It’s the Morning After, and Everyone’s Hung Over…or Worse
The Downton theme turns into plaintive background music and Anna is miserable. She walked to the manor house alone that morning, leaving Bates by himself for the second time in twelve hours. Bates can see that something is wrong, and begins to wonder if it’s something he’s done.
Anna assures him that it’s nothing, but you can see she hasn’t convinced him any better than she’s convinced herself. Then she has to sit next to Green at breakfast and Mrs. Hughes has to lie for Anna straightaway. Does anyone else see this situation blowing up badly?
As the episode progresses, Anna can’t even let Bates touch her, and her excuses are thin at best. As sick as I feel for her character, my heart broke nearly as much for Bates. It would be so horrible to watch your marriage implode without even understand what was going on. When he said “Kiss me, please. Or tell me what’s happened. One or the other.” I wanted to cry for him, even as much as I understood Anna’s response that she didn’t want him to bully her.
Anna wants to leave the cottage. She tells Mrs Hughes that she feels guilty and ruined, and again, I ached for her. I loved Mrs. Hughes so much as she tried to counsel Anna, even if Anna wouldn’t–couldn’t–hear her. She’s convinced that “It’s better a broken heart than a broken neck.” And it doesn’t look very likely that anyone is going to be able to change her mind.
Lord Grantham counseled Bates–in “strong talk for an Englishman”–to trust in the strength of their love, believing that everything will become clear. Bates himself seems agree, telling Anna that he will find out what she’s hiding eventually.
So where do you guys think this story line is going? Any predictions?
And Now We Get to All the Romances in This Episode…
I usually disagree with the critics who compare Downton to a soap opera, but I could see their point in this episode. Because oh my word, the web of romances. It just never ended.
Below Stairs
It seems the Daisy-Alfred-Ivy-Jimmy tangle is finally unraveling, and quickly.
Daisy and Ivy are still at each other’s throats over the boys. Ivy seems to be showing some sense in that she wants a skill, where James simply wants a good time. But for the first time, his good time seems to include Ivy. She was more than happy to let him dance her around the kitchen and steal a quick kiss in the boot room, but somehow, that romance doesn’t seem promising, despite their forward motion. The very obviously want different things from life.
Daisy has one weak moment where she nastily sends Alfred to discover Ivy kissing Jimmy. And then she’s feeling guilty, wishing she hadn’t done so, and stuck helping Alfred prepare for chef training at the Ritz. Because, apparently, Alfred is going to take his broken heart on the road.
Rose Just Wants to Have Fun
Mary and Branson are going to London to talk to the tax people, and Rose wants to tag along. She conspires with Aunt Rosamund to trap her cousins into a night of jazz with Lord Gillingham and John Bullock at the Lotus Club.
Mr. Bullock seems to believe that large quantities of champagne is somehow fuel (rather than idiot-making-juice) and tries to get the proper Downton ladies to join him in his imbibing. Later, when he cannot hold his liquor, he makes a spectacle of Rose on the dance floor before rushing off to vomit. Rose is left stranded and the lead singer of the band, Jack Ross–who is (gasp!) black– comes down from the stage to “rescue” her. The Crawley family, to put it lightly, does NOT approve–as evidenced by the way they rush her out of the club.
The Scheming Hussy Gets What’s Coming to Her
Edna corners Branson in the hallway and settles the question of what happened in his room the night before. She got him drunk so she could convince him to sleep with her…and he did it! Edna obviously wants a heartfelt morning-after discussion while Branson just wants to get the heck away from her. Which isn’t easy as she sneaks into his bedroom moments later, asking what he’ll do if she’s pregnant. Her end game becomes clear–she wants to trap Branson into marrying her.
Branson is worried and preoccupied by how he’s going to get out of this mess. Mary encourages Branson to unburden himself–if not to her, than to someone.
He chooses Mrs. Hughes and she swoops in to save the day. She goes through Edna’s things, and finds a book called Married Love (or “unmarried love” in this case!). She outlines Edna’s plans, which seemed fairly well-thought out: get Tom in bed, get him to commit to a marriage if there’s a baby, and then make sure she got pregnant. Mrs. Hughes threatens to call for the doctor, saying that she’ll lock Edna in her office and strip the clothes from her body herself if she has to! Apparently, Edna hadn’t read enough of her book (which was a real sex manual that shocked England in 1918 with it’s detail and you can read online for free if you’re so inclined) to know that you can’t tell three days after sex whether or not you’re pregnant.
As Edna is storming upstairs to collect her things, she runs into Thomas, and they have the most amusing exchange of the episode.
Edna to Thomas: “Do you ever wonder why people dislike you so much? It’s because you’re sly, and oily, and smug. And I’m really pelased I got the chance to tell you before I go.”
Thomas in reply:
We see Edna storming off into the night. And I’m thinking everyone else is going to join me in saying “Good riddance!”
And Now Onto Lady Mary and Lord Gillingham
I was impressed with the nuances of the writing between the Tony Gillingham/Lady Mary story line and the Branson/Edna one. Gillingham and Mary talked about Matthew immediately, which set up their relationship in a way that it could go somewhere, even if it never did. The fact that Branson didn”t even want Edna to mention Sybil was very telling of his feelings toward her. The fact that Mary spoke to Tony about Matthew willingly seems indicative of some trust and potential affection, yes?
Tony Gillingham tells Mary that he’s only “almost engaged” while they were dancing and tries to convince her to give him a reason to change his mind. She tells him that she’s not ready, or even close to ready, but that doesn’t detour him from following her back to Downton to propose! (Can you imagine the guts that would take? There are tons of guys today who won’t do more than “hang out” with a girl for months.)
Mary points out that Tony doesn’t even know her, but Gillingham is convinced that he knows all he needs to and that he could wait as long as she needed him to. Mary is clearly a bit tempted, despite her grief, but cannot agree.
Tony feels he is honor-bound to go through with his near-engagement if she won’t agree to marry him, and Mary can’t put Matthew aside to give him any hope that he should jilt Mabel Lane-Fox. (Eew, I’m so glad no one ever named me Mabel!)
As a last ditch effort, Gillingham extorts a kiss our of Mary, and you can see on her face that it stirred more in her than she would have liked.
So who wants to weigh in? Do you think Tony Gillingham is really gone? Or will he show up again in a few episodes?
Morning After, Take Two
Edith and Michael Gregson also commit their own act of “unmarried love” in this episode. And who wants to takes bets on how that’s going to end up? Because with the little speech Aunt Rosamund gave, do you think they could have shouted FORESHADOWING any more loudly?
So what did you think of last night’s episode? Are you glad to see the back of Edna? Horrified by how racist people were less than a century ago? Annoyed by what is so obviously coming for Edith? Tell us your thoughts!
