I say is there no Downton thread? How awful!

[Moln]

I can't have been alone in my viewing!

It was definitely wet wittering. It's a private estate so they would have been able to shut part of the beach for filming.
I hope carson gets it on with Hughes.

It certainly was wet, what with all that sea and stuff ...

I didn't have any trouble with telling Blake and Gillingham apart in the last series, but they were never in the same scene and always in context, it was seeing them both at the same event and dressed similarly that cause me confusion. I also get the two footmen muddled up sometimes and even Daisy and Ivy in their uniforms in the gloomy kitchen.

Cora's brother's cack- handed approach to the Prince of Wales suggested nouveau riche and unfamiliar with the requisite etiquette, or just that he was personally gauche...?

Or perhaps a rather accurate observation on the ridiculousness of British etiquette and royalty...?

JF has got the pretty enormous problem that at the start of the series he had a driving narrative problem - a la Pride and Prejudice - what will become of the girls when their father dies and the new heir turns up? He nicely solved this with the Mary/Matthew story but having had it be off then on then off then paralysis and flu then on - he had nowhere to go with it at all. Added to which he had the lovely promise of the Sybil/Tom marriage and blew it totally by writing her out in what was quite simply one of the most traumatic scenes I've ever seen on TV, which tbh has rather tainted the whole thing for me. They should have recast Sybil for sure. The many suitors thing reminds me a bit of what they did in ER with Elizabeth Corday after mark died. They can't have a strong, sensible woman single so at one point she was shagging multiple blokes. Very odd.
The problem is there is nowhere for it to go. We all know that ickle George is going to have to get through WW2 in one piece and frankly we don't like his chances. Everything else is just killing time till then. It doesn't matter what happens over the next decade. Downton WILL be sold off in 1946 to pay the death duties. Edith is the only remotely interesting character. Publisher bloke will turn up btw - near the end of the next series having been in a coma for the last 18 months Yawn.

Oh and Bates did kill Mrs Bates. As I recall it was Anna finding the suicide note that exonerated him? Wonder who wrote that.......

I thought it was a witness statement from the neighbour? Here - although as we now know, Bates has magic powers of train travel.

But you're right about the heir problem. It removes the central dilemma of Downton. They could plunge the family into yet another financial crisis but that really is scraping the bottom of the barrel. I guess they could resurrect Patrick again (ditto) or uncover a newer will that doesn't leave Lavinia's money to Mary ...

Oh, I agree entirely in principle, SirChenjin, as a fervent republican. I just think that if that was the point being made, Cora's brother would have come out of the encounter looking cooler.

There wasn't (that I could see) a hint of a suggestion that the Crawleys might be putting themselves out rather a lot for an outmoded institution or an idiot playboy royal who in no way deserved their allegiance...? A lot of the peerage are rather dubious about the royal family as Johnny-come-latelys, but not those Crawleys...

I suppose it depends on how you viewed it - my interpretation of the conversation was that Cora's brother was left somewhat humiliated by a ridiculous convention from a man who, despite being the P of W, showed himself to be an ignorant little oaf. As you say though - the Crawleys are very easily impressed!

Didn't get the 'relationship' between Cora's brother and Rose's friend.

Me neither he seemed to be constantly inferring that she was some kind of prostitute.
I was also a bit surprised that they were minted as i thought that they had lost their money (didn't lord twatty bumbum go on the scrounge after the disastrous investment only to be told the well was dry?), adding to that the brother got in trouble last year i thought they were pretty broke.

They need to do something with Thomas,he is such horrid character.

Tom needs to have a bit more backbone and needs to stick up for himself a bit more. He shouldn't let Thomas push him around or the teacher (who is incredibly rude)

No, he wasn't implying she was a prostitute exactly, just that she was interested in him because of his cash, and that she wouldn't give him the time of day if he wasn't rich. In other words, a standard, semi-impoverished aristo, cf Lord 6 himself.

Yes, I thought the Lord had gone over to the US because bro-in-law had got himself involved in a (or even the) Ponzi Scheme.

Thomas should have been the one to bump off the rapist, then he could have redeemed himself, and/or been hanged.

What are people's thoughts on what Thomas has on Baxter -what are the dark secrets he's holding over her, and how does he know about them? Surely she can't be another criminal? What with her and Bates, downstairs at Downton would be like England's Most Wanted...

Could be an illegitimate child, given Downton's run of luck in that department (above and below stairs). But it still seems incredible that outside the hippy commune of Downton is an entire homophobic world yet she doesn't think to counter-attack with a 'button it Thomas or I'll shop you for being gay'.