Downton

[Toddlerteaplease]

Sitting in the cinema with Ben & Jerry's wishing the adverts would finish.

We saw it last night.

It was beautiful to look at and the plot lines were pretty daft. Enjoyable on the whole if you suspend belief.

Toddler wasn't the coat thing Sybil's scheme? She was always supposed to be a rule breaker. I agree on Daisy though!

Sorry just realised you mean Mrs Hughes would never have agreed. You're probably right about that, and even if it weren't for the class thing, she'd have known better than to accept the offer from anyone but Cora herself.

The bit with Violet & Mary annoyed me when she d´said about Mary taking over from her.

She won't ever be the chatelaine of Downton, will she?

If her son survives WW2 & Robert's death duties, I hope he marries someone who tells her to keep her nose out!

(Yes, I know it won't go that far!)

I saw it again yesterday

On a second go around, the firing of Barrow seemed really odd. I suspect they trimmed the script or something, because all he said was that all the silver had been cleaned but they were waiting for the Royal butler to tell them which bits they'd use, and those would get the, well, royal treatment, and Mary flips out saying "Barrow's in under his head, he hasn't got anything done". It seemed pretty reasonable to me. And that was about 2 minutes after we see Mrs Hughes giving her speech about everything being cleaned to gleaming point, and then seeing a montage of that getting done, suggesting they're very much on top of it. Weird.

Yes, it was obviously just a thing to get Carson back in.

(Would anyone have cared if he wasn't in it?)

Oh yes, how Mary interfered by bringing Carson back & then when Barrow said that he wouldn't be "a sort of anything" she asked her father if he was going to fire him.

Why ask daddy & not just do it herself?

And why was Carlson perfectly fine and no sign of whatever malaise had caused him to retire.

Agreed diddl - I would have missed Carson I think and was glad to have him back, but they gave Mary no justification whatsoever! The whole "he's in a sort of trance" thing just didn't make sense, what was she on about? I suspect some of the logic may have been left on the cutting room floor. Not that it mattered in the whole grand silly scheme, but I found it jarring.

Ed Remind me what made Carson retire?

I'm still really confused about the timeline - apparently it's supposed to be about 18 months later, and I know they kept the original child actors and there wasn't much they could do about how much they'd grown, but I thought Mary was barely pregnant with Caroline when the series ended, so she'd surely still have been a baby?

" I thought Mary was barely pregnant with Caroline when the series ended, so she'd surely still have been a baby?"

I thought that also!

The girl she was holding looked way too old to be Caroline to me!

Didn't really notice any of the others!

diddl I thought it was Marigold at first until she turned up with Branson!

Edith, not Branson

Yes I also thought Marigold!

So 18 months later-so the oldest Mary's daughter could be would be about 18months!

As did I. She should be newborn and Anna's baby should only be a year or so old.

Carson, like Bates, is one of those characters that you suspect the author keeps a little on a pedestal: everything they do is cute and the whole fictional universe has to turn to suit them. In the series we often saw Carson flustered and overwhelmed but no one ever suggested he should be sacked. He has also bullied staff on more than one occasion - not just Thomas - but somehow everything he does is supposed to be endearing. He is supposed to have essential tremor but apparently that won't stop him from polishing the glasses and decanting the wine now.

Saw it on Sky Movies tonight.

There used to be an infamous gay bar in York near the Minster. Julian Fellowes went to Ampleforth College and the boys went into York on Saturday afternoons if they were not playing a rugby match* so Julian will have known bout this pub. So no, York is not “too provincial” for an underground gay club.

*might have a close family member who went to Ampleforth