Downtown Abbey 3x02
The theme of this ep seems to be All Men In This Show Suck. Seriously, all of them were idiots apart from Sir Anthony and poor Alfred.
Matthew continues to be stupid about the inheritance thing and spending the rest of the time joking about sex (Seriously, Matthew? You're telling your father-in-law how much you like sex with his daughter? Okay...). Robert continues to be oblivious about everything and cruel to Edith in the meantime. Thomas has reverted to The Evil Gay again, though anyone catching the show this late in the game would have no idea about his sexuality. Carson bullies everyone and is a jerk to Mrs Hughes just in case for her to be sick. Bates of course continues to be a pessimistic martyr and fails to get shanked in prison. What a sorry lot.
Matthew also shouldn't have thrown Alfred under the bus like that over the coat. Just wear the damn thing and hope no one notices! Much easier than wearing something else that's much more noticeable. It also makes Carson behave very strangely - all his fussing over Alfred makes him act just an unprofessional himself, especially at dinners.
Mostly, the women were much better. Edith is still adorable and I'm thrilled for her that she finally got her way. I think she'll be very happy with Strallan and I hope she ends up telling Violet where to get off and to stop meddling. I also like that from what we saw, it looks like Edith basically told Sir Anthony she was marrying him and that was that.
Mary made me sad with how much she clung to tradition in this episode. She's always been the least progressive of the daughters in some ways, though she certainly doesn't have a complete lack of independence and modern thought, but this was probably her most conservative moment IMO. It was refreshing to see Cora siding with her mother and Isobel and embracing the idea of downsizing and trying new things, not to mention Edith's continual efforts to break away like Sybil has done.
I have to admit I kind of liked watching their fancy dinner fall apart. From the ridiculousness about the clothes (Soft shirts at dinner! Jeeves would not approve.) to Robert's moronic comment about the oven being broken ("What does that mean?"), it really did feel like one big joke on the uselessness of the aristocracy. I just have a hard time trusting that Fellowes really intends to go down that road in the end, as we still get those melodramatic scenes of earls comparing themselves to endangered species, servants being more upset about any shaking of the foundations of the class system, etc.
Loved Carson's face when the one old woman mentioned the Bright Young People. Heh. I wondered when the first mention of that would be.
And then I utterly died when Mrs Levinson sang the last "Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you" lines of the song to Violet, whose expressions were golden.
I like how Isobel is helping "fallen women" get back on their feet and how Cora seems honestly interested in helping out. It's nice to have all the reminders of how much the war affected the women back home and how other people had much worse problems than the possibility of having to sell an estate and move to a smaller house. Let's just hope it all won't turn out awful.
Also, Thomas, you are no match for O'Brien. Funny how the only way Fellowes can think for the servants to try and sabotage each other is "steal item X from someone upstairs, blame X for it". Oh, and ruining the food. The salty pudding was more entertaining, tbh.
Kind of disappointed we didn't see any of the honeymoon in the South of France, but I'm not surprised. Now I'm wondering how much time jumping we'll get this season. At least it looks like we'll get Edith's wedding, perhaps even more of it than we got of Mary and Matthew's. Trying to avoid spoilers so I can be surprised by the crazy every week.
Matthew continues to be stupid about the inheritance thing and spending the rest of the time joking about sex (Seriously, Matthew? You're telling your father-in-law how much you like sex with his daughter? Okay...). Robert continues to be oblivious about everything and cruel to Edith in the meantime. Thomas has reverted to The Evil Gay again, though anyone catching the show this late in the game would have no idea about his sexuality. Carson bullies everyone and is a jerk to Mrs Hughes just in case for her to be sick. Bates of course continues to be a pessimistic martyr and fails to get shanked in prison. What a sorry lot.
Matthew also shouldn't have thrown Alfred under the bus like that over the coat. Just wear the damn thing and hope no one notices! Much easier than wearing something else that's much more noticeable. It also makes Carson behave very strangely - all his fussing over Alfred makes him act just an unprofessional himself, especially at dinners.
Mostly, the women were much better. Edith is still adorable and I'm thrilled for her that she finally got her way. I think she'll be very happy with Strallan and I hope she ends up telling Violet where to get off and to stop meddling. I also like that from what we saw, it looks like Edith basically told Sir Anthony she was marrying him and that was that.
Mary made me sad with how much she clung to tradition in this episode. She's always been the least progressive of the daughters in some ways, though she certainly doesn't have a complete lack of independence and modern thought, but this was probably her most conservative moment IMO. It was refreshing to see Cora siding with her mother and Isobel and embracing the idea of downsizing and trying new things, not to mention Edith's continual efforts to break away like Sybil has done.
I have to admit I kind of liked watching their fancy dinner fall apart. From the ridiculousness about the clothes (Soft shirts at dinner! Jeeves would not approve.) to Robert's moronic comment about the oven being broken ("What does that mean?"), it really did feel like one big joke on the uselessness of the aristocracy. I just have a hard time trusting that Fellowes really intends to go down that road in the end, as we still get those melodramatic scenes of earls comparing themselves to endangered species, servants being more upset about any shaking of the foundations of the class system, etc.
Loved Carson's face when the one old woman mentioned the Bright Young People. Heh. I wondered when the first mention of that would be.
And then I utterly died when Mrs Levinson sang the last "Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you" lines of the song to Violet, whose expressions were golden.
I like how Isobel is helping "fallen women" get back on their feet and how Cora seems honestly interested in helping out. It's nice to have all the reminders of how much the war affected the women back home and how other people had much worse problems than the possibility of having to sell an estate and move to a smaller house. Let's just hope it all won't turn out awful.
Also, Thomas, you are no match for O'Brien. Funny how the only way Fellowes can think for the servants to try and sabotage each other is "steal item X from someone upstairs, blame X for it". Oh, and ruining the food. The salty pudding was more entertaining, tbh.
Kind of disappointed we didn't see any of the honeymoon in the South of France, but I'm not surprised. Now I'm wondering how much time jumping we'll get this season. At least it looks like we'll get Edith's wedding, perhaps even more of it than we got of Mary and Matthew's. Trying to avoid spoilers so I can be surprised by the crazy every week.