Daisy was absolutely right! What’s more, I think everyone knew it. Of course they all thought that she should stay in her place and just suck it up. Grrrr.
Speaking of Wickhams, the incredibly charming Matthew Goode, who played the character in Death Comes to Pemberley (an excellent mini-series, if you haven’t seen it), made his debut on the last episode of season 5 as the guest, Henry Talbot, whose arrival meant that Atticus couldn’t shoot. Sparks flew between him and Mary. You don’t bring a Matthew Goode into a show unless you are going to do something with him.
It will be either Charles Blake or Henry Talbot as the season goes on, I predict. I think Blake for the win, unless Talbot turns out to have hidden depths.
I’m sure Cora was wondering, too. But I’m also thinking that they’ve closed off a significant part of the house from use.
I loved Violet dealing with her ladies’ maid. Although I wish she’d have dismissed her and hired another; as they said, there would likely be many available, experienced women to take her place.
I think that Talbot being a car lover was too much of a callback to Matthew’s fondness for his car, not to be foreshadowing his eventual endgame with Mary.
Daisy may be young and impetuous but she’d have to be off her rocker to have embarrassed the family publicly the way she did. It would be extremely unlikely that she wouldn’t have been fired, no matter how fond the Crawley’s are of her.
Come to think of it, Daisy has to be at least 26 in the current season of DA (and that’s if she was 12 in the first season set in 1912) which wasn’t considered young by anyone in those days. She would have been fired for sure, irl.
@joblue what an interesting observation - Daisy must be at least 26 and more likely 30+ I would think! Yet, she still plays the ingenue, quite adorably of course. I forget that these characters are 13 years older than when the series started. Really, they all look and act exactly the same.
Well, I figure Mary must be at least in her early 30s, if not her mid-30s. She was old enough to marry in 1912, so I’m assuming she was a minimum of 20. Now it’s 13 years later.
Actually, now that I think of it, wasn’t there some suggestion that Mary had been out for several seasons, at the beginning, and that she was taking a long time to marry?
Or maybe it’s my imagination. )
Okay, everyone, do yourself a favor, and if you want to avoid a couple of HUGE SPOILERS do NOT google “how old was Mary at the beginning of Downton Abbey.”
The answer is that she was born in 1891, so she was indeed 20 or 21 at that time.
Oh geez, one of my grandmothers was born in 1896. I’m trying to see her act in any way like Mary and failing. She was very poor as a child and young woman - quite a different world even in the same time period.
And this brings up my eternal question–how old are George (and Sybbie) by now (1925)? Wouldn’t they be at least 10ish? Would Mary order: Run to Mummy! to a 10 year old boy who will someday be Earl?
I wonder how much of a scandal it really would have been for a rich, titled, thirty-year-old widow to have a tryst in a hotel in those days. Would it really have been fodder for blackmail? My gut says it wouldn’t have been.
I agree that you wouldn’t introduce Matthew Goode unless you have a plan for him. I didn’t realize his character was totally off The Good Wife…but I do like the actor playing the investigator…
Warning!!! Don’t check the wikipedia. I did and got a major spoiler. SOB!!! In any event, George was supposedly born in September 1921. Marigold was born between late 1922 and summer 1923.
In real life, it is quite possible for a child a year to a year and a half younger to be bigger. Besides for all we know, there’s some plot line in which George is failing to grow properly. Who knows?
Oh, BTW, Edith certainly can’t just give Marigold the Gregson surname. They were never married, Gregson died without knowing about Marigold, and Marigold is illegitimate. So, no Gregson surname.
Oh, BTW #2, though the illegitimate Rothschild did become the lady of Highclere, her mother was not permitted to attend the wedding reception, if i recall correctly. I also suspect it was the money that made the D socially acceptable…and it didn’t hurt that she was beautiful.
That is so true. I learned that early during the (American) season that Matthew died. I was trying to figure out a character’s name and in the process I scrolled by Mary’s entry which included a reference to “the late” Matthew Crawley. Oh no!!!