The London Season

What the heck is this?! OK: to be fair, this series has always had its soap-opera moments -- some dictated by plot, others by cast changes. But here it's squarely on the many lame aspects of the script itself. From the first scene, it feels off: plot-heavy dialog, change-of-pace locations, and far too many characters.

Almost everyone is not quite on their marks: Bates is suddenly adept at forgery, Branson loses his perspective because of an annoying town girl, and the story as a whole has an unfinished feeling. Edith is of course monotonously morose over her secret situation, which onply progresses in ways which were already discussed and dismissed in the previous episode. Oh, let's have a game-changing reveal for one of Mary's suitors -- why not. And isn't it funny if Carson's totally tone-deaf about what the other servants would want to do on a day off? No, you're right, it isn't -- not half as funny as Maclaine and Smith trading lame barbs.

Fortunately, it isn't all bad -- mostly in the beginning, somewhat less so as it progresses. The scene of Barrow serving Branson is great, and the American valet asking to speak with Carson "man to man" is gold. The pageantry of Rose's presentation was a wonderful spectacle which surpassed anything seen so far.

As always, the costumes are amazing, and Isis (the dog) does get some choice scenes. Stupid plot choices are unavoidable, and we can already see the potential soapy problems ripe for next season's picking. If so, I hope it's better than most of this, which was a distinct drop in writing quality from all that had gone before.

It's the grand event of coming out for the young women of the aristocrats. Lady Rose's debut ball is going to be held at the Grantham House. We meet again the free-spirited American mom of Cora, Martha Levinson, and this time her mother brings Cora's playboy brother Harold, who does not know how to act properly in very formal situations. I really love Martha, I just wish we would see her more.

Meanwhile, there's the Prince of Wales, whose love letter to his mistress are stolen by Sampson, thanks to Lady Rose's carelessness.

We also meet a very American (and hot) young man, the valet of Harold Levinson. He likes Daisy (great for her). He asks her to be a cook for Harold in the US, and for that they will have more time together.

My favorite scenes always include the Dowager Countess disagreeing with Martha. I love the scene where Violet was going into her room, and Martha tells her that her world's slipping away, but Martha's world's just beginning. I think it's a great, powerful scene.

I love this episode really.

The big news was that rapist Green is no more, him having gone the way of a used chip paper and ended up wrapped around the wheel arch of a Piccadilly bus. Did Green fall or did Bates push him is the question Downton wants us to spend between now and Christmas pondering. Moreover, do we blame Bates if he did? That last point's quite a challenging concept, which must be why Lady Mary's syntax struggled to cope with it. Her coded attempt to untangle the ethical implications of Bates having possibly murdered his wife's rapist was so impenetrable that if Bletchley Park start recruiting early, they could do worse than to snap her up. In her words, if a person did a thing that was very bad and then someone else did a thing that was also very bad but perhaps less bad because they did it (if they did, in fact, do it) to the person who was bad in the first place; is it still a bad thing? No wonder she's confused. Thank Heavens Mary didn't try that little poser on her mother, who'd already lost her beautifully bovine demeanour due to having more than the customary three items on her To Do list (1. Beam at things, 2. Be entirely oblivious, and 3. Beam at things whilst being entirely oblivious, sometimes wearing a tiara). The annual church bazaar (a sort of Woodstock with jam) was the cause of Lady Cora's distraction, and this year's answer to the cricket match and garden party of previous series finales. A church bazaar it may have been, but there was romance and not holiness in the air. Mr Molesley and Miss Baxter hit it off after his Thor-like display on the strength-o-meter ("It's all in the arms", as deadpan treat Kevin Doyle explained), Branson and new squeeze Sarah Bunting flirted over a tray of pansies, and Mary was languorously beating them off with a jewelled stick, her handsome cow-lick admirers finding any excuse (salmon fishing, fake conferences, dead servants) to return to Downton and throw their coats over metaphorical puddles for her. Line of the episode goes to Lady Rosamund, who approached Branson with the mentally scarring image, "I gather you've launched into pigs these days", though that was closely rivalled by Violet's evocative "like a sloth underwater" simile and Molesley's tender confession to having felt fragile his whole life, poor chap.

Why do the writers always have Tom at the mercy of some pushy woman? This was a man who was prepared to stand up to Lord Grantham to get Sybil. First the conniving Edna who tried to trick him into marriage. Now the dreadful school mistress who hates everything the family stand for. She constantly runs the family down. It's hard to see why Tom would even want to spend time with such an unpleasant person.

Otherwise another sparkling episode. The America contingent bringing a little fun to the proceedings. Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith are superb in their scenes. Plus a side story of the Prince of Wales letters.