Downton Abbey Season 4, ep. 4 recap

Well, they might as well have called last night’s episode “The Anna & Bates Show” since that plot line garnered most of the attention.  I’m on the fence about the developments made there, but more on that later.  First, the recap!

Warning: Major spoilers below!

The focus of this episode was with the downstairs staff, so upstairs, things were pretty tame.  Mary learns of Tony Gillingham’s engagement to Mabel Lane Fox.  She puts on a brave face in front of the family, but it’s clear she’s upset she missed the boat (did anyone else notice her wiping under her eyes while she was writing to congratulate him?).  Perhaps the arrival of Evelyn Napier (remember him from season 1?  He’s the fellow who brought the infamous Mr. Pamuk into the house) will cheer her up.  It certainly seems to, given Mary’s warm greeting.  Is it just me, or does Mary seem a lot more smiley this season?  Napier’s working for the government, conducting a study on the large estates and whether or not they are viable in the post-war economy.  Mary spear-heads a campaign to get him, as well as his yet-unmet boss, to stay at Downton while they’re in the area.

Mary with Evelyn Napier

Elsewhere, Robert helps a tenant (Mr. Drew) keep his land on the estate (which has been farmed by the Drew family since the Napoleonic wars) by loaning him money to pay off his late father’s debts.  Robert does this behind Mary and Tom’s back, and I thought surely this would backfire somehow, given Robert’s history with money.  But instead it reminds Mary of what a kind-hearted softie her Papa can be.  And it reminds Tom of his socialist roots, as he supports the idea that the farmer should not be thrown off his land.  Tom continues on his quest to figure out where he belongs, and mentions the idea of taking Sybbie to America for a fresh start, since he feels like he’s in limbo at Downton.  One of my favorite upstairs scenes was seeing Mary and Tom with their children in the nursery (and to be reminded that they do indeed have kids!), and just seeing their friendship in general.  Mary’s come to depend on Tom, and she’s the one that speaks up when he mentions the idea of leaving, saying she doesn’t want to lose him.

There’s some hushed talk about doing something for Robert’s birthday, and Mary is the one who proposes a party (a small one, mind you).  Well, look who has fully re-entered the land of the living.  Rose gets excited about this and goes into party-planning mode.  And that’s basically all we see of her this episode (which I’m perfectly okay with).

Edith is also barely seen this episode, except to give a few worried looks toward the camera, and to make a trip to London and sort some things out at Gregson’s office, which actually turns out to be a visit to a doctor.  Hmm, wonder what that might be about?  Oh, Edith.  And oh, Julian Fellowes.  If this is going where I think it is, you are sending a fantastic message: Want to fight against the current and make your own path separate from your aristocratic family?  Yeah, you’ll pay for that.

Downstairs, there’s a new member of staff to get to know.  Lady Cora’s lady’s maid, Baxter, who is weaseling her way into her ladyship’s good graces thanks to coaching from Thomas.  His purposes are entirely self-serving, as he wants to know what’s going on upstairs at all times, and needs a new ally now that O’Brien is gone.  I like this Baxter character, and the whole Thomas/Baxter partnership thing, and I only wish they could have brought her in from the start, rather than irritating Edna.

Baxter winning over Cora’s affection with orange juice.

Meanwhile, Daisy helps Alfred prepare for his Ritz hotel cooking test.  She’s a jumble of emotions, happy to spend time with Alfred, but sad that the work they’re doing means he might be leaving.  Fortunately for Daisy, and not so fortunately for Alfred, he does not pass the test, which means he’ll stick around Downton, for now at least.

Mrs. Patmore continues to wage war against the modern mechanization of her kitchen.  Lady Cora wants a refrigerator installed to replace the old ice box, which sends Mrs. Patmore into a tizzy.  When Lady Cora asks her if there isn’t some aspect of the present day she would accept without resistance, Mrs. Patmore does admit she wouldn’t mind getting rid of her corset.

But of course the main storyline downstairs this week was the drama between Anna and Bates.  After Anna keeps avoiding Bates and refuses to tell him what happened, he goes into Bates-stealth-mode.  He eaves drops on a conversation between Anna and Mrs. Hughes, in which it’s revealed that Anna’s not pregnant (huge sigh of relief), but she’s still unwilling to tell Bates what happened for fear of his own safety.  Bates then meets with Mrs. Hughes, telling her he’ll resign if she doesn’t tell him what happened.  This seemed border-line bullying to me, but it did the trick, and Mrs. Hughes spills the beans, but does not name the attacker.  Bates is no fool, and guesses right away that it must have been Lord Gillingham’s valet, Green.  For Anna’s sake, Mrs. Hughes swears on her mother’s grave that it was not.  Bates then goes and finds his wife in the boot room, and tells her he knows, and that he suspects it was Green.  And if it was him, “he’s a dead man.”  Anna assures him it was not, and that the person who attacked her is untraceable.  Anna sobs with relief as Bates tells her how he loves her even more and has in fact put her on an even higher pedestal after what she’s been through.  All seems rosy in the Bates’s garden once more, with Anna telling Mrs. Hughes she plans to move back in to the cottage with her husband.

Mrs. Hughes approaches Bates and tells him how glad she is that the whole horrible nightmare can be put behind them.  Bates keeps a pleasant smile on his face as he informs her that nothing is over and done with, despite what Anna says.  And a revenge-fueled Bates limps off down the hallway as the screen fades to black.

I’m not sure how I feel about this turn of events.  Did I see it coming?  Of course.  But it bothers me that the horrible assault on Anna did not turn into a strengthening of her character from within, but rather an opportunity for Bates to show his inner-dark side once again.  But, at the same time, that last scene sent a little chill up my spine and had me wondering how this was going to play out.

What did you think of the turn of events in this episode?

Downton Abbey Season 4, ep. 3 recap

After last week’s shocking episode, we Downtonites spent this week wondering what would become of Anna, and what would become of the show as a whole.  Fortunately, this week’s Downton Abbey seemed to be back on track, in that the “What the what?” moments were more in keeping with the usual tone of the show.

Warning: Spoilers for episode 3 ahead!

This episode picks up the morning after Anna’s horrible attack.  She’s unwilling to let Bates touch her, the reason for which we later learn from her conversation with Mrs. Hughes.  Anna feels she is “soiled” and is somehow to blame for what happened to her.  As a result, she asks Mrs. Hughes if she can have a room upstairs again, leaving a bewildered Mr. Bates wondering what he did wrong to make Anna go from doting wife to icy stranger in the course of one night.  Oh, Anna.  We know you don’t want Mr. Bates to hang, but perhaps you really should take Mrs. Hughes’s advice and honor the “honesty is the best policy” rule.  I still feel confident that Bates is going to find out eventually.  Why make him suffer in the meantime?  I don’t know if I like where this storyline is going, and while I can understand some of Anna’s motivations, it seems like the focus should be more on the fact that she’s been horribly violated (and thus have issues with telling her husband), rather than her being worried Bates’s temper will get out of control and he’ll end up in jail.

Anna and Bates aren’t the only ones dealing with the aftermath of episode 2.  Edna confronts Tom and tells him that he’d better marry her if she winds up pregnant.  Poor Tom!  He spends the majority of the episode preoccupied with the fact that one terrible mistake could ruin the rest of  his life.  Fortunately, he takes Mary’s advice and speaks to Mrs. Hughes about it, who quickly figures out Edna’s game.  She finds a copy of Marie Stopes’s Married Love among Edna’s things, and knows that Edna is aware of how to prevent pregnancy.  So if she couldn’t get Tom to agree, she would have been in the clear.  But if he did, she could find a way to get herself pregnant and then force Tom to marry her, thus raising her social standing.  Thanks to Mrs. Hughes’s excellent detective work, Edna is sent on her way, and I truly hope it’s the last we see of her.

Elsewhere downstairs, the love polygon took an interesting turn (which didn’t take much, given how boring it had become).  Alfred finds Ivy and Jimmy canoodling in the boot room (thanks to Daisy advising him to search for Ivy there).  After it dawns on him that he will never have a chance with Ivy, Alfred decides to enter a competition for a chance to study cooking at the Ritz.  Daisy’s upset because her meddling means that Alfred might be leaving.  Personally, I’d like to see Daisy enter that competition herself.  Let her and Alfred go head to head in a cook off!  See, much more interesting than Alfred giving sad puppy dog eyes to Ivy, Ivy giving longing glances at Jimmy, and Daisy shooting daggers from her eyes at Ivy while she mixes something to a pulp.

Alfred studying for the competition after seeing Ivy and Jimmy together

Things were slightly more cheery upstairs (with the exception of Tom).  Lord Gillingham (aka “Tony”) has fallen for Lady Mary.  Hard.  He shows up at Aunt Rosamund’s for dinner while Mary is in London, then goes out dancing with her at the Lotus Club.  Mary didn’t seem to have any qualms about dancing this time around, though she tells Tony that she won’t be ready to marry for years.  Her body language betrays the words coming out of her mouth, however, as it’s obvious she’s happy when she’s around Tony.  Tony follows Mary and company back to Downton the next day (by slumming it in third class so the rest of the party doesn’t know he’s on board), and promptly asks Mary to marry him (my main “what the what?” moment of the night).  As Mary aptly points out, they’ve only known each other as adults for a few days.  How could he know that he’s sure?  Tony replies by telling Mary she fills his brain (which sounded very odd), to which Mary appears clearly flattered.  However, in the end she rejects his proposal, and Tony accepts that he must move forward with his plan to marry Mabel Lane Fox, but not before he kisses Mary (another “what the what?” moment), who minutes before had said that Matthew still “filled her brain” and she wanted to keep it that way for now.  One has to hand it to Tony, he is quite persistent (almost borderline stalker-ish).  He leaves an even more confused Mary, who wonders if she hasn’t perhaps made a mistake in turning him down.

The other Crawley sister is having relationship issues of her own.  Edith visits Michael Gregson, who is only one week away from his departure to Germany.  He asks her to sign some sort of “authority” contract before he goes, which Edith signs WITHOUT READING.  Oh, Edith–you just learned that your boyfriend (who is still married, by the way) is a bit of a card sharp, who knows what else he might have up his sleeve?  She then proceeds to give in to temptation, and stays the night with Gregson, returning to Aunt Rosamund’s early the next morning, shoes in hand as she tiptoes up the staircase.  But a maid sees her and informs Rosamund, who admonishes her niece for engaging in such reckless behavior.  Edith says she’s not a bit sorry, and besides, Gregson’s going to marry her.  Rosamund reminds her how well that whole marriage thing worked out before (ouch), and says that while she may not be sorry now, she may feel quite differently later on.  I’m just waiting to find out what that document was Edith signed, and how it will impact her in future episodes.

Edith, neglecting to read the fine print.

And then there’s Rose.  Rose, who still can’t work her way into my caring much about her.  But then, I had the same issue with Ethel in season 2, and in season 3 she won me over.  Anyway.  Rose suggests she and the rest of Aunt Rosamund’s dinner party attend the Lotus Club for a little fun.  While dancing with the (very drunk) young suitor she met at the house party, she is left adrift on the dance floor when her dance partner can’t hold his liquor.  She’s “rescued” by another new character, the black American band leader Jack Ross.  Rose sees it as rescued, at least–the rest of the family can’t wipe the shocked expressions off their face.  As Rosamund later explains, times may be changing, but they haven’t changed that much.  This likely won’t keep Rose away, however, and I doubt we’ve seen the last of Jack Ross.

Love and relationships seemed to be the overarching theme of this week’s episode.  It was nice to see one of those Mrs. Hughes & Carson chats, and we learn just how much courtship has changed, as Carson looks at the framed photo of his dear Alice and reflects on the changing times.  “You were lucky to walk her to the end of the street in those days.”  If Carson had seen Edith sneaking upstairs early in the morning, Mary passionately kissing a man she’s only known a few days (in her adult life), and Rose dancing with an African American band leader, I can only imagine what he’d have to say.

Looks like the episode set up a lot of plot points that will be carried out through the rest of the series, and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go.  What did you think of this week’s episode?

Downton Abbey Season 4, ep. 2 recap

At the end of last night’s episode of Downton Abbey, I honestly didn’t know how I was going to approach today’s recap.  Episode 2 depicted a brutal act of violence on one of the most beloved characters, making all other plot lines seem insignificant and petty by comparison.  It was a jarring note that was sharply out of tune with what Downton Abbey fans expect from the show each week.  Yes, we were dealt some emotional blows last season with the loss of two major characters, but there was something about this plot twist that seemed so terribly out of place with the rest of the series.

That being said, I will still recap the episode, leaving my personal thoughts on “that BIG thing that happened” for the end.

Warning: Huge, major spoilers ahead!

This week’s episode begins with a house party at Downton, one that makes old-fashioned Robert remember the good ol’ days before the war.  The purpose of the party is to help cheer Mary up and continue to bring her back around into society.  Anthony “Tony” Foyle (Lord Gillingham), an old family friend, seems to have been invited solely for that purpose.  Even though he’s nearly engaged to a wealthy heiress, he doesn’t do much to hide his new-found fancy for Mary.

This causes Mary to go into self-reflection mode, as she tells Anthony that Matthew changed her, and she wonders if she wouldn’t be stronger now if she had been the person she was before Matthew.  But later (after she sees Matthew’s old gramophone while dancing with Anthony), she tells Anna she doesn’t know if she is more in mourning for Matthew or for the person she was when she was with him.  Hopefully Mary will soon find her footing in her Matthew-less world.

Michael Gregson is dragged out to Downton by Edith, who wants her father to get to know him better.  Gregson tries to catch Robert, but as we all know, he’s pretty good at the whole avoidance thing.  Robert is also in his usual “let’s throw money down the drain!” form and loses a tidy little sum to another house guest, Terence Sampson.  Gregson at last endears himself to Edith’s Papa when he uses some old tricks to outsmart Sampson the card sharp, and wins back all of Robert’s money.  So now that Robert likes Gregson, we can anticipate that Fellowes will likely place a new obstacle in Edith and Gregson’s way (besides the whole divorce thing).  Because happy endings just aren’t what he’s about these days.

The other house guest, Sir John Bullock, sets his cap at Rose, and we see them interact a bit, but to me it was mostly background noise as I was trying to keep up with everything else that was going on. (Plus Rose still isn’t my favorite….why the heck didn’t she ask Mary if it was okay to use Matthew’s old gramophone?  Typical teenager.)

Amidst all this, Tom is feeling like a white-tie-clad fish out of water.  The Dowager tries to help him fit in, but he’s bad at the small talk, he doesn’t know the proper way to address people, and frankly, he has nothing in common with them.  If Matthew had been around, I’m sure he would have kept Tom company and helped ease him into these sorts of situations (since they were once new to Matthew as well), but without him there, Tom’s adrift.  So, cue Edna!  What is this woman’s end game, exactly?  Does she actually like Tom?  Or does she just enjoy messing with his head?  I’m going with the latter.  At the end of the episode, she brings him a huge tumbler of whiskey, suggests he take it to bed with him, and then decides to join them.  Without asking.  Given the scene that took place right before this one, I couldn’t help but think there was some sort of horrible theme Fellowes was trying to inject into the episode.

The big upstairs event of the house party was the performance of opera singer Nellie Melba (portrayed by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa), who Lord Robert and Carson could not figure out where to place (given what happened at the end of the episode, doesn’t this seem so immaterial?).  She’s above a servant, but below a house guest.  Oh, what to do?  In the end Cora solves the problem for them by becoming furious at Robert and inviting Dame Melba down to dinner, where she and Robert bond over a shared love of claret.  Crisis averted.

While Mary seems to be coming out of her mourning, Isobel is still mired with grief.  Penelope Wilton’s portrayal of the grieving mother was in top form this episode.  The dinner scene in which she sees Mary laughing was wonderfully done.  She knows it’s not fair to think Mary might grieve for her son forever, but at the same time Isobel is having trouble moving on.

While everyone’s having a grand time remembering the good ol’ days upstairs, it’s frantic chaos downstairs to make sure the house party is pulled off successfully.  There are visiting valets and maids, though not as many as Carson would like to see (apparently he has yet to accept the newsflash that many aristocrats are feeling the post-war financial crunch), so that means some of the downstairs staff have to attend to the guests.  But no one is feeling the strain more than Mrs. Patmore, who has a panic attack  while preparing the big dinner and Alfred jumps in to make the sauces (yay, Alfred! For once your character had something else to do besides pining over Ivy!).

But even with all the craziness happening downstairs (Jimmy sprains his wrist while twisting a jar to impress Ivy!  Oh, when will the hi-jinks end?), Lord Gillingham’s valet, Green, still finds time to strike up some friendly card games with the downstairs staff, and takes an instant interest in Anna, something Bates is none too happy about.  But Anna, being the kind, trusting creature that she is, thinks it’s completely harmless.  It turns out to be anything but.  While the entire Downton staff are upstairs attending the performance of Dame Melba, Anna goes downstairs for some headache powder.  There she is cornered by Green and subsequently beaten and raped.  No one is downstairs to hear her screams.  Mrs. Hughes later finds her, huddled shaking in a corner.  Anna begs Mrs. Hughes to keep what she’s seen a secret.  Anna fears that Bates will go after Green and land himself in jail once more.  She makes up a flimsy excuse to Bates, saying the bruises were a result of fainting and smacking her head against the sink as she went down.  She refuses to walk home with him, and goes out into the darkness, crying quietly.

I have no idea where this storyline is going, but Bates is bound to put two and two together and figure out what happened.  I will just be interested to see if he finds out from Anna, or if he figures it out himself.  But whatever happens, I have no doubt this event will put a great strain on Bates and Anna’s relationship.

For my part, Downton Abbey has always been a wonderful escape, and while I’m not saying rape is a subject that shouldn’t be discussed or to pretend it never happened in the past, the violent act just felt so out of character for the show.  Depending on how they move forward with this, I am concerned about Fellowes’s motives for doing this.  Was it just for shock value, or will it have a major, long-lasting (and seemingly devastating) effect on the character?  And will that effect be realistic and true to the period?  Of one thing I’m certain, Downton has taken a seriously dark turn, and there’s no going back now.

I had some other thoughts about last night’s episode, and I think that Edwardian Promenade covered them very well.  Here’s the link to the recap: http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/downton-abbey/downton-abbey-season-4-episode-2-recap-downtonpbs/

What did you think about the episode and the shocking turn of events?

Downton Abbey Season 4, ep. 1 recap

Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 4, episode 1

After last season’s devastating finale, we’ve spent a year waiting to see how the characters of Downton Abbey would move forward without its leading man and heir, Matthew Crawley.  The season 4 premiere picks up 6 months after Matthew’s untimely demise, and at a crossroads for Mary.  As the wise Dowager Countess tells her, she must choose between either death or life.  And while she spends the first half of the episode in a grief-stricken fog, in the second half we see Mary rejoining the land of the living.  Welcome back, Mary, and welcome back, Downton Abbey!

I found the majority of last night’s premiere to be a delight.  The actors were in top form, the storylines (for the most part) engaging.  There was so much going on in last night’s episode, I’m going to mainly focus on the highlights.

Upstairs the house is divided over how Mary should handle her grief.  Wait, let me correct that: everyone but Robert thinks it’s time Mary move on and perhaps take an interest in something other than staring out the window and…well, just staring in general.  But Robert thinks she should go on wallowing in her grief, and in the meantime he’ll just reclaim the reins and run the estate.  After two really wonderful scenes between Mary and the Dowager and Mary and Carson (really, those two scenes stole the show for me), Mary finally comes around to the idea that it’s time to rebuild her life.  Good thing Mary thinks of Carson as a second father, because she certainly doesn’t receive much support from her dear Papa when she expresses an interest in running Downton.  We got emotional whiplash, watching Robert go from telling everyone to handle Mary with kid gloves to giving her a very public verbal smack down about how she doesn’t know anything about managing a farm.

But not to worry, because Branson, er, Tom, is ready to teach Mary Estate Running 101 (that’s, right: a former chauffeur/revolutionary teaching a lord’s daughter about farming).  Mary is somewhat doubtful (and rightfully so because of the aforementioned reasons) about whether or not she can do this.  But Matthew reaches from beyond the grave to instill some confidence in her with yet another convenient dead-character-letter, a plot device I think Fellowes should patent at this point (first there was Reggie Swire, then Lavinia, and I swear if Sybil hadn’t been suffering from eclampsyia she would have penned one too, though she had more time to talk to everyone about her wishes before she died, so I guess it wasn’t necessary).  While I was preparing for a good eye roll, the letter was actually kind of nice, contrived as it was.  Recall how, in season 1, Matthew really wasn’t pleased about inheriting Downton Abbey and Cora’s fortune along with it.  He thought its rightful heir was Mary.  So, in a nice “full circle” wrap-up, Matthew proclaims that Mary should be the sole heiress of his fortune, and that she must take charge.  Now, why he wrote the note and then stuck it in a random book in his office, I don’t know.  But look, he kept the good luck charm Mary gave him during the war!  Seeing that was the closest I came to tearing up during the episode.

I’m excited to see how Mary rebuilds her life, and it sounds like the old Mary we knew from season 1 is returning, and she’s going to need that backbone if she wants to successfully take on her stubborn Papa.

Meanwhile, Edith frequently escapes to London to see her married editor, Michael Gregson.  Her transformation is obvious by the clothing choices she makes.  She’s become stylish and seems so full of life when she’s around Gregson (but then, compared to Mary, it doesn’t take much to accomplish this).  Gregson tells Edith he’s come up with a way for them to be together–he can get a divorce if he becomes a German citizen!  Great idea, Gregson!  I’m sure nothing can go wrong there.  Right?

And then we have Rose.  I knew she was going to get on my nerves, I just knew it.  I’m trying to like her, I really am.  But she’s that annoying added-in character whose only purpose seems to be to show us the youthful side of the “Roaring 20s.”  Her bedroom is a stark contrast to Mary’s, with the gramophone playing, the magazines spread out on the bed.  She’s a young, hip teenager!  She wants to party.  And so she does, roping Anna into going to a dance hall with her, where she proceeds to have two men get into a fist fight over her.  And in the one “headdesk” moment of the night for me, when the guy she danced with visits Downton to see her, she comes out in a maid’s outfit (since that was her alibi at the dance hall), to tell him that she is engaged to someone else…but she of course must kiss him before he goes.  Oh, Rose, you little rebel.

Speaking of Rose, apparently her mother decided that it was a fair trade to give Cora her annoying daughter in exchange for Cora’s lady’s maid we love to hate, O’Brien.  I’ll admit it, I wasn’t that sad to see her go (yeah, I said it).  Her plot line last year was so boring as she slowly set the trap for Thomas.  Longest. Revenge scheme. Ever.  But I didn’t really care for the treatment of her departure.  She just runs away, “like a thief in the night.”  What about the loyalty, O’Brien?  You weren’t willing to let anybody hurt her ladyship after the Great Soap Incident.  Seemed slightly out of character, though O’Brien was always looking out for herself.  And in her place, who should we have step into the role of Conniving Lady’s Maid 2.0 but Edna Braithwaite, the former housemaid who forced Branson, er, Tom, to tears during the season 3 finale by making him feel ashamed of who he had become.  Thomas already has his hooks in her, and actually schemes with her to frame Anna, ANNA!, of all people, for a blouse Edna ruined.  Seriously, Thomas?  You want to go after the nicest person downstairs, the one who is married to a man who was accused of murder and spent a year in jail?  You want to go there?  Okay, well…I guess we’ll find out how that works for you.

No Edna, you don’t look at all villainous grinning by the fire like that.

When Thomas isn’t manipulating Edna, he’s working his magic on Lady Cora regarding Nanny West.  Not liking the way the nanny treats him like a servant, Thomas gives a tip to her ladyship that Nanny West isn’t taking proper care of the children.  Turns out Thomas’s malign meddling is for the best, as we learn Nanny West is neglecting baby Sybbie because she is the daughter of the former chauffeur, going so far as to call her a “crossbreed”.  Cora catches her in the act and immediately dismisses her.  She’s grateful to Thomas for the information, gratitude I’m sure Thomas will find a way to work in his favor.

Cora listening in on Nanny West

Elsewhere downstairs, we still have the most awkward love square ever happening.  Ivy loves Jimmy, Alfred loves Ivy, and Daisy loves Alfred.  And they all know it!  So Ivy, when Jimmy asks you to go to the pub and gets you squiffy, it’s because he’s bored and this is his idea of fun.  Not because he likes you.  Come on!  I’m still rooting for Daisy, though.  She got compliments from the Dowager for her electric mixer mousse!  She could really go places with that kind of endorsement!

Also downstairs, Mr. Carson receives a letter from the second half of his Cheerful Charlies act, Charlie Grigg.  A man he has no desire to hear from, because, as we find out, he stole his love, Alice, away from him.  But Mrs. Hughes, being the benign meddler that she is, goes and visits him in the poor house.  Carson is furious and blusters about, but Mrs. Hughes, undeterred, goes to Isobel Crawley for assistance.  In the process, she helps pull Isobel from her grief by giving her a taste of the work she used to do and love.  Isobel takes in Mr. Grigg and helps him find a job and get back on his feet.  Before he leaves, Carson speaks with Charlie, who tells him Alice admitted later that she made a mistake, that she should have chosen Carson.  If she had, Carson’s entire life would have had a very different trajectory.  Downton without Carson?  I don’t want to think about that.

The Cheerful Charlies make amends

That leaves us with our happily married, contented, Mr. and Mrs. Bates.  Things are rosy in the garden for them for now (which worries me, because we know how Fellowes feels about happy couples…).  The two decide they want to help Mr. Molesley, who has not found another job since the death of his former employer.  Because Molesley refuses straight-up charity, Bates decides to put into practice some of his learned-in-jail skills, and forges Molesley’s name on a letter stating he had lent money to Bates.  Molesley gratefully accepts the “repayment,” and we are left to wonder what he’s going to do when it runs out.

A befuddled Molesley accepts money from Bates

There was a lot to digest in episode 1, being a two-hour block.  And as usual, it served mainly to set up the character arcs for the season, which I am very excited to see play out.  Next week it looks like the Crawleys are hosting a party, Downton style.

What did you all think of episode 1?  Did it live up to your expectations, and was it worth the wait?