Warning: this post contains spoilers for all of Downton Abbey to date.
- So why did O'Brien have it in for Thomas all this season anyway? If the show told us, I've forgotten.
- I think making Robert basically incompetent at his job of being Earl of Grantham is a good and interesting direction for the show to take. In the first two seasons, many people criticized the character for being too perfect - kind and benevolent to everyone. But having him be incompetent (and a wee bit out of touch) while continuing to be kind and benevolent makes him far more interesting. It's also an interesting contrast with Ethel: Robert is incompetent but gets to retain his position and will live in luxury for basically the rest of his natural life; Ethel made one mistake, and is socially deemed unemployable and reduced to prostitution.
- Although I'm surprised that Ethel didn't just take off for some other part of the country and claim to be a widow. They'd just had a war and an influenza outbreak, I'm quite sure there were many young widows with small children.
- I'm disappointed that we'll never get to see Sybil's everyday life in Ireland. It would have been so interesting to see how she adjusted. Even with her nurse training, she probably would have had her own "What is a weekend?" moment. For example, she's probably never done laundry (it was time-consuming in that era, and I doubt they would have had trained nurses doing hospital laundry when any untrained person could have done it) and she's probably never gone grocery shopping.
- I really don't get why Robert and the Dowager Countess were so put off by the prospect of Edith marrying an older man and therefore having to nurse him through his dotage. So what if she does? Basically, she'd be earning her pension. It's the early 20th century British nobility equivalent of taking some tedious administrative job in a university so your kids will have drug coverage and a dental plan. And, I just realized, Robert had his own marriage of convenience, which worked out splendidly!
- (Speaking of, they should make a Downton prequel that covers the early days of Robert's and Cora's marriage. A benign marriage of mutual convenience has got to be an interesting interpersonal dynamic, and not something we often (if ever) see in fiction.)
- This means Sir Anthony Strallan's "I'm leaving you at the altar for your own good" thing was a triply dick move. First, because Edith gets to decide for herself what her own good is, thank you very much. Second, because he's denying her the opportunity to earn her pension. As of the time of the wedding, Downton was broke and the family was going to downsize. Sir Anthony still had his fortune. His refusing to marry her because he thought she could do better would be like that university administrative job refusing to hire you because they unilaterally decide that this job wouldn't be your passion. And third, he's leaving Edith dependent on her family. Which doesn't just mean she's dependent on her parents, it also means that, once her parents die, she'll be dependent on Matthew and Mary. Imagine being financially at the mercy of your least favourite sibling for the rest of your life! Leaving someone in that situation is certainly not noble, Sir Anthony! In fact, the noble thing for someone in Sir Anthony's position to do for someone in Lady Edith's position would be to marry her even if he isn't attracted to her but they get along reasonably well enough for a marriage of convenience.
- At the very very least, Edith should have gotten breakfast in bed the morning after she was jilted at the altar!
- I really want to know the internal logic of this "married women get breakfast in bed" rule! How did they come up with it and why? Surely getting dressed and going downstairs is just as difficult for an unmarried woman! Also, why don't they share with their husbands? We saw several scenes of a woman eating breakfast in bed and chatting with her husband while he gets dressed to go down and eat breakfast. I don't know about you, but if my spouse were right there with food while I was getting ready to go get food, I'd certainly stop getting ready and start eating off their plate! I also wonder if women who have been married but now aren't (widows and divorcées) get breakfast in bed. Maybe we'll learn next season...
- I think we needed a bit more "show, don't tell" about how many men of the daughters' generation died in WWI. Sybil mentioned once that it seems like every man she's ever danced with is dead, and Edith told Robert that it's ridiculous to object to her marrying someone older because so many of the men of her generation died, but we haven't actually seen this. William (the footman who married Daisy) died, the father of Ethel's baby died, and...that's it for named characters, I think. Maybe a scene where they're organizing some major social event for the first time since before the war, and a huge chunk of their guest list is dead? Too bad they jumped right from 1918 to 1920 at the end of season 2, so now they can't really address this any more.
- I really do think they've had time moving too quickly in this show. We've had 9 years in three short seasons! I kind of get why they didn't want WWI to last more than 1 season, and they had to make the last xmas special take place nearly a year after season 3 for obvious plot reasons, but if we keep up this pace they'll have to kill off the Dowager Countess from old age in a season or two!
- I really want to know what Mary's medical problem was! A "small operation" that restores female fertility and could be successfully diagnosed and carried out in the year 1920. And, whatever the problem was, it presumably didn't interfere with the mechanics of sex, because if it had then Matthew wouldn't be worrying that the problem might be him. Anyone have enough medical knowledge to figure out what this was? Theory: maybe it isn't a real condition at all and is just a plot device.
- I had the misfortune to learn that the actor who plays Matthew was leaving the show before I even started watching Season 3, so the whole plot of the Season 3 xmas special seemed glaringly projected to me. I knew where they had to end up, so the foreshadowing and such seemed completely unsubtle.
- Why oh why oh why did they have to name the latest new maid Edna? We already have Edith and Ethel for me to get mixed up. Why introduce yet another two syllable old lady name that starts with E? (I know they're probably old lady names because of the era, but we also have names like Mary and Anna and Matthew.)
18 comments:
And, whatever the problem was, it presumably didn't interfere with the mechanics of sex, because if it had then Matthew wouldn't be worrying that the problem might be him.
Ah, but he was being kept at arms length. And of course, in the next episode, delivery. Time does indeed fly. Perhaps Season 4 will get us to 1930...
I think he was being kept at arm's length while she recovered from her operation, but they had to have had some sex or they wouldn't have known to start worrying about fertility.
Plus they were shown in the same bed all the time, and I seem to remember from an earlier episode that married couples normally had separate bedrooms (Mary thought it was uncouth that Cora and Robert share a bed routinely.)
But I do hope we don't end up in 1930 by the end of season 4. I really wish we'd spent two years before the first world war even happened
It never occured to me that the mysterious ailment was anything other than a plot device. Kind of ridiculous, as you point out, that a simple surgery in the 1920s would magically fix an infertility problem. And they were definitely having sex! That was pretty clear.
Re O'Brien and Thomas, I thought I knew an easy answer to this, but as I think about it, I'm all mixed up. I watched Season 3 from a UK download in December, and it feels so long ago. Didn't it have to do with O'Brien's guilt at ratting out Bates?
But I do hope we don't end up in 1930 by the end of season 4. I really wish we'd spent two years before the first world war even happened.
DA led me to find the original Upstairs Downstairs on Netflix, kind of DA's progenitor. I thought that show spent whole seasons in one era, but it turns out UD also moved rapidly through eras in a similar way, or even faster.
Re why they were upset about Edith marrying a much older man, you're applying contemporary logic to those strange old-family mores, something that almost never works. Unless you're kind of kidding, in which case I'm just my usual sarcasm-challenged self.
Re prequel, to me the really interesting thing is the revelation, without spelling it out, that Cora is Jewish. I asked everyone I knew who was watching in December if this had ever been mentioned before, in case I missed it, but no one remembered hearing it.
That Cora is American is brought up often, but this family marries an American Jew and it never comes up? It's not as if there was no anti-Semitism in Britain at the time. And if they never mention it, why give her family an obviously Jewish last name? I found this very strange.
I don't even remember that O'Brien ratted out Bates! Maybe I should be watching the reruns. I don't usually watch reruns of shows with linear storylines, but I seem to have forgotten a lot of stuff.
And I would have thought Edith marrying an older man with a title and an estate and all that would have been actually more in line with their old-fashioned mores, and the idea that she shouldn't just because he's old and she'll have to take care of him is more modern.
I wonder if they didn't pay much mind to the fact that Cora is (presumably) Jewish because she's an outsider anyway, being American. She has the money the family needs, she's nonpractising, she blends in except for her accent, maybe that's good enough? Although we're now probably 30 years into Robert and Cora's marriage, so people have probably gotten used to her. Or maybe some people did shun them, and since they've been shunning them for 30 years they're in no way relevant to this story.
(Also, as a general question that's not Downton-specific, if there's enough anti-Semitism in a certain time/place/circle that they don't socialize with Jewish people, how do they know what kinds of names are Jewish? I only learned because there were enough Jewish students in my high school that patterns emerged.)
If you watch reruns and you come up with an answer to the O'Brien/Thomas question, let me know. I can think of many highlights from their ongoing power struggle, but can't think of how it became O'Brien having it in for Thomas.
Re Edith, yeah, I can see it that way, too. This show, if you examine it too closely, it threatens to become nothing but a series of plot devices. Like how about that burned and disfigured Canadian claiming to be an heir? A soap opera staple, enabled by the war.
Re Cora's presumed Jewishness, no matter what, it seems strange to me that it is never mentioned, even if someone said something like, "It was difficult to accept a member of her tribe into our family at first, but we did it..."
Re last names, it must be a kind of common social knowledge, names that "those people" have. Rich folks also knew Jewish bankers, lawyers, and tailors, since those were the professions Jews were allowed to have (in different countries).
Later I realized I could be way off on the Jewish last name recognition thing. My view is totally skewed, both from being Jewish and from growing up in a predominantly Jewish area.
Isn't anything with a plot a series of plot devices?
Ha! I never thought of it that way! Yes, on some level it must be.
But stories can be character-driven, so that the plots unfold according to how characters would act in a given situation, or they can be plot-driven, where characters are less clearly defined but it doesn't matter because the twists and turns of the plot are the main emphasis, or some combination of the two.
When a moment stands out as a device, that moment doesn't fit with the characters, or interrupts the plot flow, or stands out for some other reason (anachronistic, non-credible, deux ex machina, etc.). It sticks out as something needed to connect two points, rather than a credible part of the story.
That's how I see it, from a writer's point of view - a writer who is strong on character but very weak on plot.
It's basically a question of whether the scaffolding is showing, no?
What's next? Funny.
Rather reminds me of Hamlet.
Re: plot devices, I think that's why I thought the show moved too quickly towards WWI. It's not exactly a plot device, but it's this giant plot point that you can't ignore and throws everything off course, so we don't get to spend as much time with the characters in their natural environment. I mentioned before that I don't mind them making the nobles kind and reasonable because eliminating that would-be primary conflict allows other stories to be told, but then WWI comes along and it's basically a new primary conflict that prevents those stories from being told. Which is what happened in real life, but I would have preferred two peaceful seasons before it happened in TV.
Update: according to one of the official companion books, Cora's father was Jewish and her mother isn't, so they raised their children Episcopalian on the basis that it would make life easier for them than raising them Jewish.
The Dowager Countess's opinion is that her being American already makes her so Other that having a Jewish father hardly has any impact.
Thanks! This also means that Cora is not officially Jewish, because that is matrilinear.
Do you know if these official companion books are written after the show airs or before?
What about that Murray guy that Robert goes to for advice, is he Jewish?
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