thoughts on downton 2x01

[allthingsholy]

I'm not going to go into this saying I can be unbiased: I love this show. It gives me a lot of feelings and I think it's beautiful and I have a ridiculous amount of affection for many of the characters. That being said, I'm reserving judgment on some of the storylines until they progress a little bit more.

Comments

[zombie_boogie]

Your point about the show's depiction of servants who strive to reach above their station is an interesting one. So far we've had two such reaching characters (Thomas and Ethel) who've been portrayed in a negative light, but we also have Gwen who successfully left service and was always potrayed, I thought, as a character we were meant to sympathize with (though, she only went for better things because Sybil pushed and helped her). I don't think it was Ethel's dreams that were off-putting so much as her general attitude and way of expressing herself. I found her interesting right away and I really liked her last scene with Anna.

I actually did care about Sybil/Branson for the first time this episode. However, I don't think Sybil rejected him simply because they're from different classes. I think she rejected him because she simply does not harbour romantic attachments to him, and fandom needs to stop pretending like she does.

Ugh Anna/Bates my emotions. I agree that Bates is being kind of shitty here, and I'm glad Anna calls him on his nonsense (she wanted to slap him! Bless her heart). I think he needs that grounding.

I love every single thing about Lady Mary. EVERY. THING. PERFECTLY-CONSTRUCTED CHARACTER. I actually think Mary's relationship with Edith is a bit more interesting than her relationship with Sybil, though I do want to see more of the latter. I just love all of the mirroring and foiling and action-reaction when it comes to Mary and Edith. They're just so enmeshed. Well, Mary does her own thing and Edith orbits around her.

[allthingsholy]

I don't know why I don't care about Sybil and Branson. I just don't find Branson all that interesting? I really like Sybil a lot and I think she's a really important character to have in the house, but. My brain SUPER wants her to be a lesbian. Like, I ship Sybil/Gwen SO MUCH and I kind of pinged up at Daisy and Sybil in the kitchen in this past ep too. I DON'T KNOW.

And yeah, Anna and Bates. I love Bates, I do, but I saw someone say something about him "Eeyore-ing" his way through this season and I had to laugh because ... Just be less noble, John. Anna doesn't need protecting, she damn well told you as much herself. Be selfish. Take what you want and fuck everybody else.

And yes, I think Edith and Lady Mary are really interesting as well. I actually WANT to be interesting in Edith's character a whole lot, and given that I think Edith has some decent storylines coming up, I'm excited to see what happens with her. I'd ideally love all the sisters to come to a sort of understanding, because I think the show does a fairly decent job at making them sympathetic and awful in turns. Nobody's plainly sympathetic or obviously evil (well, except O'Brien, and I even want her to be redeemed) and I like that. YAY FOR COMPLICATED FEMALE CHARACTERS.