January 16th,
“This sounds very much like the boy talk that I do not allow.”- Carson to the footmen
And boy oh boy, is there indeed “boy” (or as it were, “boy-butler”) talk
in Episode Numero Uno. . . and girl talk
too!!! Sex, sex and more sex, well, sort
of anyway, at least with lots of intimations of naughtiness, post-Edwardian
style if nothing too graphic or visceral, as Downton gloriously swept into its miraculous fifth season. How is
it possible that a mere soap can remain so shamelessly compelling and continue to retain its highfalutin demeanor???
I was in near tears when the last scene faded just a brief hour
and what looked like maybe eight minutes or so into the evening, give or take a couple of
seconds, at the thought of waiting another week for the second episode and yet
another window into the world of those sumptuous gowns and smart daytime
outfits. Along with my immense sadness at having to wait seven days for the
next installment, naturally came the conflicting emotions: would Mary join the
modern world and liberate herself already for goddsake? Why must Edith continue
to suffer, and to such a maudlin degree? Will she ever muster the
gumption to flaunt social convention and stand up for herself, and do we care? She's becoming annoying. And what evil
retribution if any does Thomas have planned for the much beleaguered,
guilt-ridden lady’s maid with the sad, soulful eyes and questionable hairdo? Perhaps most significantly, how do I really feel about that mere school teacher infiltrating and dissing-
yes dissing, your heard right!- the esteemed
halls of well dressed nobility with her crazy socialist talk??? Does this mean
I am something akin to a federalist at heart? What's a federalist? I'm not sure I know, but it sounds right for some reason.
January 19th
When Lady Mary says “I’ve been tarnished and I won’t be
tarnished again,” regarding her attempt at a barely discreet sex tryst with
Lord Gillingham, we all know what she means; there’s danger in them there
hills, at least socially speaking for Lady Mary. However when she jokingly
comments later on of the Lady Dowager that “Granny has a past (!),” this said
after a former and now elderly prince admirer from the deposed Russian
aristocracy pops into the frame- that line is a bit harder to swallow; I always
pictured granny springing fully armed from the head of H.L. Mencken, or perhaps
Joan Rivers, Brit style of course.
And thus concludes Episode three of the Fifth Season of
“Downton,” just prior to the moment when Bates, once again under deep suspicion
(honestly, that guy was not born under a lucky star!), barely makes a pretense
of limping his way down the hall, though he still uses the cane for effect; the
thing is, I’m not certain he had any physical therapy as we know it today and
so we are left to believe that somehow it really is mind over matter, either that or the cane was a scam to begin
with. In truth, I’m ready to say hang
Bates! (Oops, you know I didn’t really mean that).
However it’s Daisy, ineffably impish second cook, who puts
the cap on it when she exclaims in the earlier episode, “Why do they call it a
wireless when there are so many wires?” Somehow her reaction to seeing a radio
for the first time seemed almost an anachronism in that it reminded me of my
own jungle of wires, that horrible tangle of cords underneath the computer desk
supposedly designed to enable wireless transmission. . . . And to top things off, amid all his
beneficence and noblesse oblige in agreeing to allow the darn contraption into
the house in the first place- purportedly to hear an amazingly stilted and
boring speech by the king that leaves the residents of the manor awestruck-
Lord Grantham, the familiar “Robert,” and formerly a man of very cool and
lah-dee-dah demeanor, is turning into a grouch!
Tell me, please, what is a devoted watcher of the series, a
member in good standing of this inimitable soap opera cult, ever supposed to think?
