Which, of course, leads us to our lessons for this week on Downton Abbey Season 5, Episode 7:
1. Occasionally, you need to tell someone she’s a brat, not matter how pretty she is.
I love Mary—and it’s not a love-to-hate her feeling. I think she’s a fantastic character to watch, even if I wouldn’t want to be her sister (or even her friend, really).
But I was still glad to see her called out on the carpet in this episode. First by Charles and then by her grandmother, and she deserved worse than she got.
Violet, of course, said it best: “My dear, a lack of compassion can be as vulgar as an excess of tears.”
2.Losing your best friend to a man is always a little bit sad, no matter how happy she is.
Poor Violet! Now that she’s told Mary her objections to this match aren’t pretentious—simply grief that she’s losing her friend the way she’s had her—I feel for her.
3.You’re never too old to throw a hissy fit.
But they don’t endear you to anyone. Seriously, can Lord Merton’s sons be anymore unpleasant?
4.If you find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance of having named an animal the same name as a terrorist group, the easiest thing to do is kill her off.
(Or, you know, maybe it’s old age, because Isis has been around—and full-grown—since before the Titanic sank.)
Snark aside, this scene got bawling. And brought back too many sad memories of losing my own beloved dog this summer. Here’s hoping that the Crawleys will deal with it the same way I did and get a new, adorable, wiggling puppy for us to watch!
5.You should always ask your mom for advice. Odds are, she can fix things.
While think Cora should have clued into what was going on with Edith AGES ago, she certainly stepped in and fixed the whole mess as soon as it was brought to her attention.
Is anyone else thrilled that—finally!—something in Edith’s life is going right?
So what did you think of this episode? Let’s discuss!
All images are screencaps from the episode and property of ITV/PBS.
