Last night's TV

[shallowness]

Strictly results show – there was a slight Chicago flavour to the pro dances (I loved the men’s solo dancing, predicted rightly that the women would soon divest themselves of the flapping red dresses and thought the idea of Big Band ‘When Will I Be Famous’ was more interesting than the execution). I was also reminded that I’d liked Anya’s choreography for the tango.

Interesting that it was Julien who got into the dance-off with Tony. I never thought it would be Dave and didn’t think Vanessa deserved to be there either. Quite probably "in no particular order" was the producers hoping she'd cry. Still, clearly I wasn’t the only one to find Julien annoying, and they came off a bit gracelessly in their celebration, even if, having now seen Tony’s Charleston, there was no question for the judges.

Last week’s It Takes Two total was only two out of five.

Downton 4.3 -

Overall, I quite liked it. I thought that bringing back a house party to Downton worked well to show what had changed since the war and it being the first big social event for Mary, Isabel and the family since Matthew died, was a good opportunity for drama. But oh, poor Anna.

Although we were warned violent and disturbing scenes would be coming up, I was so caught up that I didn’t speculate much and I never saw what happened coming. I thought Anna’s usual excellent judgment was off because Gillingham’s man was totally flirting with her (although Bates was over-reacting). I assumed he didn’t know she was married to Bates, but it turned out he did. And was a totally vile piece of work.

Ideally, I wish Anna had listened to Mrs Hughes in the aftermath, but I think her reasons for not doing so make so much sense for the character, sadly – Bates should have been told, already the distance between them when she's hurting so much is painful to watch, but someone would probably have to be restraining him at the time, because yeah, he does have a violent streak. Anna’s reaction and the lie will lead to a lot of drama. I am not horrified that they went here, personally, but I can see ways the show could handle the aftermath badly.

To move on to other stuff, my riposte to Tom Branson would be, whatever the question is, the answer is never ever Edna. You deserve better (as a human being, not class) than that.

She pumped him with booze to have her way with him, which is skeevy and repulsive whichever gender is doing it. But Branson seeking comfort after feeling out of place is a valid dramatic choice.

EXCEPT for the way the scene between Isabel with a watching Violet at dinner played. That was a real moment of connection with the Crawleys. He’d been reminded that at least he was alive; he’d been able to remind Isabel that that was the first time Mary had laughed. To me, that would prove to him that what (that hubristic idiot) Robert had said was true – he did belong. I can’t believe they didn’t notice that that scene (powerful as it was) cut right across what they were building up for Tom when editing this episode.

Though the fact that they’ve failed to write Tom Branson consistently should not shock me.

I expect he also fancies Edna because she makes him feel tall.

And I expect that opera singer’s diary praised the wine at Downton, recorded the near snub regarding dinner and complained that most of her audience were philistines, hiving off somewhere else or having Significant Conversations.

Violet was awesome, and Isabel tremendously sympathetic. Mrs Hughes was awesome, and Mrs Patmore’s freaking out was entertaining.

I await Mary/Matthew shippers’ response to Gillingham invading on a lot of territory with interest – spitting nails I would have thought. (Actually, it looks like what happened to Anna is going to overwhelm that.) I don’t think that the first guy to wake Mary up is going to last long, however charming and rational he seems. Although if he’s on the verge of getting engaged to someone else, he shouldn’t be inviting her to dinner. I don’t know that they could work as a couple anyway, given their respective responsibilities to their estates.

But I suspect that having Gillingham's man attack Lady Mary's maid is going to be explored. This is one of the places where I worry about the handling.

Describing Mary as ‘opaque’ made me laugh.

So, Cora and Robert are fine with Edith/Michael? Really? Surely they don’t know the whole story.

Rose came off as selfishly thoughtless after Anna’s evidence about the gramophone, as opposed to being just thoughtless.