Blogton Two

January 16^th, “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 19^th

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?