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)

Downton-
Supersize 'Upstairs Downstairs' set in the countryside
'Just William' without the jokes
Agatha Christie sans Hercule Poirot
Shedloads of gorgeous frocks
And per-lease some-one tell me WHY the ladies don't have CHESTS?

I don't think chests were fashinable in the 20s kweggie.

martha - there have been numerous suggestions throughout this thread about that - glow from her was due to phosphate poisoning and scrubbing mails was due to her frantically srubbing away the poisoned pastry from a pie she's made for Bates to eat. Possiblity she mixed up the pies and accidentally poisoned herself

Have read last bit of thread but not all, forgive me. Thomas was supposed to be having a relationship this series was he not? Then of course he would be nice. OBrien could find out and expose him or blackmail maybe.
Liking the Mary/Matthew childless plot. Ha! She is quite obnoxious atm.

Anna didn't say she'd 'lose the dead ones', did she? I'm sure I remember her saying she'd 'take out any that had gone over,', which sounds much more like it.

thanks Moln, i get that but i just didnt hear what Bartlett said to Anna. Did she say that she had been baking a pie or something? or is that just something picked up from the thread. sorry-i am so pernickerty

I'm sure Anna said 'lose'. LIke the (exellent!) spoofs where Sybil casually greets Victoria Wood/Mrs Crawley in yoof speak. I was momentarily shocked out of my boots when I heard her say it (did she really just say what I thought she said??) but the story cracks along at such a pace you don't have time.

Marthas - Bartlett's monologue went like this:

I saw Vera the day she died. I popped my head round her door and she told me she was just about to go out and post a letter. She seemed afraid - afraid of Bates - and very agitated. I remember she had been making pastry and she was scrubbing her fingernails like she didn't care if she scrubbed them raw. I remember it was raining, no not raining, more like drizzle - and as she walked away under the gaslight it almost seemed like there was a halo around her head.

I"ve definitely heard "take out any that have gone over" on an episode. I don't remember "lose the dead ones" but that doesn't mean it wasn't there somewhere!

I'm quite sure she didn't say 'lose' but the only way to confirm would be to watch it again and I'm not quite that obsessive or sad but very very nearly so

Didn't seh say Mrs Bates was making the pastry for Bates dinner?

You'd questionwhy she was giving him dinner but not in1920 it seems

Can't remember her saying that, but she may well have.

Matthew has a very weak jaw line. Profile shots should be avoided at all costs!

Lord Grantham uses the same tone of voice for bloody everything. A bit grave, a bit bored. Whether it's discussing kippers or discussinh his daughter's jilting.

Edith looked lovely when she was crying distraught on the bed. She MUST become a Bright Young Thing and go to London and be a bit scandalous.

If Bates hasn't killed his wife I'll be most displeased.

Lady Grantham is a terrible actress.

Thomas is being criminally underused.

. . . . . . . that's all for now.

Well i thought she and he were ,like, enemies they didn't have a normal dinner making relationship did they? Why would he eat her pie?

It would seem she made him the pie to kill him.

Ppeat, yes I thought that too. It seemed strange she'd make his dinner - they weren't living together after all. But I can't remember it being explicitly said that she was cooking a pie for him - or indeed a pie at all - I just remember she was making pastry (which to be fair presumably is a pie!)

"Right, I reckon that Strallen is indeed impotent, and that is why he could not marry Lady Edith. He will confess this to her, ...."

What about this? We know that Strallen is a widower. Could it be that his wife died in childbirth (with the child) and he loves Edith so much that he doesn't want that to happen to her?

Maybe mama she said how lovely it was and he should try it and she tried it to show him that it was delicious ... OOPs..... DUH what a ridiculous plot but I still love it!!

thank you mamamary i can now sleep tonight

squoosh totally agree re Edith - i thought her heartbroken tousled look was rather fabulous

Also, what about the letter Vera was off to post just after making poisoned pastry?
Can't remember too well the details of her and the newspaper bloke but could it have been him she was terrified of?

Yes agree about Edith hopefully she'll meet a nice younger man with all his faculties and without having had trench fever or shell shock or anything worse!

Clunky storyline changes. Disappointed :( thought Parade's end was superior! Short lived is better.

is anyone getting a bit pee'd off with Ethel running in and out all in a fluster shouting 'i have got something to say - oh but i cant say it - not now' and running away

I am, MarthasHarbour. It's like Carson's "might I have a word, your Lordship?"

iamshe is it going to be another case of 'oo we are all saved because of a letter' like with Daisy/Swire

limited i got so 'meh' about it on Sunday - you can tell it is going to be an anti climax

Didn't Bates say in S2 that he had bought arsenic to use as rat poison, and Anna asked him if he'd told the police? I thought it came up in the trial as well, one of the things that looked a bit suspect? And Anna said ' I told him to tell the Police!' or some such? Or am I making that up?

I agree with the posters who said aobut Mary being unable to have children. That comment about Sybil being pregnant and Mary "probably by now" was put there for a reason.

If they don't have childrena nd Sybil has a boy then would he inherit? I don't know how these things work