![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I don't think I have a lot of Downton Abbey viewers on my flist, but it doesn't matter; I just have to do the OMG What Were They Thinking flail for a bit, and then I'll move on. For L. and anyone else who's seen the first season but not the second, I really liked the first season, despite some eye-rollery, but the eyes are just spinning in their sockets by now. If you get hold of the second season for free, and have people to watch it with and snark, then by all means do.
So, yeah, we watched the double episode last night that takes us nearly to the end of the season (only the Christmas special to go), and I think ALL the predictions we made last time came true, and they weren't exactly wildly original bits of plot. And there were a lot of "No Don't Do It" and "I Can't Believe They Did That" noises going on during the viewing, and I don't think we were supposed to be laughing as much as we did.
And the rest is spoilers.
The Jane Plot, oh dear! I might have been more forgiving if I could have believed either of them meant it. And Matthew standing up, and Sir Richard being creepy, and Bates getting nabbed for his wife's murder, none of it a surprise, but...
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH FLU!!! Well, except we all did, but again Downton exists in its own time stream where months pass between episodes and yet everyone's emotional reactions are as if the last episode was yesterday (and physical reactions, in Matthew's case, and I'm sorry if I can't help laughing at "Bates, I'm having a tingling in my..." because later on the general uprightness is SUBTLY IMPLIED, "oh, we can be really married now," and Mary going "shit, shit, shit") and they seem to miss out on a lot of the outside world's happenings as well. I don't know when the flu got to Yorkshire (oddly I was just researching it the other day, but focused on New York) but I can't see them being quite so surprised by its threatening presence in the spring of 1919 as they apparently were.
Also, it was ODDLY SELECTIVE. In fact, it appeared to be attracted to people whose spouses/spouses-to-be had something to feel guilty about... well, and to Carson, but perhaps it was drawn to his guilt feelings about abandoning Lady Mary to the devices and desires of her upcoming-lord-and-master. I was actually okay with the Carson-gets-sick-so-Thomas-comes-back plot, perhaps because Downton is more fun with Thomas oozing around in livery. But the rest of it just had me up late rewriting in my head, because I could have done a much better job at it, thank you.
You do not get Lavinia and Cora with the flu. You get Jane and Mary. Jane because it forces Lord Grantham to either sit down by her bedside and refuse to move, thus declaring himself, or restrain himself to one formal visit plus bothering the doctor, thus making her realize he doesn't love her after all, and it avoids that awful scenario where he almost sleeps with her while his wife is ALMOST DYING, okay, he didn't know she was that sick yet, except it was the SPANISH FLU, so he should have known she might be. (I really think they pasted on that whole plot thread because he was one of the few characters who hadn't had an unrequited or doomed love yet, and they felt he deserved one or something. And yes, also because it's ironic given his objections to Sybil/Branson, but we weren't exactly hit over the head with the parallel in the usual brick-like fashion.)
And Mary because it fits the classic h/c scenario where the strong and haughty get vanquished by illness, but also because it sets up a nice bedside joust between Richard and Matthew, with Lavinia a sad observer who finally wakes up to her position and gets the hell out of Downton, and doesn't DIE, and doesn't force Matthew to be the honorable idiot again.
If someone did have to die, they should have killed off O'Brien. I would have cried!
On to the last episode, where (I predict, and don't tell me if I'm wrong) Bates will get off the murder charge thanks to Sir Richard, and Anna will get pregnant (she was holding a baby in this episode; it's bound to happen), and Edith will fall in love with someone else completely wrong for her, and Matthew and Mary will bathe each other in longing looks but do nothing about it (or possibly will; I really don't know where they're going with that), and something tragic and alcohol-related will happen to Molesley. And we haven't mentioned the Turkish gentleman in quite a while now...
Maggie Smith is still awesome, though. I think she must have veto power over her lines in the otherwise sadly languishing scripts.
So, yeah, we watched the double episode last night that takes us nearly to the end of the season (only the Christmas special to go), and I think ALL the predictions we made last time came true, and they weren't exactly wildly original bits of plot. And there were a lot of "No Don't Do It" and "I Can't Believe They Did That" noises going on during the viewing, and I don't think we were supposed to be laughing as much as we did.
And the rest is spoilers.
The Jane Plot, oh dear! I might have been more forgiving if I could have believed either of them meant it. And Matthew standing up, and Sir Richard being creepy, and Bates getting nabbed for his wife's murder, none of it a surprise, but...
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH FLU!!! Well, except we all did, but again Downton exists in its own time stream where months pass between episodes and yet everyone's emotional reactions are as if the last episode was yesterday (and physical reactions, in Matthew's case, and I'm sorry if I can't help laughing at "Bates, I'm having a tingling in my..." because later on the general uprightness is SUBTLY IMPLIED, "oh, we can be really married now," and Mary going "shit, shit, shit") and they seem to miss out on a lot of the outside world's happenings as well. I don't know when the flu got to Yorkshire (oddly I was just researching it the other day, but focused on New York) but I can't see them being quite so surprised by its threatening presence in the spring of 1919 as they apparently were.
Also, it was ODDLY SELECTIVE. In fact, it appeared to be attracted to people whose spouses/spouses-to-be had something to feel guilty about... well, and to Carson, but perhaps it was drawn to his guilt feelings about abandoning Lady Mary to the devices and desires of her upcoming-lord-and-master. I was actually okay with the Carson-gets-sick-so-Thomas-comes-back plot, perhaps because Downton is more fun with Thomas oozing around in livery. But the rest of it just had me up late rewriting in my head, because I could have done a much better job at it, thank you.
You do not get Lavinia and Cora with the flu. You get Jane and Mary. Jane because it forces Lord Grantham to either sit down by her bedside and refuse to move, thus declaring himself, or restrain himself to one formal visit plus bothering the doctor, thus making her realize he doesn't love her after all, and it avoids that awful scenario where he almost sleeps with her while his wife is ALMOST DYING, okay, he didn't know she was that sick yet, except it was the SPANISH FLU, so he should have known she might be. (I really think they pasted on that whole plot thread because he was one of the few characters who hadn't had an unrequited or doomed love yet, and they felt he deserved one or something. And yes, also because it's ironic given his objections to Sybil/Branson, but we weren't exactly hit over the head with the parallel in the usual brick-like fashion.)
And Mary because it fits the classic h/c scenario where the strong and haughty get vanquished by illness, but also because it sets up a nice bedside joust between Richard and Matthew, with Lavinia a sad observer who finally wakes up to her position and gets the hell out of Downton, and doesn't DIE, and doesn't force Matthew to be the honorable idiot again.
If someone did have to die, they should have killed off O'Brien. I would have cried!
On to the last episode, where (I predict, and don't tell me if I'm wrong) Bates will get off the murder charge thanks to Sir Richard, and Anna will get pregnant (she was holding a baby in this episode; it's bound to happen), and Edith will fall in love with someone else completely wrong for her, and Matthew and Mary will bathe each other in longing looks but do nothing about it (or possibly will; I really don't know where they're going with that), and something tragic and alcohol-related will happen to Molesley. And we haven't mentioned the Turkish gentleman in quite a while now...
Maggie Smith is still awesome, though. I think she must have veto power over her lines in the otherwise sadly languishing scripts.
