LOL!!! Sadly, I agree. This has gone on toooooooooo long.
amandakayak, we use the closed caption feature on our television when watching DA. It really helps.
Anyone else watching “Grantchester” ? We’re really enjoying it. I like that you get a new murder case in every episode.
Some background on what might be going on with Michael in Germany:
http://time.com/3675487/hitler-downton-abbey/
The more I think about it, the more I think the over-the-top rudeness of Sarah Bunting is a mistake for the show. First, I doubt ANYONE would ever be as unrelentingly provocative to a host at a dinner party–especially in that era. Second, it defies comprehension that she would have been invited back time after time. There may be some sympathy for Tom being alone but I have a hard time imagining that she is the only suitable companion for him in the area. And finally, as the atrocities in Germany become more widely known, it seems likely that Tom’s (and others’) passions will be stirred without the help of someone as in-your-face as Ms. Bunting.
Closed captioning – what a great idea.
- Am I the only person around who likes Sarah Bunting? I am married to someone like that. I don't think she's much ruder than the Crawleys are to her.
- I am bored stiff with the whole deal about Lord Gillingham's valet, where everyone in the cast is now a suspect, except for the butler, who most certainly did not do it. Stuffing a murder mystery / period police procedural into Downton Abbey is sort of like . . . Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. But less fun.
I couldn’t believe Tom would invite Miss Bunting again and couldn’t believe she accepted… Someone here gave the analogy a few pages back of feeling like you would have to speak out if your host made terribly racist statements. Okay, if that justifies contradicting your host at one dinner party, why would you come back a second time?
Loved everyone’s reaction to the fuss!
Edith is doomed to be an unhappy spinster. Do you think the family could concoct something where she and Greggson were secretly married so Edith could be his widow and claim her child?
Or perhaps Edith and Mary’s and Violet’s sexual “transgressions” could be revealed and they could invite Shrimpy to live with them permanently and just have a whole estate full of social outcasts?
There was a loud, collective, groaning “Nooooo!” at our house when Miss Bunting couldn’t keep her mouth shut last night. And yes, loved Mary’s cool “satisfied?” Could Sarah possibly dare to return after being thrown out by LG??
And regarding Edith, it seemed like foreshadowing to me when she had the heart to heart with daddy about the truth coming out. The subject was Greggson, but…
Am I the only one who laughs every time I hear the name “Shrimpy”?
JHS - I started out liking Bunting and have defended her here, but both she and the Crawleys are getting beyond stupid - she for her inablilty to keep her opinons to herself when anyone with any sense of decorum would know better and the Crawleys for perpetually inviting her back for yet another ugly incident. Both are in serious violation of the old “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” rule.
And I was surprised that Miss Bunting didn’t get up and leave immediately after being angrily thrown out by by Lord Grantham. I can’t imagine staying and finishing a meal at someone’s table after a scene like that. Except for Grantham who had stormed out, the whole room just papered over the incident and carried on as though nothing had happened.
As for additional other roles, Grantham was in “The Monuments Men” and Tom is in the current “The Imitation Game.”
Miss Bunting’s goading last night was incredibly rude and therefore seemed inauthentic. She really should have left immediately. It is Rose who keeps inviting her, but can even her youth and immaturity explain such an appalling lack of judgment? It was also odd that Mary seemed to be telling Tom it was all OK in the end because Violet enjoyed herself.
The Russians are annoying whiners. Edith needs to go. It seems far-fetched, but I keep wondering if once Daisy improves herself, she and Tom may marry and run the farm she is to inherit.
@PackMom, I’m watching Grantchester as well. In fact, I’ve also been recording The Great British Baking Show to watch later in the week, but last night I got to watch 3 in a row - PBS Festival 
I like Grantchester, but not as much as I like Downton Abbey or Sherlock.
Last night Violet said something about the baby. Does she know about Edith’s baby? In the season 5 promo, it seemed that would be revealed this season, but maybe I have forgotten that she is already in on this information. In the promo, they show Edith, Rosamunde, and Lady Violet discussing. Some of you who rewatched Season 4 recently will have to help me out.
I am worried that Gillingham will blackmail Mary with threats to implicate Anna and/or Bates since Mary had asked him to let the valet go. I don’t think she would care about him spilling the beans on the S-E-X and the other suitor seems like he might not mind either. The Greene thing is where he has her over a barrel.
My predictions/fantasies:
Mary is strong. Gillingham may try to blackmail her and she will let him have it. Then she will maneuver Mabel Fox back into his path and those two will live happily ever after with Mabel firmly steering the ship. Mary may get back with Blake but he’ll make her jump through a few hoops first.
Edith will visit a lawyer and claim her child. Something will finally push her over from maudlin depression into anger and she will put her foot down with the whole family, reclaim her modern self, and threaten to leave if they don’t accept her decision. (I really, really hope this happens although I know it’s a longshot)
LG will reluctantly and with much blustering accept her decision because Tom will be rattling sabers about moving far, far away (the US is too obvious, South Africa maybe?) and he doesn’t want to lose his granddaughter.
Anna will be charged with Bates’ murder and the real murderer will have to confess to free her.
Isobel and Lord Merton will marry. Violet and her Russian will have tea together. Maybe he will become her new butler!
Not sure about Tom and Sarah. The writers are defying all sorts of laws and logic and seem to like keeping it that way.
This seems to be the silly season. Lots of stuff is just not working for me.
Could this be a conflict of dining etiquette rules of the period? While LG did ask Bunting to leave angrily before storming out, wouldn’t it have been compounding the rudeness on Bunting’s part to leave and add to the disruptiveness from LG’s outburst? In that light, unless the rest of the family…especially VIolet expressed otherwise, wouldn’t it have been better for her to finish the meal with the rest of the family before leaving?
Am wondering as in many households I’ve been a guest of, the outburst itself would have been considered the far greater offense in similar situations and leaving abruptly just as rude and disruptive. Especially considering it’s the host who had the outburst and in light of his more elevated social status. Aristocrats and the upper-classes were, after all, supposed to be “better than that”.
Love this recap on nytimes.com:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/downton-abbey-recap-thomas-and-the-heterosexual-household/
(the author refers to us viewer/fans as Abbots.)
@2VU0609 - yes, The Dowager Countess does know about the baby. So far, Edith, her aunt Rosamund, grandmother Violet and the farmer are the only people aware that Marigold is really the love child of Edith and Gregson.
“While LG did ask Bunting to leave angrily before storming out, wouldn’t it have been compounding the rudeness on Bunting’s part to leave and add to the disruptiveness from LG’s outburst?”
To say that he “asked Bunting to leave” is putting it mildly. He ordered her out and told her to never come back. And even if Bunting leaving would have somehow made the situation worse (short of actual violence, how could it get any worse?), since when has Bunting ever worried about giving offense to the Crawleys? Quite the contrary, she loves to be rude to them. In Fellowes’s depiction of her she never passes up an opportunity to offend them yet again.
And IMO the Rude Sarah Bunting storyline illustrates one weakness of Fellowes’s writing. He takes one theme or character trait and positively beats it death. In fact he does this with almost every character trait and story - dragged out to the point they often become inauthentic or even downright far-fetched. Rude Sarah, Evil Thomas, Unhappy Edith, etc. They’ve all become cartoon characters.
Saintly Anna
Loved the NYT piece. Thanks for sharing.
And let’s not forget the cartoonish characters of seasons past, like O’Brien!