- I am a big suspender of disbelief, but there is something bothering me. I can buy the fact that Matthew Crawley is sufficiently dense not to realize that Mary is sending "Dude I Still Love You, You Nitwit" smoke signals from her tormented eyes, but is there really any universe in which Mary wouldn't have told Cora -- at some point during the two years that have elapsed since Season 1's conclusion -- that Edith was the one who spilled The Secret to Pamuk's father?
- I was glad to see from the pre-show interview with Elizabeth McGovern that her odd Americo-Brit accent on the show is in fact Elizabeth McGovern's own odd Americo-Brit accent, stemming from years of living in London and picking up that weird British intonation thing that all Americans living in London for more than 15 minutes seem to be affilicted with, rather than a studied dialect decision.
- Lady Sybil is to-die-for gorgeous.
- This show has an odd habit of making all of its characters reasonably well-rounded except for those who we are intended to roundly dislike, who are one-dimensionally awful. Thomas, O'Brien, Edith . . . not a redeeming characteristic among them. The good news, however, is that Bates's surprise visitor would seem to make the usual suspects seem nuanced and three-dimensional.
- Lack of Verisimilitude Department: After also having watched Jude Law in Contagion this weekend, I am struck by the fact that Downton Abbey apparently employs the best dentist in all of England.
Who's watching?
I am! I intend to start using "Toad of Toad Hall" as my new insult, as part of my continuing quest to be more like the Dowager Duchess of Grantham.
ReplyDeleteAauugh! I'm expecting the first season of DT on DVD this week and I haven't seen it yet! Spoiler alert, please?
ReplyDeleteIt took me many viewings of season one to realize this, but the plotting on this show...not so tight. Not that I would change a thing about it!
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, in addition to never telling Cora about Edith's betrayal, also apparently no one told Cora that both upstairs and downstairs were in agreement to fire Thomas just when he put in his notice. I'm not even totally sure i understand why O'Brien wants him back. I have somewhat of a crazy theory (my specialty), but instead of sharing it I think I'll just see how things shake out.
Last night's episode inspired many clap-and-cackle moments for me. Obviously many were related to the Dowager Countess (especially the title of this post), but also Cora's weird crazy/proud face while watching Sybil bake a cake.
Christy: I liked the Sybil baking a cake scene too.
ReplyDeletelittlered: Sorry! But I actually don't think that spoiling a prior season is verboten under the Grand Unified Theory of TV Blogging.
I didn't realize there was such a theory, so it's my bad. Thanks for whetting my appetite, though!
ReplyDeleteI will comment after watching the Season 2 premiere tonight on DVR when I get home (5am alarm clock does not allow for staying up late), but just wanted to comment on the amount of "shoveling" in the last couple weeks -- I started watching Season 1 this past Saturday night about 7pm and finished Season 1 about 3pm on Sunday. That's a lot of Edwardian drama to shovel into 20 hours! (But SO worth it!)
ReplyDeleteWhoops, that was me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for shoveling and for giving us a place to talk about this.
ReplyDeleteThomas and O'Brien seem less one-dimensional to me than Edith; they seem more embittered from the lifetime of having to lead two lives -- one upstairs and one downstairs. Edith on the other hand just seems mean.
(I too have a theory about Thomas and O'Brien, maybe the same one as Christy in NYC?)
Those who watched Season 1 more recently: what were Lady Sybil's politics? And the chauffeur's? I feel like that's a thread that's been dropped entirely.
Loved the cake scene. And I hope that we continue to explore the American-heiress-in-Britain line. It's a fascinating one. For me the show is best when it really explores all these nuances of social mores that we wouldn't even think of. New money-old money (Mary and her publisher) gets done all the time, new money-old money (Grantham and Cora) gets a new twist when you learn that all these English noblemen were searching for presentable American girls with large dowries and learn more about how that changed that world.
I'm watching, though the local PBS station had a glitch last night, so I was only able to see the first half of the episode.
ReplyDeleteAgree Sybil is gorgeous, and I really like Mary more and more. On the other hand, I want to wring Edith's neck. Gah!
Loved the eavesdropping scene and subsequent sharing of the news with Carson. "If I was a gentleman..."
I'm watching and love it. And I really want the dress Lady Mary wore twice -- the black one with the cool sleeves? I feel like the "mean" characters are more one-dimensional this season than last. While Edith was awful last season, they at least built up to it showing how she was the ugly duckling sister and everyone recognized it fairly openly, so there was something building up to her awfulness. I think it's more intersting to watch a character like Mary, who is spoiled and behaves badly at times, but who you also see as trapped and looking for a way out -- it's more fun to watch multi-dimensional characters.
ReplyDelete<p><span>I’m watching, though the local PBS station had a glitch last night, so I was only able to get halfway through the episode.</span>
ReplyDelete</p><p><span>Agree Sybil is gorgeous, and I really like Mary more and more as the series continues. (Unfortunately, can’t say the same for Edith, whose neck I’d like to wring.) Edith is like the Jan Brady of this series (times 10).</span>
</p><p><span>Loved the eavesdropping scene and subsequent sharing of the news with Carson. “If I was a gentleman…”</span></p>
I want every dress Mary ever wears!
ReplyDeleteThat was by far my favorite moment.
ReplyDeleteI mean, Thomas is totally O'Brien's son, right? And she knows it and he doesn't?
ReplyDeleteI actually didn't think Ethel was so awful; she was crazy tone deaf but I didn't think she was particularly mean.
ReplyDeleteI just watched both seasons in two days, so I'm completely obsessed. Also, if you love Downton Abbey and Parks and Recreation, you will probably enjoy this.
ReplyDeleteThese short parodies (with tons of British celebrities) are hilarious (and not spoiler-riffic)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5dMlXentLw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3YYo_5rxFE&feature=relmfu
Yes, Edith (and Mary) were both intermittently awful in the first series, but awful in human ways, as opposed to Thomas and O'Brien moustache-twirling EVIL. Hopefully the second series will get (has gotten?) away from that a bit.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Patton Oswalt's obsession with and live-tweeting of the show are awesome.
ReplyDeleteMy theory is a bit more...crazy...than that. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were some kind of blood relationship between the two.
ReplyDeleteI was a big fan of season 1 and I still have very high hopes for season 2, BUT -- one big quibble with the premiere: the pacing of the first season was very slow and leisurely, like a weekend at a grand country estate might be. Last night was much much quicker. The scenes started and ended much more abruptly; the stories got moved forward much much faster (even accounting for the changes in time). I suppose this could be a statement that "now we're in the war, and things are different," but I'm hoping this was just the set-up for the season, and we'll go back to last year's Downton pace.
ReplyDeleteMe too! I watched all of season 1 Saturday and Sunday! It was great that way, gives you less time to think about the crazy plot holes. I drool over the costumes!
ReplyDeleteYes, I have crazy theory, too.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Earthling and I watched, having seen none of Season 1. We had no idea what the hell was going on, but were nevertheless captivated. I think we will DVR this Season 2 and try to catch up.
ReplyDeleteI've done a bit of Downton shoveling myself this last week, alternating it with the entire first season of Homeland. (highly recommend that one) It took me a bit to realize that the reason I had tensed up watching the Downton garden party was because I kept expecting a terrorist attack.
ReplyDeleteOnly half got through the Downton S2 premiere last night, and will be finishing it up tonight. Can't wait!
I totally agree that Edith has fallen from understandably awful to totally awful between S1 and S2 -- the "but my dress!" line at dinner when asked to fetch help for Carson was just beyond bad.
ReplyDeleteThomas has had one humanizing moment per season so far -- the destruction of his chances with minor earl whomever at the start of S1, and now the disaster with the blind patient in S2 -- but it hasn't felt like enough to make him human. I have a hope for O'Brien this season -- her kindness to Lang was out of character in a NICE way.
That is sort of what I was thinking.
ReplyDeleteI think it's only second to her line in the first season: "A week end? What is a week end?"
ReplyDeleteIn the first season, Lady Sybil was the feminist/suffragette. She even wore pants (gasp!) to dinner one night. She went to a vote reading in town somewhere, against her father's wishes, and landed in the middle of a class-based fistfight.
ReplyDeleteThe chauffeur was (and is, presumably) an Irish socialist. He tried to get her to leave the vote reading and she refused.
I've been counting down the days, and imagine my conflict when I realized my one Blackhawks game of the season was the same night as the season premiere! I finally got to it this evening, and I loved every minute of it. I could do with less "everything is changing" anvils, and I wish they gave Lady Edith something more interesting to do. But every scene with the Dowager Countess makes up for any small misgivings.
ReplyDeleteTotal Nancy Mitford shoutout there -- can't remember if it's Love in a Cold Climate or The Pursuit of Love that has a slightly more subtle put-down about calling it a "weekend" instead of "Saturday to Monday".
ReplyDelete