson’s retirement proposal to Mrs. Hughes was clearly also an incredibly roundabout, well, proposal. Which surprises no one, of course, but it’s still funny that he can’t just come out and say it.
Also not surprising was that Bates would find the birth control device - a diaphragm? - and that he’s assume that Anna was avoiding children with him without telling him. The moment Anna took it away at Mary’s request, it was obvious that was going to happen.
Season one, I couldn’t wait for he next episode… two I was still eager, by this season… i get around to watching it eventually.
The Mr. Carson/Mrs. Hughes moment was super-cute. And yes, while they don’t spell it out, the only thing it could really be is a diaphragm, because I don’t really think they’d invented the female condom yet, had they?
I wonder what to think of the Bates situation now. If Bates didn’t kill Green, was it just a lucky break that someone else did (unrelated to Anna’s rape, which seems a little Deus ex machina-ey to me) or what? And now that the ticket that would show that he didn’t travel to London (or that he bought two tickets and only used one) has been destroyed, will Bates be arrested anyway?
I think it is either a diaphragm or some sort of lambskin/pigskin condom.
Since Bates believes that Anna used it without his knowledge, it’s not a condom.
Besides, a man (especially a man of privilege) of that time period would have said “a condom?? F that noise.” Also, unless they were re-using it (ewwww) there would have had to be a whole bunch of condoms for the Great Sex Week in Liverpool.
I can’t wait for everyone to have seen the x-mas special.
It is amazing.
Mary demonstrates once again that she’s utterly lacking in empathy, and doesn’t know her own damn mind. I usually think secrets in this show are pointlessly damaging, but the Great Edith Conspiracy was absolutely right to keep it from Mary. She’d just be nasty about it.
Speaking of the Edith Conspiracy, Cora’s the only one in the group to show any sense. While I have no idea whether that semi-adoption would actually fly in the nobility of the period, they had laid the groundwork that Edit was obsessed with the girl, so her motivations can come across plausibly as displaced broodiness rather than the reality.
One thing to remember about Lord Sinderby - the father of Rose’s love interest, I had to look the name up - is that by Jewish law, you’re Jewish if and only if if you mother is Jewish. If Rose doesn’t convert, their grandkids aren’t Jews. I’m not sure if the writers are thinking that, but realistically, that’d be uppermost on his mind. They may have been alluding to that when he brought up Cora’s mother not converting.
Larry the Guest certainly was an ass, but honestly, that’s what the nobility was like. The upstairs group at Downton Abbey is far too modern and relaxed in their acceptance of, well, just about everything. Except bitchy socialist schoolteachers, that is.