Downton Abbey - update required

[StagnantRabbit]

Any big Downton fans out there who can tell me what happened in the very last episode of series 2 and also the Xmas special? Tryin to get ready for the new series on Sunday but is there anything else I missed? (apart from Lady Mary and Matthew getting together that is)

Oh Molly-how I agree.

I also loathe how they all look down on Martha-but would happily live off her!

I just can´t get what they all think is so wonderful about Mary that she would have her pick of men!

Mary could have married for love or money and she chose love

That's not strictly true given she agreed to marry the heir to the whole Downton estate before finding out about the financial problems.

I don't think Mary is awful - the character is probably just a very accurate reflection of someone of her age, class and time.

When she was dithering over whether to marry Matthew when Cora got pregnant, in case it was a boy, everyone said she was awful but I had sympathy. If you think about it, as an Edwardian woman, the man you married was your entire LIFE. You basically took on their career, their financial and social circumstances, their limitations, and you couldn't change it at all yourself. So if she had married Matthew and the baby was a boy, her life would have completely changed and she would never have been able to get her old life back. And as an intelligent and independent-minded woman that would have made her feel totally desperate.

Yes, life as a solicitor´s wife would have been intolerable.

Ah come on though, in comparison with what she was used to. And she would have been brought up to think marrying for love was stupid and irresponsible (which was what her aunt repeatedly told her).

Yes, but if she had loved him, it wouldn´t have mattered to her, would it?

Has Edith ever found out that it was Mary who put the spanner in the works the last time Strallan was after marrying her? I missed some eps of series two you see so am not sure if it has been revealed.

Well I don't think I'd give up everything to marry someone even if I did love them

wintera - I think she did. That was why she told the Turkish embassy about the dead guy in the bed

I think Edith told the Embassy about Pamuk first & that´s why Mary did it.

Think that´s why I dislike Mary so much.

I don´t agree with what Edith did, although I get why-but at the end of the day, she didn´t tell an outright lie like Mary did to Strallan.

I hope that Edith´s happy & M&M are miserable & Downton crashes around them!

Edith does know. She found out and mentioned it to Strallen during the Christmas special, and he realised she had liked him all along v

Yeah the Turkish embassy thing had already happened and that's why Mary scuppered things for Edith and Strallan, in revenge. I missed the Christmas special as well so thanks for clarifying that it had been revealed. I missed a lot of series two as I watched a few eps and I really thought the quality had dropped. I loved the first series however, so decided to come back for series three and am enjoying it so far.

Strallan´s house looked fantastic.

And I love the coat that Edith was wearing when she went to visit him at the beginning.

But really the idea of a dinner party to show what Downton should be used for??!!

Yup, that´ll make someone give their dosh away!!

Look how useful this building is-parties for the idle rich!!

´Tis getting silly really isn´t it?

Isn't that the point though - they are being flung head first into the modern world and they haven't got a Scooby how to cope.

I said I wouldn't watch this series but DH insisted So...

1. 'Fashionably late?' - Sir A isn't going to make it to the wedding. I reckon he's too much of a gentleman to dump Edith at the altar so my money is on him dying on the morning if the wedding.

2. Wild guess that Sybil dies in childbirth.

3. Matty will take the money after being appealed to by the servants.

Trying to watch it again. Sodding virgin media keeps cutting out. I love it but it is one crazy show. How us it it can be so compelling but also so out there in terms of plot, characterisation.

Do u know who else has lost it? Daisy. Going postal as they say stateside. Those EYES. Expecting a scene from Carrie soon.

Also Edith shoukdnt be made to beg for sir a. She does sound exasperated in parts and borderline stalker.

time for alternate script.

"I want to know if we're serious," says violet.

"About wot?" Says Mary.

"Pickpocketing yer other granny...or should we just cut to the chase and mug her outright? You shove some offal on her gob-get Carson on the case- l'll hit her over the head with my walking stick.job done."

On phone is best I can do. BoF can do better.

I just watched it again, waiting in for the chimney sweep made me come over all 1920s. And wonder how anyone managed to clean the chimneys at DA.

Did they really have just the one oven? For the dinners they hosted, seems a little unlikely in a house that size. Loved Violet saying, "If only we had some coal. Or gravel. Or tin." And her sucking unconvincingly up to BeadyEyesMacRich.

Whoever mentioned Matthew "live more simply" was right. Why does a provincial solicitor have a tailor in London? What's wrong with York? Is he afraid his tails would be corrupted by fallen women falling over them?

Ah, so many wonderful nits to pick

Given Downton is in Yorkshire I'd put money on there being some 'jaws of defeat' mineral discovery.

Obviously Crawleys will be spared Wall Street Crash as he'd already got his fingers burnt in stock market but McLoaded will be destitute.

Is Matthew actually practising law still? I thought he was now bone idle running the estate with lord fatty bumbum.

Chub He mentioned to Mary catching up on paperwork before going back to the office. Can't be the Estate Office - if they even have one, Lord Chesty always seems to work in the library.

"Why does a provincial solicitor have a tailor in London?"

Because he uses Lord G´s?

So stupid though-he knows FIL is in trouble financially-so sends a jacket to London-as you do

He´s fitted right in, hasn´t he?

Oh, it's less and less believable for me (not that it ever was!)

Mary's is less and less believable now she's not simply a bitch. What interests does she have? What occupations? We see her read a fashion magazine. What else? Visit her granny. She's happy to live with her parents. We don't see her doing all the fun things the gentry did - going hunting (there was one hunting scene last series), visiting her friends, going to London and living the high life at parties etc. Instead we see her returning to Downton after her honeymoon to complete dullness. It doesn't seem very 1920s to me.

I agree with the poster who said that in reality the family would have been delighted to see Edith married off to a rich gentleman. Lord G has no motive to try and split them up - and it really didn't ring true to me

Have to say I'm liking Shirley more and more as she seems to be the only one speaking any sense. It'll go down well in America as it's presenting them as far more progressive and democratic than the stuffy old Brits. Perhaps Julian playing up to his more lucrative audience?

So next weeks ep-they all move somewhere else??!!

Stuff rambling, dingy Downton-I want lady Violet´s place.

here

Mary does seem to lead a rather pointless existence. If the series began before the war and it is now 1920 she must be pushing thirty by now. And what has she done with herself apart from hanging around Downton being a cow to Edith and moaning about money. Even during the war it was Sybil and Edith who really got stuck into the effort. Mary just drifted around the hospital, occasionally rolling a bandage.

Diddl 'Tis rather lovely is't it?