Downton Abbey: Season 6, Episode 1
September 29, 2015 9:52 PM - Season 6, Episode 1 - Subscribe

Lady Mary's past catches up with her when an unwelcome visitor delivers an ultimatum, and news about the running of Downton Hospital puts Violet on the warpath.

It’s great to see Isis’s rear swinging across the screen again.

Off to a fine start with the first few lines - Mary sneering: "They obviously need more money" delivered with such condescension.
Robbo looking down his nose at her splayed legs, "Do you really like riding like that, when a sidesaddle is so much more graceful."

I don't follow the logic of Patmore being asked to have the talk with Carson about the coming sexy times with Hughsie.

Trouble at t' mill? - nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. I can’t verify this, but its use doesn’t seem to come from this period.

Hospital almoner? Never heard that term before, smacks of charity, interesting.

That was a robust debate over the independence of the hospital, with the chaps backing up the ladies in the ring splendidly. Until the end that is, Clarkie: "I'm glad we can agree on this." Isabel: "Don't let's make too much of it." Cue kicked puppy look.

I'm glad the Green thing has been put to bed but it didn't sound very believable.
posted by unliteral (14 comments total)
 
The OED's earliest ref for 'Trouble at t' mill' is 1967 so you might be right.

(1967 ‘J. Winton’ H.M.S. Leviathan xx. 333 He replaced the receiver, and assumed a passable Yorkshire accent. ‘Ah'm sorry, lass, but there's trouble down at t'mill... It looks as if we've got to go to sea in a hurry.’)

Hospital almoner: An almoner is one who gives to the poor, another word for almsgiver, so definitely relates to charitable giving. Bear in mind this is all before the NHS was introduced in 1948 so access to healthcare was limited to those who could afford it or those who could get it through charity.
posted by biffa at 5:28 AM on September 30, 2015


Let's see, a hotel chambermaid manages to make several trips from Liverpool to Yorkshire to threaten Lady Mary with blackmail because she has a page from a hotel register that lists Tony G and Lady M registering for separate rooms. The blackmail amount was the equivalent of $80,000 today and she settled for the equivalent of $4000 and a signed confession, a scene that was beyond Fellowes writing ability. But what it really proves is that Lady Mary is capable of managing the estate. Uh, okay.

Lots of foreshadowing re changing times and estates being broken up and cutting back on staff. Looks like the dead fiancee's father's money might be running out. Handled brilliantly with scenes involving the Dowager/Denker/Sprat, clumsily at the main house with Thomas (is he supposed to be ill? he looks like he's at death's door) and Daisy. She spent the entire 3rd season learning to be a fancy cook. Why is she still there studying math and socialism? So much has been made of her having an alternative to her service life; several times through the seasons, someone has said she was going to inherit her father-in-law's farm. Turns out, he was just a tenant farmer and his position was not any more stable than hers. This is probably a fundamental difference in understanding between British and non-British viewers because I assumed he *owned* the farm with all his talk about Daisy inheriting it.

The interminable Green situation was summed up and dispensed with to everyone's relief; I didn't even try to understand it.

I don't know why I find the hospital storyline so uninteresting.

I'm not a big Carson fan but his scene with Mrs Patmore explaining that he intended this marriage to be a "full marriage" was pretty sweet.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:09 AM on September 30, 2015


I just do not care what happens to the goddamn mobile Greek tragedy that is Anna and Mr. Bates. As long as it happens, quietly, and off screen.

Is Thomas still taking heroin/steroids/mystery anti-gay injections? That could explain him looking sickly. I somewhat expect him to have a love interest in the new footman.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 5:20 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


My roommate and I both lost it at "Does it ever get cold on the moral high ground?"

I was also amused with the police officer who's "probably not supposed to tell you this, but ... " And then he stayed around for the Bates-Isn't-a-Murderer-(the-Other-One-This-Time) Party.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 10:51 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ugh. This show has jumped the shark for me. I will slog through this last season, but man it just got unwatchable for me. Mrs. Hughes asking Mrs. Patmore if she should be expected to "lie back and think of England" was just, so not like her. She would never have put her personal life out there like that, or ask a friend to play whisper down the lane about her personal life. She is far more proper than that and while it would kill her to mention it to Mr. Carson, she would ask him directly.

The Anna/Bates story line is just awful at this point - and I dread the season of dealing with her infertility issues, it possibly being because of her attack - to then find out she is pregnant during the Christmas episode (my own wild speculation). I just don't trust the show to handle it well.

The only part that did feel very believable to me was Daisy telling off the new owner given her recent studies, class changing ideas, and general character arc.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 6:53 PM on October 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


Me, I didn't find Daisy's confrontation at all believable. Speaking out in anger to someone of a higher class okay, but not at a gathering like that in front of her own employers. It's something that would get her fired from her own job, not just benignly shrugged off, and apparently she was just fine with this situation when it meant she would inherit the tenancy. Fellowes is such an uneven writer.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:25 AM on October 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Considering they never fired Thomas after all of his we'll documented deception and manipulation - I imagine it's basically impossible to get fired from Downton Abbey. They employ known thieves (Baxter) unknown thieves (Mr. Bates), and someone who may be a murderer (pick your Bates). Basically - no one ever gets fired from the household, so it's not like Daisy has anything to fear.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 10:09 AM on October 4, 2015 [4 favorites]


> Me, I didn't find Daisy's confrontation at all believable.

Uncle Julian must always have an uncouth socialist in the mix to show what awful company the left is.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 3:48 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also: the hospital storyline is a total proxy narrative for the Tory goal of dismantling the NHS.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 3:49 PM on October 8, 2015


Didn't Jimmy get fired? And that maid that came on to Tom (twice?) If it's caught-in-the-act sexual shenanigans, it's a firing, everything else is forgivable. Like politicians in America, apparently. (Thomas hasn't been seen trying to get busy by anyone except Jimmy, right? Can't recall.) Also the Crawleys are more softhearted than Carson.

The "can not spit it out" discussions of British sex lives or not were hilariously awkward. I suspect this is a British thing in the "just can't talk about it, too embarrassing" sort of way. I'd make a comment about how why don't Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore ask Anna Bates, the only one of their cohort who's actually had sex--but clearly Anna's occupied this week. It was ridiculous that Mrs. Patmore would be roped into this-it's not like she knows either!--and the awkwardness on round two when Carson figured out where this was going...bwahahah. Mrs. P couldn't spit it out even while taking a shot. Anyone else think Carson and Hughes will tie the knot in #2? I vaguely recall that Downton just kinda does weddings whenever in mid-season most of the time.

THANK GOD THE BATES CRIME RUN IS OVER, even if it was a miraculous off camera confession sort of thing. I don't look forward to a miscarriage plotline, but it's still better than "which Bates is going to jail this week."

God, I hope Edith is married by the end of this series. Married and living in London and away from home already. I want her to end on a not-buttmonkey note.

The Dowager Countess was freaking brilliant with Denker this week. Second place goes to Mrs. Patmore's snarking about Denker coming around to bring sunshine. (Though really, who does have an underbutler...ever?)

Don't really care about the hospital plot, it's just an excuse for another old lady fight (though Cora sounds like she's dying to jump in) with all of Isobel's rejected beaus hanging about.

Daisy continues to be an idiot. And now I can't even hope she'll just go off to the farm already. Sophie McShera is cute but her character rarely gets any brighter after all these years and supposed schooling.

"The blackmail amount was the equivalent of $80,000 today and she settled for the equivalent of $4000 and a signed confession, a scene that was beyond Fellowes writing ability. But what it really proves is that Lady Mary is capable of managing the estate. Uh, okay."

I guess because she was about to be all "publish and be damned, I'm not gonna cave in to any blackmailer?" Or at least she was smart enough to know blackmail doesn't end? I was amused that Lord Grantham suddenly has the brains and balls to pull that off, but what the heck. He was probably thinking, "Oh hell, this is the least bad thing any Crawley girl has done these days." Mary's dead body in her bed, Edith's hidden pregnancy, Sybil eloping with the chauffeur and Rose dating a black musician--a little extramarital fun ain't nuffin' for a Crawley girl!
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:49 PM on January 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


Suffocating Kitty: I dread the season of dealing with her infertility issues, it possibly being because of her attack - to then find out she is pregnant during the Christmas episode (my own wild speculation). I just don't trust the show to handle it well.

This is my suspicion about Anna as well. As soon as I saw her crying on the stairs I thought, "Either she just got her period or she miscarried." When she kept talking about her infertility I thought, "Pregnant by the final episode." I'm not looking forward to that story arc because I'm pretty sure it'll end that way, possibly with an adoption storyline first and then a surprise pregnancy. (I'm studiously avoiding all spoilers possible from those future-dwellers in the UK!) Buuuuuut I suppose it's a mug's game to expect realism from Downton, and I do enjoy it all the same. And YES jenfullmoon, I'm so frickin glad the stupid Bates murder plot line (#2) is over!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:11 AM on January 4, 2016


These plots are all so tiresome. I think it's because we're trying to cram dramaz into the show, while knowing that there's no long-game. So instead of a good blackmail plot across a number of episodes, it's this slapdash BS.

Rose isn't there, mostly because she had a happy ending and she's boring now. I'd much rather explore Edith as a female editor and issues at her magazine, than her home life at boring old Downton.

Whenever Bates and Anna come on, it's time to fold the laundry or get a cold drink. Could they be any more boring?

The whole show is a wax works. I hate to be ageist, especially because I myself am old, but frankly it's just not interesting to me. I love Violet's zingers, but Isobel's earnestness is SO boring and predictable.

I complain, yet here I am watching it. I have a weakness for opulence-porn.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:09 AM on January 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


Mary: "Now remind me, Anna, it's been a seasonyear, so is that awful murder business all over with now?"
Anna: "No milady, it still hangs over our heads every day, like the sword of Damocles."
Mary: "What a shame. Do my hair."
~ LATER ~
Policeman: "I just thought I'd drop by to say that things look as if they may work out."
Bates: "Curse that policeman!"
Anna: "It's alright."
~ LATER ~
Policeman: "I just thought I'd drop by to say that things look as if they have indeed worked out."
Bates: "Bless that policeman!"
Anna: "It's alright."

All of that was for what, exactly?
posted by Rat Spatula at 1:26 PM on January 4, 2016 [6 favorites]


Also yeah the Hospital Controversy is both George-Lucas-level BOOR-RING and obviously the camel's nose for health-care free-marquetry.
posted by Rat Spatula at 6:20 PM on January 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


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