shipperx

Plus on TV most kiddies outside 'family' sitcoms are mostly stored in the attic. Infants and toddlers, while adorable, don't make great tv, have many restrictions on filming, and are not easily 'directed' in scenes (albeit I love Sybbie and Donk. Lol).

Ayn Rand lover? Oh dear, that explains so much. Well, no wonder Mary is the way she is (And Bates the way that he is, for that matter). What's the old quote about two books that can change a fourteen year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs....

You become a dark one by killing a dark one, maybe Killian wants Rumps to kill him so that Emma can complete her plan. In that way he gets 'revenge' in Rumps and 'freed' Emma. It's a screwed up darkish plan but until proven otherwise I'm thinking Hook is greige.

I think the problem, if there actually is one, is not the actor or his looks. It's a matter of preferences, biases, and material. Goode was indeed quite good in Dancing on the Edge, Pemberly, and Brideshead Revisited (?). Nor is the problem British men. While Cummerbunch's appeal always eluded me ( see: preferences) the British guy in Sleepy Hollow is incredibly easy on the eyes. Once upon a Time got their British Capt Hook (though I think he may be Irish). And the seeming interchangeability of Mary's suitors is definitely a writing problem. I remembered after the premier of Game of Thrones there were online complaints about being unable to tell apart Rob Stark, Jon Snow, and Theon Greyjoy (??!) and that was not an ongoing problem as the three characters are quite distinct (I'm still surprised anyone would ever think Theon ever looked similar to Robb or Jon. It must've been the effect of their being introduced as a group).

I've seen the actor who plays Henry in a few roles, in nearly all of which I've liked him and, dare I say it, found him attractive.

My unpopular opinion was that I wasn't particularly bothered when Matthew died. I thought Fellowes had gone over the top with the ouji board Lavinia blessing from beyond the grave and the convenient death of her father leaving him a fortune to save Downton. It was tragic he died but if the show was going to focus on Mary (and it always did) then it would be good for story arc to have her face some adversity. Then it turned into the Mary Sweepstakes and I thought how naive I was that Fellowes would have her actually struggle through much adversity.

Sybil was the Saint of the family, though. Mary was the Scarlet, though not the fiery type. She is a bit like Katherine Hepburn's Tracey in The Philadelphia Story, always playing the untouchable goddess, but without a Carey Grant to both call her on it and love her while recognizing she wasn't as flawless as she likes to think. (That would leave Edith as Dinah, Tracy's sister who was left observing but mostly ignored).

Shows the difference in points of view. I was noting the other day when reading various articles about the finale that in all the accompanying photos Mary had a bitch face glare in all of them. Regardless of the scene it was snapped from. It actually began to amuse me. It must be Dockery's standard Mary mode because the character was constantly glowering. I guess one persons 'fierce' is another's 'overbearing'.It's not that I find it impossible that some men fall for her. She is some men's type. The problem for the show is they had every guy that was brought in for her fall for her and put up with her making it 'are you worthy' pageants, often with little cause to tolerate her judging process. Some guys fall for ice queens. Others run like hell. With this show they basically all fell and were willing to jump through hoops. Fellowes never seemed to think if given a shot at Mary that ANY man would think 'well, she's terribly high maintenance and apt to hector me over breakfast..."

Or Rory on Doctor Who who 'died' every two or the episodes.

I actually figure he's going to try to ameliorate the damage done to Mary by having her castigate Bertie thus giving Mary 'credit' for Edith's marriage. I can't imagine what happens with Talbot, but I'd love it if, other than being 'dashing' , he turns out to be a complete slacker happy to live off the estate and lounging around on Downtown's drawing room sofas. It will probably be a pregnancy though, because that's a traditional happy ending (though Mary isn't known for her love iof all things maternal. But I don't think Fellowes actually cares whether or not it suits her ).

I'm sorry but equating Edith's and Mary's behavior in that scene just won't work for me. There was a vast difference in scale. Sometimes we just see things differently and see characters differently. There's a host of reasons why, but people come away with different impressions. That's fair. It's only TV and it's okay for multiple opinions. And I have to say my view more aligns with this. I liked the helmet analogy above. Edith is always expecting the hit and occasionally (1 time in 20 or such) she strikes out because of it (centainly no one else is going to intervene which has happened so rarely--and so ineffectually delicately-- as to be notable on their occurrence of, what, four times in the decade covered by the show?)I suppose Edith could be a complete doormat and never strike back--ever--but that seems to leave her between a rock and a hard place. She's hated for being 'victim' and she's hated for striking back. Lose/lose. And until she inherited from Gregson, she didn't have the means to break away, and all social mores of the time forbade an unmarried woman from doing so anyway. It's not paranoia when someone is really is apt to strike you. And when you're left being accused of 'playing victim' or 'being shrew' as the characterization of any response you might actually have, you're in a no win situation. Jmho.

Because it's realistic that someone won't forgive your cruelty doesn't mean you don't owe an apology when you do something cruel. It just makes you either selfish or cowardly in avoiding doing so. It's also rather ridiculous that it's left to the injured party to extend the olive branch. Also, there's a world of difference between being rude or being annoying and maliciously causing harm. If someone is rude to you, you ignore it or call it out, but in the end, it's just that and nothing more. It has no teeth. It's a matter of scale. Rudeness causes no harm. It takes a rather breathtaking amount of ego centrism to face a sister who was publically humiliated and abandoned at the altar by her first fiancé and had her second fiancé violently murdered to then deliberately and blithely engineer the destruction of her new relationship out of annoyance ...solely for the satisfaction of doing so...because she was 'annoyed'??? Really? Who does that? It shows a woeful lack of compassion, not just right then but for list of misfortunes spanning years. She was dumped at the altar and her last boyfriend was murdered. For Gods sake, a little compassion! To deliberately engineer a way to cause and witness another romantic implosion takes a laser-like bullying instinct. That Mary then left it to Edith to extend an olive branch shows that Mary is behaving like a coward (and a selfish one at that) or that she is willfully oblivious to the sheer meanness of her actions. That or ...she really just doesn't care. None of those possibilities reflect well on Mary. If the CS comes and Mary makes no efforts towards amends, then Edith should avoid Mary from here on out, because that's what you do with people who take delight in your misfortunes. Wish Mary the best in her marriage then run back to London, making Mary irrelevant to her life from here on out. That's the only way to deal with a relationship as toxic as this.

I had a long post about why the Mary romance fell flat involving the fact that they're somewhat repetitious : guy meets Mary, falls inexplicably madly in love with her and the story is whether or not she'll accept him, but somewhere in that I realized that's the symptom not the disease. Fellowes wrote better for Edith/Bertie because he felt he had to convince the audience of why anyone would want her. On the other hand, Fellowes loves Mary so much he takes it as a given that the men fall for her at the drop of a hat and thus Fellowes expends little to no energy in showing us why the characters might fit one another. It's always about whether Mary considers the man an acceptable consort--which is exactly what Fellowes wrote. The problem may be that Fellowes loves Mary so much that he expends little effort in showing why love interest {insert number here} does. In his mind, they love her because --duh. Of course they do. She's Mary and she's awesome!

I'm full of unpopular opinions: I don't hate Henry. I don't hate Regina. I don't hate Robin Hood. I don't hate Outlaw Queen. I don't hate the show. I'm okay with The Dark Swan arc and CaptainSwan angst because angst = having a storyline and I realize a happy ending is where the stories go to die, so I'm fine that their story hasn't wrapped up yet and don't think 'poor, poor Emma' all the time. (I also don't think she is constantly shafted for air time and story). She's a protagonist, therefore angst and travails. It makes her a lead character not a martyr. I enjoy the evil Arthur twist And Pan has been my favorite show villain thus far.

She made a sly aside about it to Mary last year which indicated that, like Tom, she had been aware of what Mary was up to.

Granted, she was dumped at the altar through no fault of her own and publically humiliated, was told by her father that the only reason she was given a job wasn't her comptency or talent but HIS title, had her fiancé disappear Into the ether. Discovered she was unmarried, alone, and pregnant in a time period when that sort of thing got you disowned and slut shamed for life, was immediately pushed by her nfluential relatives to give up her child, and when she found out her fiancé and the father of her child was violently murdered,it was deemed less important than her sister's haircut... 'poor me' wasn't entirely groundless. Edith could have told Matthew that Mary lost her virginity in a one night stand before Mary told him, but never did. She could have been as insensitive about Mary's grief over Matthew as Mary was about Edith's grief. Whether it would have been successful or not, I don't know, but she could create some awkwardness by telling Talbot about Mary's sex week with Gillingham. If she had cause to seek vengeance, Mary's remarriage would be it. Yet rather than doing what Mary did to ruin Edith's engagement she said Mary looked lovely. Edith is no saint by any means. Her mistakes are plentiful, and they always manage to bite her in the end But Mary took the cake in this one. At this point, if Edith were a real person, I would advise her to move to London permanently and limit contact with Mary to essential family occasions only. Even there keep things civil but distant. Mary clearly doesn't give the tiniest damn about Edith or Marigold. And it's best to avoid such toxic relationships.

Before the episode I cut Mary the benefit of a doubt and predicted that Mary would be hurt that no one in the family had trusted her re: Marigold and that if she outed Edith it wouldn't be a deliberate outing. Turns out the episode only proved why no one should trust Mary with anything concerning Edith because Mary promptly used the info to hit Edith for the sole reason that Mary happened to be in a bad mood!

Probably both. Zelena baby and Herc.

Here is the thing as far as I'm concerned: Yes, Bertie has a right to be upset. Yes, Edith dragged her feet too long out of fear. She should have told Bertie. That's only right. And it was unwise to proceed without giving him the truth. It's unfair to Marigold, to Bertie, and to herself. Allso, yes, she would have robbed Mary's bombshell had she done so. Edith made bad decisions and mistakes (largely out of fear, so yes there was cowardliness.) And I think Edith understands all of this, and accepts it. (Although at this point the woman has to wonder whether she should have joined a convent. No romance has ever worked out for her. Ever. ) It's also true that Mary dropped the bomb out of pure maliciousness. Edith might *gasp* be in a better emotional place than Mary at that precise moment in time and Mary does NOT tolerate that sort of thing. Mary is the shiny shiny star in this circle. Edith at center stage? Inconceivable! Intolerable. There will. be. Consequences. (And more than just a spiffy haircut). ...so Mary decided to knock Edith down 'to where Edith belongs' (which is below Mary. Always). Mary is not directly responsible for Edith's situation. However, Mary is responsible for Mary's motives... which were 'being spiteful' and --Tom totally called it perfectly--being a bully. Edith remaining unmarried -- NOT Mary's fault. Being spitetful, domineering, and mean spirited then playing innocent about her bitchy motives -- totally Mary. Like her or hate her for it, it's the way she has always treated her sister.

Exactly. I think Edith gets blameshifted. Edith had nothing at all to do with Matthew and Mary's being apart. Matthew never heard about the Pamuk situation via any rumor scandal. And that was after a significant amount of time proving a) just how little it ever 'got out' to begin with and b) meaning that Edith had nothing whatsoever to do with keeping Mathew and Mary apart. He didn't know the scandal. Mary was reluctant to confess that she wasn't a virgin. Edith had nothing to do with Mary losing her virginity. Lost virginity was a fact regardless. Mary was going to have to tell Matthew (and would have been reluctant to tell even if Edith had never written the letter that a) Matthew never heard about anyway which b) means the resultant 'scandal' post letter was so tempest in a teacup that someone as close to the family as Matthew never even heard about it. What kept Matthew and Mary apart for the longest period of time was pride-- Mary in hesitating to say yes when Matthew as heir fell into doubt (as fortold by Violet who said if Mary turned him down when he might be poor would mean he might not want her when he could be rich) and Matthew's pride which was stung because of exactly what Violet had predicted. So Edith had nothing to do with keeping Matthew and Mary apart. What Edith did was childish and vindictive but it netted virtually nothing in results. And I can't say how big of a person Edith must be to wish Mary well because Mary never would have done the same had circumstances been reversed in the finale. And given the tone of the show, Mary would never have been in the reverse position because once a guy falls for Mary he always takes her back (usually dumping another woman in the process). ...except for Blake who went to Poland, which retroactively makes me like Blake a whole lot more)

That's what I keep thinking. The Pamuk scenes were when they were in their teens. Horrid behavior? Yes. But teen behavior. And it had no lasting consequences. The suitor Mary had at the time (Evelyn Napier) found out and didn't care. Matthew was eventually told and it was never an impediment in that relationship. Mary was never socially shunned and the entire incident is ancient history that never had actual consequences of a substantial negative nature. To still be carrying that around 10 years later? I'm sorry, but to quote Buffy and Angel's Cordelia Chase: 'Spank your inner moppet, whatever, but get over it'. Mary is not an angry 17 year old. She's seen a world war, watched her sister tragically die far, far too young. Had her own husband die far too young. Is a mother. She also got her 'revenge' on Edith in 1914! By fabricating something out of thin air and lying to Strallen (in a way of that hurt Strallen's feelings) so that he'd leave Edith hanging. Which he did. Mary scored a direct hit and sank the battleship. Since then Edith has been publically humiliated and left at the altar AND had a fiancé die (with Mary upstaginging his death announcement with her haircut) Mary is a 30-something adult and mother and she's being compared to an angry 17 year old child. That right there tells you all you need to know about Mary's emotional landscape. I was never a Brary, and I'm so glad Tom isn't hooked up with Mary. He deserves better. Sybil was so much better. I honestly don't care if Talbot is ho-hum. I wouldn't want her with someone I liked.

Did we or was it Mary's wedding and people didn't guess but assumed it was Edith's?

I'm still a bit stunned that they screwed Edith romantically yet AGAIN. I really want spoilers that Edith and Tom aren't left only as witnesses to Mary's fabulous life.

I wish I cared about Mary's 'happy ending' but it has been years since I've done so. I haven't actually wished her an unhappy ending, but her winding up remarried was something I honestly just don't care about. I've been wanting to see Tom and Edith find love ( not with each other) and happiness. Making it about Mary getting another wedding is something that brings me no satisfaction. Since I wasn't rooting for a Brary alternative, I'm not disappointed, I just don't care one way or another. Im very sorry Tom only got to play pal and poor Edith is lovelorn. Again. Damn it. (I was certain that after being dumped at the altar and then having her fiancé die, that crap wouldn't happen again, but Fellowes can't seem to resist. )

Davy Jones is immortal (usually). Since he carries away dead sailors (by legend), wouldn't it be possible that giving his navy son the ring signifies that Killian gets a pass if death comes for him?