hey friends.
what a week i have had. yesterday was a 15 hour day for me on set. wonderful and exhausting. and today fiona is home from school for a teacher workday. there are probably about 20 more pictures i could screen cap and upload, and impersonations were a little impossible to do this week, but i am just ready for this to be done, so, please forgive the sort of, unfinished nature of this recap.
a hard episode to watch toward the end, for sure. but so much of it prior to that was fucking hilarious. mike and i thought this episode should have been called "downton molesley: molesley's on fire!"
everyone in england appears to be arriving at downtown and there is excitement and mild panic (patmore and carson).
cora's looking like a cuter version of her usual annoying and possibly high on gasoline fumes self.
johnny gillingham's son is here and he's a glamorous pirate. or a nerd.
edith has brought her mr. gregson and he feels about as comfortable as tom.
speaking of tom look at how uncomfortable he is. he also says it about 40 billion times.
carson isn't amused with any of it. he's still thinking about times before the war. when servants was servants, and men were glamorous pirates.
johnny gillingham isn't as bad as i thought he would be based on his face. his voice is soothing and sexy and there is a mystery about him that makes him intriguing.
LIKE A GLAMOROUS PIRATE!!!!
mrs. patmore is fuh-reaking out about syllabubs and scones.
settle down and make a list patmore!
lord gillingham's valet, mr. green wants to play cards. specifically with anna.
edna "crazy eyes" braithwaite seems to be the only person to "understand" tom.
cousin isobel is breaking all of our hearts. she doesn't want to go to the abbey to feel joy because it would make her feel guilty. i TOTALLY get that. don't you? mom's everywhere's hearts are crumbling and if penelope wilton doesn't at least get nominated for an emmy and a globe and a sag and ALL OF LIFE i am going to bite my PILLOW!
tom continues to to say inappropriate things.
someone named sampson is cheating at poker.
sexy pirate asks mary to go riding. she wants to ride. and hard. saying she hasn't ridden in ages and that she'll be stiff as a board in the morning. i think you know where i'm going with this...
anyway..she asks the whole room to chaperone. but apparently, riding is the worst thing you had to go and do in the 1920's on a giant estate with TONS of land.
carson can't possibly eat with an australian singer. and so convinces and ever dumber lord grantham.
daisy shames molesley for being a delivery boy.
edith keeps trying to get lord g to hang with her boyfriend, who continues to blow him off.
edith assures him that her father isn't so calculated. yeah, it's called being a doofus.
horseride with mary and pirate. dear god this was my favorite thing to look at.
meanwhile, downstairs..
anna is making some potpourri out of sticks.
bates has a goat and that guy, mr. green, gets it.
nelly melba is such an expensive gift. but "a house party can be so flat if there isn't a special moment".
at my house that moment is usually just cake.
jimmy "clever clogs" has a seizure trying to open up a jar.
lord grantham has quite the wine collection. yum yum.
lord gillingham gives mary sound advice on selling land vs. letting land. pretty sure at this point it's no mystery that lord gillingham and mary are down with each other.
alfred brings down the sorting hat.
that rose will do anything to dance.
tom is forced to dance with the duchess.
mary is forced to dance with the pirate.
but then has to leave abruptly bc stupid rose had to bring down matthew's old (sorting hat) gramophone.
rapey mcgamer get's his explosive and dangerous card game going. seriously, what was that game?
gregson is on to sampson and his card shark ways, and takes him down to chinatown.
cora orders robert to sit down with nellie melba the singer and to like it.
patmore invents the panic attack, apparently.
carson doesn't seem to care.
edith looks lovely in her party dress.
nellie loves her some claret. lord grantham suddenly finds her easy to talk to.
lord gillingham asks mary to have dinner in london sometime. mary laughs for the first time since matthew died.
and then...
this happened and our hearts grew 3 sizes that day.
lord g finds tom in the library with a drink.
tom explains that he doesn't belong at downtown but LG doesn't have a second for such crazy talk.
dame nellie is singing the opera when gregson and the other guys sneak off for poker.
alfred continues to remind us that he was born to be a cook.
anna pops down to get some BC powder.
granny prefers puccini to bartok and she ain't afraid to tell you.
anna pours her bc powder. mr. green comes down and offers her some liquor. and then blocks her walk and tells her she looks like she could stand to have some fun. then he disses bates (sad, old cripple) and then he beats the ever loving shit out of her face. thankfully they don't actually SHOW the rape because THAT would have been gratuitous for sure.
all while dame nellie is opera-ing her voice. which drowns out anna's scream (kill me i did not see this coming)
gregson has successfully out cheated sampson.
edna sneaks around with some whiskey for tom. i suspect there might be something in it. like dementor's tears.
is anyone else as creeped out by edna as i am?
mrs. hughes finds anna looking like me on most days.
she begs and pleads for mrs. hughes to not tell anyone what's happened.
edna sneaks into someone's room. i'm guessing tom's. call me crazy.
anna sees bates and lies. he tries to touch her and she moves away.
then leaves.
and cries. just like you. and you. and you. and you. and you. and you. and me.
the end.
well, that sucked ding dongs. a lot of people are up in arms about it. lot's of people are mad, saying it was distasteful and gratuitous. i did not find it distasteful or gratuitous. it was hard to watch, for sure, but i get why it happened. it's not real, ya know. it's drama. a tv drama and rape happens to women all the time so it's not like it's a completely ridiculous notion that anna would be raped downstairs at downton. julian F has stated in the past that happiness is the hardest thing to dramatize. and bates and anna were perfectly happy, in real life that's AWESOME but for TV bad things have to happen for it to be watchable. none of you could disagree with that. and if you do, then i suggest you watch sesame street.
that said, i don't fault you for being disturbed by it. and i understand fully. there are things i can't watch that i find too haunting to deal with when it's over. things that stick. this just didn't do that for me. it was horrible for sure, but, for me...it was a welcome twist. i was getting a little bored with of all the smiles and cutesy banter between the 2 of them.
julian fellowes defends the scene here.
also, interestingly enough...no one's talking about edna braithwaite taking advantage of tom while he was whiskey drunk and most likely passed out. is that a form of rape? i guess we'll know more about that next week.
let's hear it!
