<p>Chinablue…I’d characterize it as a flirtation rather than an affair and this is a different guy. </p>
<p>Edith didn’t actually have an affair with that farmer, just a flirtation. In any event, this farmer is a different guy altogether, the son of a long-term tenant farmer who died recently, the son returning to take over the family’s farm.</p>
<p>HA!</p>
<p>Nothing gets past you guys/gals. Thanks.</p>
<p>Laura Carmichael just had an AMA on Reddit.</p>
<p>The most ridiculous thing I heard - there’s always something - was Thomas telling Lord Grantham that Branson had someone upstairs. Branson is family, a point brought home by the Dowager Countess at the ball in London. He can do what he wants. Telling on family would be marking yourself as unreliable. </p>
<p>But the important question: Where is this week’s Facebook recap? It always makes me laugh.</p>
<p>Recap has not been posted yet – I will keep checking!</p>
<p>Thomas alleged that he had the family’s “honor” in mind when he told Lord Grantham about Branson and the chickie upstairs. I didn’t get any idea whether Lord G was concerned with Branson or whether he was annoyed with Thomas.</p>
<p>I have not been bothered at all with Mary’s attitude. She’s not looking for love - she’s had that. She is looking for a partner to build a future for the estate and for her son. I think she has to take this very pragmatic approach to marriage. Most all people did in that era! I too thought the costumes were just breathtaking.</p>
<p>I also think Mary is not really actively pursuing another husband and isn’t altogether interested in it right at this moment. I took her attitude as looking at all the men barking up her tree and saying, “well, if you insist!” They are chasing her, not the other way around. I took her “race is on” comment or whatever to be relatively tongue in cheek.</p>
<p>I suspect most people take a reasonably pragmatic approach to marriage in this generation, too, especially if they are female, over 25, with a child, and with independent means but not enough to buy toys.</p>
<p>However, I do think that to some extent Mary is looking for love, too. I think she has realized through her encounters with Gillingham and Blake that she can feel something other than mere duty. Yes, she experienced love with Matthew, but it was hardly love at first sight. It took her a long time – two full TV seasons! two or three humiliating London seasons! a world war! two dead lovers! – to get there.</p>
<p>Re Branson and What’s Her Name: I like her; I don’t see what bothers some of you about her, other than not being as pretty as most of the other young women on the show. I thought her bid to see the mansion was pretty clearly a request to see the one place Branson wasn’t ready to take her yet: his bedroom. I also thought Lord G was annoyed at Branson, because he is dense and clueless, because he take the illusions of aristocracy more seriously than his mother in the end, and because recognizing that Branson is an adult does not mean he should be sleeping with women in the family home. Not proper.</p>
<p>TempeMom, re: a spinoff, I have a vague memory of an interview with Fellowes ( I think I mentioned it waaaay back in the beginning of this thread, but I’m not willing to go check) in which he mentioned he’d like to do another period piece set in America during the Gilded Age. Not necessarily a spinoff, but something to look forward to if he actually does it (and if my memory is any good at all!)</p>
<p>And I think Lord G knows Thomas is a troublemaker. Weren’t they glad to be rid of him during the war and disappointed when he came back?</p>
<p>I love this thread, and am now rewatching the show. </p>
<p>My mom just turned 80 and is in relatively good health. But she really wanted all the loose ends to be wrapped up because she says she may not live to see Jan. 2015. </p>
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<p>When Robert returned from America during the church bazaar, he said to Bates, “Did you miss me?” And then he looked at Thomas as he was walking away as if, “God I’m glad I don’t have to deal with him anymore.” I think what Robert was really saying in asking Bates that was, “I really missed you!”</p>
<p>JHS, I like the schoolteacher too. In real life, she’s beautiful, like all almost all the Downton actresses:
<a href=“Daisy Lewis - IMDb”>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2542922/</a></p>
<p>On the show, I think she’s cute.</p>
<p>I don’t care for the schoolteacher. She’s making Branson uncomfortable, and that is impolite.</p>
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<p>Wonder if that’s her way of flirting with him. Just tossing that up considering I’ve seen this form of flirtation in many public venues and among friends/acquaintances of both genders.</p>
<p>OT…actually that was MY way of flirting! Pops!</p>