<p>I wonder if after the Titanic people were more cautious about traveling together? Remember first ep first season was the sinking…</p>
<p>I think that Cora wouldn’t have been able to go because they had taken on the responsibility of caring for Rose. I like Rose’s character and that storyline although in real life, I doubt that she would have been allowed to go off to do errands and meet friends in London without a chaperone. She hadn’t yet made her debut to society. </p>
<p>Once one has made one’s debut, is one permitted to travel around alone, like Edith does??</p>
<p>I believe so. I also think that earlier on, Anna was ladies maid to all of the Crawley sisters but maybe there weren’t any scenes filmed of just her and Edith. Maybe Mary as the eldest required the most attention, especially after she marries. As a married woman she is supposed to have breakfast in her chambers while unmarried girls are to have breakfast in the dining room. I always wonder what would happen if Cora or Mary wanted to have breakfast downstairs or Edith wanted to have breakfast in bed herself…</p>
<p>On the morning after the wedding that wasn’t, Anna brought Edith breakfast. Edith got up, saying, “I’m the spinster aunt, and spinsters have breakfast in the dining room.”</p>
<p>Where are my Downton peeps? Great episode tonight. Anybody know how many episodes are left?</p>
<p>One more–a 2-hour episode next week.</p>
<p>Life is just a series of problems which we must solve - first one and then the next and then the next until at last we die.</p>
<p>Cheerful.</p>
<ul>
<li>So who was the man servant who announced dinner to Lady Mary at one point tonight?</li>
<li>MommaJ, the college Sybbie goes to might be Oberlin. Very liberal, it’s also one of the first colleges to accept woman, although by then there were many others.</li>
<li>Can’t stand Lady Granthem these days, with her dopey smile and tilted head.</li>
<li>Cheers to Daisy. At least her side story is resolved.</li>
<li>So now we viewers see another developing story with Mr Bates as criminal and another depressing story about an illegitimate child. Poor Edith. I so hope Michael shows up before she goes away. I especially hope she doesn’t lose the baby because that would just be more sadness. She needs something positive to happen to her character.</li>
</ul>
<p>That was a lot of plot in one episode.</p>
<p>The manservant was one of Aunt Whats-Her-Names footmen; the butler had the day off.</p>
<p>If next week is the final episode of the season and if Cora’s mother and brother will be coming to Rose’s coming out party “next summer”, we are going to have a BIG time-jump between this week’s episode and next week. That would mean Edith has already had her baby and resolved that situation one way or another, since I spotted her in the preview. I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened to her missing beau/babydaddy.</p>
<p>Good episode tonight. The library copy came in and I couldn’t wait! The finale is… Oohhh… I’ll wait till next week but just oohhh!</p>
<p>Heck with the plot; I thought the dresses tonight were stunning, not to mention the hats! Lady Mary’s grey visit-the-jazz-club ensemble was to die for. And when Edith and Violet sat down amongst the flowers with their complementary blue and lilac outfits, I thought it looked like an impressionist painting.</p>
<p>Hope someone can help me out…I heard Bates say he was going to York (or, perhaps, that was just where he SAID he was going) and the horrible rapist was killed in Picadilly. I guess I’m just being naive but Bates actually went to London and pushed him in front of a vehicle?</p>
<p>It also seemed odd that Rose’s beau went ahead and proposed just to decide to break it off even before Mary had a chance to confront him?</p>
<p>Where oh where is Edith’s beau?? And I love Moseby’s (sp?) budding relationship with Baxter (?). I’m terrible with names.</p>
<p>Loved this episode and was so engrossed in it that I was taken aback (saddened) when it ended. I’m sorry that next week is the last of the season.</p>
<p>The gorgeous hats just kept coming, one after another. </p>
<p>Since nobody at Downton can keep a secret for a millisecond, Bates’ murder is going to come out. But I’m so glad that Rapey McRaperson is dead.</p>
<p>New cute couple: Molesley and Baxter. Former couple: Rose and Jack. He deserves better than that self-absorbed little twit anyway.</p>
<p>My dream plot, though it doesn’t make sense: Edith adopts out little Gregson Junior. Two months later, Gregson arrives at Downton with a two month old baby in his arms: “Edith, I think you left something behind in Switzerland.” That dream plot is not going to happen, but, since nobody at Downton can keep a secret, everyone is going to know about Sybbie and Georgie’s cousin in Switzerland.</p>
<p>Bates had to have killed him. Otherwise, how was he so happy all of a sudden? Gillingham told Mary, and Mary told Anna, but nobody told Bates that Mr. Green was pushed under a bus. Bates knew because he did the pushing.</p>
<p>I can’t get over the hamhanded plotting of just having Gregson disappear. Even if he does surface, the explanation would be have to be absurd. And will we ever know what that paper Edith signed was all about? Who’s been editing the newspaper in Gregson’s absence, and how could he afford to just leave his job for an extended stay in Germany? Is Edith still writing her column for the new editor or or is she just fretting these days? Somehow I get the feeling not all these questions will get answered. Yes, the clothes are gorgeous, but c’mon…</p>
<p>I was wobdering the same thing about Edith. She did have a job as a writer. What happened to that? Was granny so understanding and accepting of Edith’s pregnancy? Edith is so calm and at ease about everything. Seem so unrealistic for the time. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly what I thought.</p>
<p>Mary is certainly coming into her own. She’s handling all the grown-up things that I would have expected Cora to handle, but Cora seems too daft. Perhaps Cora is really a bit “simple.” </p>
<p>I loved the scene between Isabel and the Dowager Countess when Isabel’s flowers from Lord What’s-his-name were so much grander than the Dowager’s!! She kept looking at the big arrangement and then back at her little arrangement in the corner. . . . </p>
<p>Perhaps Bates himself killed Mr. Green, or perhaps Bates hired someone to do the deed for him. What’s confusing is that, according to Mary, who of course got all the details from Lord Gillingham in those 14 seconds, there were many people around when it happened. It seems to me that if someone pushed him, no one noticed. This plot thread still has legs – we may hear more.</p>
<p>I agree that the relationship between Baxter and Molesley is a charming one. I hope they get rid of Thomas with no repercussions. He’s a bad one, he is. </p>
<p>I wish I had had an aunt like Lady Rosalind. (Not that I was ever in Edith’s predicament, but still.) How lovely that Edith has someone older and wiser to guide her through this. I also love that they’re going to Switzerland because “it’s so clean.” </p>