Downton Abbey Episode 3 (When Nobody Was Looking)

Catching up with the Times we Live in

If this is what 'catching up with the times' is, I wish we weren't catching up with them in such a frightful hurry. But in the case of Lady Mary, that Train has  irredeemably left the station.

At the end of episode 2, we were left wondering which way this thing was going to go. Was Lady Mary going to lose her virtue with a creep and open the doors to additional creepiness? Or was Lady Mary going to come to her senses before it was too late?

For those who hoped she would keep the virtue, it was a Sad Day. What would Matthew think? Alas!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremysorrells/8075820997/

It was too sad. Too sneaky. And because of all the sneakiness, things had to be kept hushed up; guiltily secretive; furtive. That's what happens when people discover they actually (shockingly) do have a conscience.

For good or ill, and quite possibly ill, secrets and mystery ran rampant within this episode. For example:

• Why are Lady Mary and Lord Gillingham behaving as if it were the year 2015?
• Was Bates in York or in London on a certain foggy and very significant day?
• Did Mrs. Hughes and Lady Mary find and destroy a key piece of evidence?
• Has Lady Edith got an ulterior motive for visiting the little girl at Drewe Farm?
• Did Spratt (or did he not) let a certain cat out of a certain bag?
• Will that cat stay within that bag?
• Will Mrs. Patmore's nephew be included in the Downton Abbey memorial? (Would General George Patton like Mrs. Patmore's nephew if this had been World War 2 instead of 1?)
• Did the Dowager Countess have a romantic past? What on earth!?

There were more questions, oh-so-many more. And I couldn't possibly keep up with all the mystery. So when it got too confusing, I determined to listen carefully for the Dowager Countess's droll comments. Such as -

• Regarding her butler going to a funeral: "Surely you can't begrudge him that. Servants are human beings too". "Yes, but preferably only on their days off."
• To Lady Mary upon hearing of her 'tryst': "In MY day, a lady was incapable of feeling physical attraction until she'd been instructed to do so by her mama."

She was entertaining, and all, but even the Dowager Countess can't quite make up for the moral decline of the British Aristocracy when everybody thought nobody was looking. 

See you along the way!

the SconeLady

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kcts9/6003796492/">KCTS 9</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>