speaking of institutions...
Sep. 21st, 2015 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessDownton Abbey, series six (the last one), episode one
I still hate Mary. Does the show realise how much she needs to be redeemed? Especially IF, as I now suspect, the season may end with Robert’s death, (yeah, in addition to the Dowager Countess. Not even something like Anna telling Bates she’s pregnant/giving birth in the hospital is going to offset that downer. And if they are going to bring back Matthew Goode’s character and pair him off with Mary as is there had better be pigs WITH WINGS around to distract me.)
Big theme (again) is that CHANGE IS AFOOT. Basically there aren’t enough staff to run the Abbey as was (despite higher than ever wages, working class people can get better jobs elsewhere and the upper classes may have to countenance dressing themselves - Incorporeal Madge has finally gone – or selling up.) Apparently we’re calling the big house ‘the Abbey’ now...
The Greene plotline is over. PLEASE DO NOT REVIVE IT. I think they won’t as they’ve found a new way for Anna to be miserable - multiple miscarriages (and Froggatt looked deathly pale for most of this episode). So, she won’t listen to Bates saying that a houseful of kids is something they can do without. Objectively: go see the doctor first and consider that the stress that you’ve been through may be a factor. I may get irritated with how Anna clings to this bit of misery for the rest of the series.
On to happier things? All the upper class ladies wore at least one gorgeous thing. Usually more. The kids being spoiled below stairs was sweet! I squeed unreservedly at seeing Spratt and Rosamund. Not together, though when Violet does shuffle off the mortal coil, he will be looking for work.
Edith: find what makes you happy and go for it. FOR THE TENTH TIME. (Until we didn’t meet him, I hoped that Mr Skinner wasn’t a misogynist, just a future sparring partner, and that they could start up a romance.) Don’t hang around to be Mary’s scratching post!
I did feel that romance made Mrs Hughes (my favourite!) soft (thus making her not my favourite in this episode) although I cackled (behind a cushion because some of it was so awkward) at the ensuing conversations involving Mrs P (such a BFF). Carson’s declaration was really touching (and Jim Carver was doing full resonant voice). Although, honestly, Elsie and Charlie (yeah, weird) need to improve their communication skills for the marriage to work.
Meanwhile, I like that a good deal of the brouhaha over the hospital is about Isobel’s men and their feelings for her. I mean, obviously, it is Violet vs. Isobel. The show is teasing me with the possibility that Cora is going to Do Something and be awesome and carry off the honours. After so many false dawns, I would like to think so (I bet Elizabeth McGovern sometimes wishes they’d killed Cora off with the flu for what little they give the character to do: soothe Robert, be cross with Robert, make up with Robert, drink tea...)
Baxter didn’t have much to do except soothe Thomas (I had so little sympathy for him) but we did have Molseley/Baxter as a couple towards the end.
Oh, DAISY. Let’s all blame Sarah Bunting for her ill-timed public rant (they should have built it up more with close ups of her face in the car and as she approached the pile, but the show rarely does foreshadowing properly, it’s either overdone or skipped over).
But, seriously, Mary is a repulsive ice queen. I laughed when she fell off the horse. I was amused that there was no man for her to flirt with/be rude to during the hunt and she was forced to stick close to her daddy. I was almost egging the blackmailer on. I didn’t believe her when she claimed she’d been thinking of George or the rest of them over the whole Gillingham try-out, she’s too selfish. She kept on picking at Edith. And, actually, although she’s shown she’s hard, she didn’t have anything like Robert’s nous to negotiate blackmailing Bevan down to fifty quid and silence, so I don’t see that she proved she can be an amazing agent in any case.
On the other hand, she must be over thirty (the lowest estimate I can give is 19 in 1912), so it’s long past time Robert accepted she wasn’t a child (you’d have thought world war 1 would have been the Rubicon for all the Crawley girls, and after that, Mary got married, had a child and lost her husband – quite the ticket to adulthood). And Daisy too must be in her mid to late twenties, and so shouldn’t be treated like a child, Carson and show.
So, this had funny bits, bits they haven’t thought through and bits that irritated me. Downton is definitely back.
I still hate Mary. Does the show realise how much she needs to be redeemed? Especially IF, as I now suspect, the season may end with Robert’s death, (yeah, in addition to the Dowager Countess. Not even something like Anna telling Bates she’s pregnant/giving birth in the hospital is going to offset that downer. And if they are going to bring back Matthew Goode’s character and pair him off with Mary as is there had better be pigs WITH WINGS around to distract me.)
Big theme (again) is that CHANGE IS AFOOT. Basically there aren’t enough staff to run the Abbey as was (despite higher than ever wages, working class people can get better jobs elsewhere and the upper classes may have to countenance dressing themselves - Incorporeal Madge has finally gone – or selling up.) Apparently we’re calling the big house ‘the Abbey’ now...
The Greene plotline is over. PLEASE DO NOT REVIVE IT. I think they won’t as they’ve found a new way for Anna to be miserable - multiple miscarriages (and Froggatt looked deathly pale for most of this episode). So, she won’t listen to Bates saying that a houseful of kids is something they can do without. Objectively: go see the doctor first and consider that the stress that you’ve been through may be a factor. I may get irritated with how Anna clings to this bit of misery for the rest of the series.
On to happier things? All the upper class ladies wore at least one gorgeous thing. Usually more. The kids being spoiled below stairs was sweet! I squeed unreservedly at seeing Spratt and Rosamund. Not together, though when Violet does shuffle off the mortal coil, he will be looking for work.
Edith: find what makes you happy and go for it. FOR THE TENTH TIME. (Until we didn’t meet him, I hoped that Mr Skinner wasn’t a misogynist, just a future sparring partner, and that they could start up a romance.) Don’t hang around to be Mary’s scratching post!
I did feel that romance made Mrs Hughes (my favourite!) soft (thus making her not my favourite in this episode) although I cackled (behind a cushion because some of it was so awkward) at the ensuing conversations involving Mrs P (such a BFF). Carson’s declaration was really touching (and Jim Carver was doing full resonant voice). Although, honestly, Elsie and Charlie (yeah, weird) need to improve their communication skills for the marriage to work.
Meanwhile, I like that a good deal of the brouhaha over the hospital is about Isobel’s men and their feelings for her. I mean, obviously, it is Violet vs. Isobel. The show is teasing me with the possibility that Cora is going to Do Something and be awesome and carry off the honours. After so many false dawns, I would like to think so (I bet Elizabeth McGovern sometimes wishes they’d killed Cora off with the flu for what little they give the character to do: soothe Robert, be cross with Robert, make up with Robert, drink tea...)
Baxter didn’t have much to do except soothe Thomas (I had so little sympathy for him) but we did have Molseley/Baxter as a couple towards the end.
Oh, DAISY. Let’s all blame Sarah Bunting for her ill-timed public rant (they should have built it up more with close ups of her face in the car and as she approached the pile, but the show rarely does foreshadowing properly, it’s either overdone or skipped over).
But, seriously, Mary is a repulsive ice queen. I laughed when she fell off the horse. I was amused that there was no man for her to flirt with/be rude to during the hunt and she was forced to stick close to her daddy. I was almost egging the blackmailer on. I didn’t believe her when she claimed she’d been thinking of George or the rest of them over the whole Gillingham try-out, she’s too selfish. She kept on picking at Edith. And, actually, although she’s shown she’s hard, she didn’t have anything like Robert’s nous to negotiate blackmailing Bevan down to fifty quid and silence, so I don’t see that she proved she can be an amazing agent in any case.
On the other hand, she must be over thirty (the lowest estimate I can give is 19 in 1912), so it’s long past time Robert accepted she wasn’t a child (you’d have thought world war 1 would have been the Rubicon for all the Crawley girls, and after that, Mary got married, had a child and lost her husband – quite the ticket to adulthood). And Daisy too must be in her mid to late twenties, and so shouldn’t be treated like a child, Carson and show.
So, this had funny bits, bits they haven’t thought through and bits that irritated me. Downton is definitely back.
