Oh my fellow sufferers of this living nightmare from which there is no waking … I must confess a terrible thing. I think I may have actually enjoyed this episode. I know. It’s extraordinary. I can’t be sure, as I haven’t enjoyed Downton for so long that I’ve forgotten what it feels like. But I think it was enjoyment. It was, at the very least, a tingle.
The trouble is, I have been rendered utterly demented by events of the past five and three quarter series and I have quite lost all my faculties. I wept copiously at numerous points. The blazing car that could have contained Henry but did not in the end! Bates urging Anna not to rush to the blazing car in her precarious condition! Andy confessing his illiteracy and trying to say “Tsar Nicholas”! Edith getting a proposal from someone who is actually a nice person and hopefully not going to die! Molesley being cleverer than everyone from Oxford and Cambridge put together! A new baby Isis! It feels like the actors are pulling out every trick in the bag to make it through to the bitter end. They are greatly to be admired.
The script is still as clunky and crazed as ever and the storylines leap around like a puppy trying to find new piece of Regency furniture to wee on in the library. But the acting holds up the crumbling edifice, whether it’s Dame Maggie saying “the SS Paris” as if it were 26 delicious words or Mr Carson falling asleep at the table after his MasterChef final.
I struggle to believe that all the ends can be tied up next week. If Uncle Julian’s previous form is anything to go by, we’ll get several new plots and even some new characters too. I predict a lot of largely pointless shenanigans leading up to a massive cliffhanger ahead of the Christmas special. The Christmas special is when the weddings (and funerals?) will happen. Which is annoying as I was hoping it might all conclude nicely next week and the Christmas one could just be a sort of DVD extra which I could maybe get away with not watching. No chance.
What must happen now? Anna’s precarious baby needs to survive. Mary and Henry should just get married or she should start falling in love with Tom – and quickly. (I am now realising there might not actually be time for this to happen. That is irritating.) Something good must happen to Barrow. And Edith must find a way to tell Coffee-Making Man about the Ginger Impostor Child before Mary tells him first. I loved the bit where he said: “You want to bring your family’s ward into the marriage with you? It’s a bit weird. But why not?” (I paraphrase.)
Random subplot alert
Now this one really is random: Mrs Patmore’s organic B&B with its locally sourced, gluten-free breakfasts highly rated on TripAdvisor. (“It was just like being served by a cook from a stately home. Five stars.”) Where exactly are we going with this? Of course, it has to go wrong so that Mrs Patmore can fall in love with Mr Mason and become Daisy’s real mother.
But does it really have to fail? It seemed as if there was a man in the bushes taking a photograph of Mrs Patmore – because she’s moonlighting and/or not paying tax? Or are her B&B guests going to turn out to be people having affairs and Mrs Patmore is to be portrayed as the new Cynthia Payne? Either way, this is all highly ill-advised, especially one hour from the series’ close. (I’m putting my party hat on now in readiness.)
Surprise character development
“We know what you’ve got to do, Mr Barrow.” This is just cruel. Barrow’s humiliation continues. And we can only pay tribute to the genius of Rob James Collier that he has pulled off all the handbrake turns his character is forced to execute.
One minute he’s the epitome of all evil and the definition of “conniving”. (We liked him best then.) The next minute he’s a troubled war hero/coward (with the Maroon Leather Glove of Doom – oh, I miss it). The next minute his sexuality is painfully misunderstood. And now he has become someone to whom Carson just says repeatedly: “I wish you would just leave.”
This is incredibly silly because if Carson wanted rid of him, he would get rid of him. There is now no time for him to fall into a glorious, consummated bromance with illiterate Andy. But if only there were …
Golden eyebrow of the week award
Carson is just walking away with it this series. There wasn’t much eyebrow in the Carson-as-Bad-Mary-Berry baking scene, that was all furrowed forehead and then Mr Sleepy. But it was full-on eyebrow alert when Carson and Mrs Hughes performed the illegal sofa infiltration.
Barrow: “What have we here? Can anyone join in?”
Carson: “No, Mr Barrow, they cannot.”
Carson’s eyebrows catapulted so far north they almost knocked some books off the library shelves. A golden one to you yet again, Mr Carson.
Sorry, could you just repeat that awkward line of dialogue?
- “If love is allowed to weigh in the balance … I’ve got plenty of that.” Go, Coffee-Making Land Agent Man!
- “In the new century, anything is possible.” Hmm. It is 1925. Just how exactly does that consitute “a new century” after 25 years? Here in 2015, do we still refer to the 21st century as “the new century”? I think not.
- “When will it be over?” “Not soon. They go round and round.” The best description of Formula 1 ever. Uncle Julian’s been on the Google again.
- “So there we have it, I’m a fool who knows nothing. I am nothing.” I will love you, fool!
Next week
There is a local brou-haha! Edith calls Mary a bitch! And Henry calls Mary a gold-digger!
