Begins 1912. Oh Mr Carson, how could you have been in vaudeville! And Lady Mary - entertaining a man in your bed chamber! Giving pantomime baddies Barrow and Mrs Hughes ammunition! (What the hell is their motivation for being so horrible? Is that ever explained?)
I'd quite forgotten Jessica Brown Findlay - the third sister. And that Rose Leslie was in it at the beginning, arousing the ire of the staff by wanting to be a secretary - gasp!
Some of the Season 2 (WWI) plotting's getting a bit far fetched - the chauffeur was going to pour muck over a visiting General? The scarred man claiming he's the cousin? Mrs Bates' murder? (It's like - let's make Anna and John Bates the loveliest couple - and then let's shower them with shit each time they are almost happy.)
Daisy (Sophie McShera) inheriting farm? Unfinished storylines. Barrow vulnerable for a second, sacked without reference - suddenly is the under-butler? What the fuck is going on? He gets cousin in and only starts scheming again. This nastiness seeps through the whole thing. And yes, let's have Anna raped, Bates murderous - for fuck's fuck's sake! Leave them alone. This continues into season six. I'm afraid I don't think it's very good long form writing.
Edith and her baby - never was there are more tortuous storyline (that seems like it belongs in Victorian melodrama). (I feel sorry for Laura Carmichael whose character is always neglected or suffering).
Frenemies Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton good. Lord Grantham and Carson both blow hot and cold - exhausting (Hugh Bonneville and Jim Carter). Grantham scrapping with Richard E Grant in her Lady's bedchamber? What bollocks!
And yet - it was a shame when it was all over! Like an annoying friend who you miss when they leave. It finishes in a shameless glut of feel-goodness.
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