Downton Abbey

[harrietthespook]

Ladies....as we were?

The characters are changing too much.

Last week(?) Cora booted Isobel out, & this week she sits simpering when Isobel says "you don´t want Downton back as just a house?" (Or words to that effect)

Why didn´t she just say "Yes I do!" and what are you going to do about it

I think last week was an uncharacteristic showing of teeth by Cora, but I roared with laughter this week when she & the Dowager stitched Isobel up with another Worthy Cause, which made it possible for them to get rid of her Isobel to leave graciously with no bad feeling on either side!

"Maybe he was burned all the way through like the mayor in The Dark Knight?"

But The Dark Knight was peopled with unrealistic characters moving in a world with only a tenuous link to reality AKMD.

Not seeing the parallels with DA.

oh yes AKMD my DH also got the frosty glare during that strumpet's perfume ad. I cant abide KK, and now she is imbibed in DH's thoughts FFS

I think KK looks like a rabid chihuaha in lots of her films. Teeth beared, grisling, even when it's supposedly a happy moment. Her version of P&P is dire.

Speaking of ads: seems like Aviva is more restrained of late.

marking place...must catch up!

Loving the predictions so far.

My bet is that Lavvy ends up pregnant with Sir R so hastily fixes Matthew to try and pass it off as his (or does a terrible drugging thing followed by "oh don't you remember rogering me senseless?")

Shot gun wedding but child ends up being Scottish or other such obvious Sir R trait (webbed feet? third nipple?) that Lav and he run off in disgrace leaving M&M to marry because the previous marriage will be annulled.

If "Patrick" were really an unidentified casualty of the Titanic how come he was even declared fit to enlist ? Would n't the voyage back across the Atlantic have jolted his amnesiac memory before he got into battle , so he could have written ? Presumably his story was dictated to someone and would n't they have got ahead of the game and tried to cause trouble.

liz he reckoned it was the blast that jolted his memory back

for the record i would like to retract my admission of fancying Sir R. I went right off him last night, even before the 'rock and hard place' incident.

I know it´s not real, but it´s just too unrealistic.

Surely Lord G would want it to be cousin Patrick?

Why are they all so horrified at Lavinia coming back when Mary is engaged to someone else FFS?

Cora seems to be the only sensible one atm as far as that is concerned.

And although Sir R was rather brutal-would Mary be so stupid as to think that she could marry him & spend all day with Matthew?

I recorded it & had accidentally put subtitles on.

Did anyone else notice tha Anthony Strallan was mentioned?

Diddl - it was horrible the way he shoved her up against that wall and then kissed her. Come on!

I don't think Mary's actually done anything untoward anyway. NOt that it would ever be justified.

Frankly - she's unemployed, sitting at home with her parents: what does he expect her to be doing apart from hanging out with a friend? Why hasn't he married her already for that matter? Then she'd be decorating his house and sorting out his business...instead...

He's passing the time scheming...and interfering in Matthew's life.

It's not so much Lavinia coming back as the way the whole thing came about. Walking in with Sir R in the middle of dinner. Creepily coming over all Florence Nightingale and innocent. If she felt that way why didn't she come sooner, or get in touch. Yuck.

Well, it's true - nothing adds up for sure.

When was strallan mentioned. Hope he comes back for Edith -and soon.

Could Patrick be a put up job by Sir R to make Matthew less worthy of Mary and get him away from DA ? Were the recuperating officers still at DA by Armistice Day , they didn't seem to feature very much and would surely have shared the celebration, if not why was Thomas still there ?

what was the Strallon reference then? according to the-font of all knowledge wikipedia Robert Bathurst is only in series one. Although that could change - Nigel Havers is coming in for the xmas special, old charmer himself..

this thread's been busy!

arise sir cock huzzah matthew's going to be ok

we need you to lighten it up.

I'm off from work procrastinating from other urgencies and seemingly forgetting these are NOT.REAL.PEOPLE.

Good thing I never got into Corrie and this is only 8 episodes.

I went to see their talk at Cheltenham Lit Fest. There will definitely be more series and, oohlaalaa they did talk about authenticity.

JF said that they found that whenever they had experts on set - people who'd actually lived through this sort of thing - for this and for Gosford Park, they would frequently contradict each other on what was 'the done thing' and what wasn't, so they said it's impossible to find the 'authentic' that would please everyone.

He also said that Lord G is progressive, but not revolutionary, and understands that things need to change, but that they need to change slowly. So it's not out of the bounds of reality to believe that he may well have encouraged his family to be more friendly with 'the staff' than other families, and there's Cora's influence as well, from America.

Anyway, loads of them are going to get flu so that'll be a helpful way to kill a few annoying characters off! Hopefully Sir R will be one of them!

Yes I agree what Sir R did was horrible-but Mary spends all her time with Matthew-even when he´s there, so I can see why he might be pissed off.

And atthew isn´t just a friend-he´s the heir who wanted to marry Mary & I think he realises she loves him.

And Lavinia-Lord G thinks she shouldn´t be resigned to pushing Matthew around-but would accept it for Mary(?)

Re Strallan-when Sir R arrived late & Lady V said something about not knowing why people drive.

Edith walked in with Sybil(?) & said "Oh I disagree, I´d love to drive".

Then they were out of the shot it came up "and you´d have to learn to agree if Anthony Strallan cae back into your life"

Flamingo good post.

I still think it makes much more sense just to get the wedding over and done with and start the flat packing and the breeding. From Sir R's point of view. But would that be good TV? Maybe not. Also - it's far too sensible for JF.

And I assue the "heir" was an imposter because as soon Lord G got the solicitor´s letter back, he was off!

I caught the Sir Anthony Strallen thing on the subtitles, but when I rewound to listen again I couldn't actually hear Sybil say the name. Could it have been a mistake on the subtitling? I'd love him to come back, he was a nice man and would have made Edith happy I think, but he's not mentioned in IMDB for this series.

I don't know what to make of this series. Series one was fantastic right the way through but this one has some really good bits and some utter carp slotted in. I agree with whoever it was said upthread that if the M/M thing gets dragged out to yet another series I'll probably jump ship. I'd like the situation to get sorted out soonish, the Christmas special to be about the wedding and possibly finding a beau for Edith and then series three to be about the girls with their various families.

One point I don't understand is why Thomas eats with the staff? None of the nurses do. Surely Mr Carson wouldn't allow it?

Poor Edith. I did feel sorry for her but P Gordon's attempts at childhood memories were hardly impressively accurate were they? About three minutes before Mary said something along the lines of "so he says he can remember ponies and a nasty governess big deal anyone could guess those things about a childhood spent here" I basically said that to DH.

Branson has hypnotised poor Sybil hasn't he? I won't wait forever, indeed. Piss off then.

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=jungle+book+snake&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=643&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=U3Yet2rrjWqrQM:&imgrefurl=www.aveleyman.com/FilmCredit.aspx%3FFilmID%3D10082&docid=esA5Jk-Ub55i7M&imgurl=www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsH/8132-10082.gif&w=320&h=240&ei=jXylTtFVyKnxA9vX-OwF&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=458&sig=100971265621778218189&page=1&tbnh=132&tbnw=184&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0&tx=33&ty=68" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Branson proposing to Sybil

And yy to whoever said Sir R had Mrs Bates killed. Although as everyone in the Turkish embassy heard the rumour about five years ago, along with half of London society, he's going to have quite a body count on his hands. He says he can ruin her but her reputation was already pretty much in tatters - that's why the eldest daughter of an Earl was prepared to marry this rich yet vulgar johnny come lately anyway. The eldest sons of dukes won't touch her with a barge pole (Rosamund said as much in the first series). Try to remember your sub plots JF.

diddl Sir R has basically pinned her to the wall, told Mary she has to marry him and will live a miserable life forever - i bet she is a bit pissed off too i know what you mean about her clinging to Matthew like a lap dog but seriously? if this was MN she would be told to 'leave the fucker'

YY Georgimama about the childhood memories.

An imposter would only have to talk about Spangles and The Clangers and I'd be putty in his hands. I doubt if a conman would want to target me for my childhood home.