persey

What happened to Tom is yet another instance of Fellowes' going for the cheap emotional payoff by means of character assassination. He was written out so we'd get the heart-wrenching parting, but brought back presumably as the endgame for Mary. But when he left, Tom no longer had a reason to go; he had a interesting and responsible job, was loved and valued by the Crawleys, and even knew how to wear dinner clothes. And having gone, he goes all maudlin and turns on a dime to return and upstages two people at the major event of their lives, but we get the joyful reunion scene, down to the cousins' hug. So for two transitory moments of cheap feels, Tom has been turned into a jackass.

Best moment was the Dowager noticing the dust on the table top. Daisy needs to shut up about the Drewes' farm and instead learn to say, "That's not my job."

I'd far rather see naked Mrs. Hughes than naked Carson. Just saying.

High tea is a working class meal; it's essentially supper. Substantial and with meat, if the family budget can afford it. The upper class meal of dainties is either just tea or afternoon tea.

Maybe that was Anna's cunning plan. She couldn't be hanged while pregnant ("pleading her belly"), so she was crying because she'd swing sooner than she'd hoped.

Yes. That includes widows.

Cora runs off with Bricker and Robert divorces her. In the meantime, Mabel Lane Fox dumps Tony at the altar because revenge is a dish best eaten cold. She and Robert get married because he can always use more money and she still wants a title. She gives birth to an heir. Gregson returns from Germany (it wasn't his body) and it turns out he was never married, which is why no one knew about it. The magazine was saddled with debt and he just wanted to offload it while he explored the sexual delights of Weimar Berlin. Laughs his head off at the notion he could have been seriously interested in Edith.

He's going for one year, not fifteen.

Chiming in - yes, Mary dealt with the repercussions of the potential Pamuk scandal for years, and that was down to Edith. While there was antagonism between them before Edith wrote the letter, Edith escalated that situation from sniping and "meanness" to potentially life-ruining. Nothing Mary has done to Edith, before or since, is on a comparable scale. And now, Edith's choices are conditioned because she's afraid of Mary's response? Well, that's of her own making. Edith is so busy being sorry for Edith that she's willing to sacrifice anyone to making up for her own poor choices. Somehow, that fits her perverted idea of "justice." Sure, put your name on the birth certificate, just in case you want to change your mind or your situation changes. Other people's rights or emotions? Feh. The daughter she purportedly dotes on? Not as important to Edith as Edith.

Since it seems increasingly obvious that Tom will end up with another Crawley sister, I'm forced to ship Tom and Mary. He's far too nice to end up with the whiny, self-pitying and entitled "kick 'em to the curb once they've served my purpose" Edith. If you started to list ridiculous plot contrivances and urealistic anachronisms on this show, you'd be typing until tomorrow, but I can't see Robert's being so accepting of Edith's bastard being raised with his heir and his adored Sybbie. It will hurt them, and especially Sybbie, who's already got to overcome the chauffeur father and papist taint. What I cannot believe, really cannot believe, is that anyone could think yet another murder plot involving the Bateses could have any interest whatsoever. And what are the odds that both people in a married couple would be arrested for a murder they couldn't commit? If I were a Bates, I'd start buying lottery tickets, get those fantastic odds working in my favor for once. And by the way, I'll call foul if it turns out Anna did it; because if she did, she couldn't have worried that Bates did. .

The key moment in which Edith's personality was revealed in all its revoltingness was when she said she had put her real name on Marigold's birth certificate in case she needed it. What she was saying in that phrase was that despite months to commit to the plan, or any plan, she was going to keep her options open and use others as placeholder parents until she could make up her mind, no matter the cost to them. No matter the devastation she would cause to others, she would sacrifice them to her goal of having everything, and she decided that in advance. I have no sympathy for Edith. She's got that covered and she has no sympathy for anyone who might be affected by her actions. Mary was right about her all along.

We know there were investigations into his disappearance; Robert referenced them. Moreover, he still owned a publishing concern in London and his business would have wanted to find him. Gregson most definitely intended to return to London to live and work once he got his divorce, German or not. It was his livelihood. And the cover story for his trip was that he was a tourist. The only person who knew his intentions was Edith. It is impossible that all this could have gone on, plus an obit and probating his will, without referencing that he had a wife.

One of my problems with that speech is that being engaged to a married man was flatly impossible in the context of the 20s. It just wouldn't compute with people. An understanding, perhaps, but of necessity informal. In an age of breech of promise suits, an engagement was a serious matter. At some point, everyone will have to know Gregson was married when Edith took up with him and why they don't know now (investigations of his disappearance! news coverage of a major figure!) is beyond me. When they do find out, Edith will come across as even more stupid and immoral than she does now, in 20s eyes.

The best moment was surprisingly indirect, given this show. Tom's calling Larry Merton the worst word he could come up and it's "Bastard!" as everyone at the table does a virtual faint. Yes, Edith, this is what's in store for your idolized Marigold and you'll have done it to her. Hate Edith. Her dismissal of Mrs. Drewe was appalling. Now I only want to see a story line where she decides to run the magazine herself and in three months it's bankrupt and Edith's destitute. Heh. And speaking of Mrs. Drewe, whyever should she be quiet? Unless the Crawleys threaten her and her family with eviction if she talks, and I wouldn't put it past them. Pferhaps her distinterested love of Marigold will cause her to take the high road. I hope she engages in a litle subtle blackmail, though. Finally, it's lovely that Robert is so accepting of having a Jew in the family, given his reaction to having Sybbie be baptized a Catholic. Well I remember his smelling-a-dead-fish expression when he had his picture taken with a priest!

Gregson's been gone for over two years and it's obvious Edith hasn't turned into a media mogul as she's moped at Downton, nor during her pregnant sojourn in Switzerland. And the insight that lets her knock off her co!umns is not nearly the same thing as business acumen.

I'm dreading the possibility of my most disliked soap-trope of all time: when someone with no education and no experience and who heretofore couldn't think her way out of a paper bag, suddenly steps up to run a business successfully. I hope Fellowes doesn't try to pull that with Edith. That said, I would think Edith might have a cash flow problem in the short term; surely what she's saved from her allowance and whatever she gets paid for her column won't support setting up a long term living arrangement in London, complete with toddler. In the long term, once Gregson's will is probated, everyone must discover he was married - although how no one seems aware of it yet is beyond me. Poor Bertha!

And the way Edith would show up at tea time and the whole family had to leap to their feet! Mrs. Drewe may be one of those, shocking I know, who resent the bowing and scraping and kowtowing to their betters. One of those whom Daisy called the future. So, here's a scenario: Mrs. Drewe divorces Mr. Drewe for his infidelity with Lady Edith and marries Tom.* Then Marigold and Sybbie get raised together as stepsisters. *Hmm, won't work unless she also gets an annulment in the Catholic Church. Oh,, well. .

The upper classes didn't go to grammar school. Grammar school was for the smart middle class and the very exceptional working class individual.

I used to be quite worried by Sarah Bunting. I hated her so much and she was so awful and Tom deserved so much bettter.... And then I realized that the way she was written, to be so entirely obtuse and obnoxious, meant that she really wasn't meant as a serious love interest for Tom, but just as a red herring. I slept easier after that, and last night my reaction was more, "Finally!", rather than, "Thank goodness!". So my wish is that JF would be more subtle and not telegraph plot points in that manner. I'd like to be surprised, just once. Along those lines, I was really, really hoping that Ccra would decide to give Bricker a tumble, just because it was unexpected. Alas, 'twas not to be.

That doesn't mean it wasn't still a huge deal. Through the 1950s, pregnant girls would be packed off to homes for unwed mothers and give up all rights to their babies, forever, because of the stigma. It's why Jack Nicholson and Bobby Darin, to name two celebrity examples, grew up thinking their mothers were their older sisters. It was a huge shame. People tried to hide it. Adoption papers included new birth certificates. it reflected badly and most unjustly, on mother and child. It was a big deal, which is why everyone who knows has counseled Edith to conceal it and put it behind her. The choices might have been between bad and worse, but that's the way it was.

She'd never exactly be in Ethel's shoes. Her children are legitimate, she wasn't dismissed without a reference, her husband had a tied farm on the Downton estate and Granthams wouldn't see her destitute. An easy life, no.

I'm in entire agreement with helenamonster about Edith's selfishness and never considering what is best for Marigold. I also agree that the taint of illegitimacy is not being given sufficient weight. There was no life for Marigold at Downton with her legitimate cousins. I'm also about to go all Sarah Bunting. I'm rather appalled that so much emphasis is being given to the material advantages that Marigold is missing. Edith had them and she's been miserable her whole life. Being brought up in a loving working class family is not a dire fate. And there's a huge difference between the Drewes' situation and Ethel's. Ethel was starving; she really did have no good options. Edith's had a lot of options, but she keeps changing her mind and isn't happy with any of her decisions, because, as has been mentioned, she wants it all. She needs to grow up. Grownups make hard choices and do without a lot they'd like. Yes, she'll be sad some of the time. Welcome to the world, Lady Edith.