Downton Abbey Season 4 Episode 3

SPOILER ALERT! This post is intended for those who have already seen Season 4 Episode 3

While we are all still shaking a bit from last week's episode, it was nice to get back into regular Downton territory this week. Thomas is evil again, Mary is "back in the saddle" again, Rose is being...well...Rose, aaaaaannnnd there is bed hopping again! Edith was caught doing the walk of shame by her Aunt Rosa-Moneypenny's maid.

And Edna Braithwaite was given the full Mrs. Hughes treatment. Snap! Apparently Edna had been studying up on how to trap a former chauffeur into marriage, including how much whiskey it would take to stupefy him and I guess she was using the illicit copy of Marie Stopes's Married Love for birth control advice? (I think that was what Lord Fellowes was getting at here). She should have shared with Lady Edith, from the looks of the foreshadowing by Aunt Rosamund.

Mary is duly juggling suitors and horrid dialogue ("Yesterday you said I filled your brain. Well Matthew fills mine"). Ugh! Please bring back the Mary/Edith fights! They were awesome. Or at least let Carson and Evil Thomas have it out (either verbally or please, please, physically) below stairs. We can dream can't we?

And surely Bates has figured out what happened to Anna by now. Did he learn nothing but forgery while in prison? Even Carson seems to have put two and two together. And I hope someone does something soon, because Joanne Froggatt's superior acting skill is ripping my heart out.

On a lighter note, can they finally quit using the melodramatic music for whenever we see Anna? Should we call it Anna's Theme? Sorry if it is stuck in your head now. Naaa, na naaa, na naaaaaaaaaaa...

Well, back to sort of normal at Downton. Will Anna ever be the same? Are Edith and Edna both pregnant? Why did the negro singer run down to "rescue" Rose? And why did Lord Fellowes chicken out and use the term black, which, although politically correct now, would have sounded very odd in the 1920s? And will Rose be the latest Downton resident to require a book on contraception?

Stay tuned for the answers to these pressing questions. As The Abbey Turns!

Best lines:

Dowager Countess Violet: "Why are you in your rompers?...So another brick is pulled from the wall." (in reference to Lord G not being dressed properly for dinner)

Mary: "Edith? She's as mysterious as a bucket!"

Carson: "I always think there's something rather foreign about high spirits at breakfast."

Carson: "The business of life is the acquisition of memories."

Edna: "Do you ever wonder why people dislike you so much? It's because you are sly and oily and smug and I'm really pleased I got the chance to tell you before I go."
Thomas: "Well, if we're playing the truth game, then you're a manipulative little witch and if your schemes have come to nothing, I'm delighted."

TTFN! See you next week!

Downton Abbey Season 4 Episode 2

SPOILER ALERT! This post is intended for those who have already seen Season 4 Episode 2

Oh. My. Stars. Has Anna not suffered enough? If we were ever in any doubt about whether Joanne Froggatt can act, tonight should dispel that. I don't know about you but I found the end of this otherwise light episode really hard to watch. I kept hoping Anna's screams would be heard above Nellie Melba's arias but alas, this was the only time in the history of the house that there was no one in the servant's area of Downton Abbey to hear her!

Well, it is a subject that is just as relevant today so I suppose we should thank Lord Fellowes for a plot line which might help someone, although it made a lot of us really uncomfortable. Very possibly the point.

On a lighter note, Edith's chappie (who looks so much like Michael Palin he actually played him once!) is now not only learning German but cheating at poker to get in good with Lord Grantham. Good work!

Rose is getting everyone dancing to jazz (very awkwardly I might add) and Molesley has his third menial job in 2 episodes. Oh, the indignity of having to wear gloves!

Alfred is cooking again and Lady Mary actually laughed! Poor Tom is being set upon (yet again) by Edna, the I'm-too-good-to-be-a-housemaid. Oh, dear.

I wish we had been able to hear more of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa as Nellie Melba. What I heard was lovely despite half of the cast sneaking out or whispering through it. Or worse.

Ah well, off to best lines:

Lord Grantham: What does one say to a singer?

Mrs. Patmore: How are the squabs doing? What about the syllabubs? Oh my god, the vegetables!

Dowager Countess Violet: If I were to search for logic, I would not look for it in the English upper class.

Molesley: You want me to be a footman? I'm having my career backwards!

Lady Mary: It's been so long since I've been in the saddle. I'll be stiff as a board the next morning. (tee hee!)

Countess Violet: I am afraid Tom's small talk is very small indeed.
Lord Grantham: Not everyone can be Oscar Wilde.
Countess Violet: Well, that's a relief!

TTFN! See you next week!