<p>I’m getting bored with the stringing along of the Bates sub plot. When did Bates lose his limp anyway?</p>
<p>^^^^^^So funny. Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>Love the Facebook version. Very funny.</p>
<p>Thanks patsmom - so funny. I posted the link to my facebook (is there some sort of irony there?) for my real life facebook friends (again - some irony) that enjoy Downton Abbey</p>
<p>Confession:</p>
<p>I always read the end of every novel after about 50 pages. </p>
<p>I also read a recap of season three a couple of weeks ago. </p>
<p>On a totally seperate note, Mary has become quite a pill this season.</p>
<p>And Edith is the most interesting character, by far.</p>
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<p>That’s what they want you to start thinking. They showed him getting violent in a preview of next week’s episode, suggesting that that he has a dark side. The fact that they now want you to suspect him almost certainly means that he didn’t actually do it - in other words a red herring.</p>
<p>I think Bates did it. MRS. Bates. Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…that’s why she demanded they marry. So HE wouldn’t be able to testify against HER.</p>
<p>Oooo sweet, that is interesting.</p>
<p>Does anyone else think the pacing of Series 3 is a little too fast? It seems different from the other two. It’s oddly unsatisfying.</p>
<p>No, not Anna! But if we “round up the usual suspects,” we’d have Thomas and O’Brien, of course. Both of them would like to get rid of Bates. (Remember when O’Brien asked to “borrow” some baking soda in the kitchen? That was strange, but she would have had to get away to plant the tainted baking soda in Vera’s kitchen - not likely) Then there’s Sir Richard, who had dealings with Vera and a vested interest in keeping her story out of the papers. He’s also ruthless and rich and could have paid someone. But I still think it was Vera herself, a carefully plotted final stab at Bates that would bring him lifelong punishment, even though it cost her her life. Seems drastic to me, but that’s where I’m at right now.</p>
<p>I’ve seen Quartet, the movie Dustin Hoffman directed, with Maggie Smith (and a number of other fine, older British actors). It’s really very good, and she is very good in it. Not so different from her Downton Abbey character – she plays an imperious retired diva, coping with the realization that she can no longer live independently, or lord it over others quite so much as she used to. The character is less witty, more reserved, and more vulnerable, but still snobby and majestic. When I have seen Smith as herself in interviews, she’s not like that at all; she’s positively bawdy, a clown.</p>
<p>I think we would all agree that Maggie Smith is absolutely wonderful, in Downton Abbey and anything else she does! I would like to see “Quartet” - it sounded interesting. (And I have special interest as the mother of an opera singer!) : ) They played a scene from the movie during the interview (of course, this was radio), a scene where she was trying to reconcile things with her ex-husband, and she sounded just as you’ve described. I also want to see the one about the group of seniors going to the hotel in India - “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” The actress who plays Isobel is also in this one!</p>
<p>I loved “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel!” Maggie Smith was wonderful, as were all the actors–it was even better than I expected!</p>
<p>I have an idea about who did Vera in. On the day Mr. Bates went to talk to her about the divorce (the day he said was terrible and he came home with the scratch on his cheek), suppose Vera had baked the pies or cakes or whatever with the arsenic in it, and those were individual pies. She puts out tea and the pies and they at first talk things over. While she is in the kitchen getting the sugar or whatever, Mr. Bates switches their plates and cups, thinking she might have put something bad in his portion. So, she tried to poison him, but due to his action, she gets the poisoned pie.</p>
<p>How this would come out now or exonerate him, I don’t know. But Agatha Christie used that switcheroo play of poisoned portion. Wonder how long arsenic takes to work?</p>
<p>The switcheroo is definitely a classic plot line! I think it works best, though, when the guest doesn’t want to let the host know that he distrusts her. That is, he actually has to follow through and eat and/or drink what’s offered so as not to tip his hand. I can’t see Bates actually sitting down to tea with Vera in an attempt at a civil discussion over pie. Still, he may have refused the offerings, and, suspecting foul play, switched them anyway, but then he would be knowingly poisoning Vera, (or at least suspecting that he might be) and I don’t think he has that in him either. </p>
<p>That O’Brien/baking soda thing is still nagging at me. In a show where every line seems so weighty with meaning and relevance to the storyline, for no apparent reason O’Brien pops into the kitchen and asks to borrow baking soda. And Mrs. Patmore, in case we might gloss over the request, draws our attention to it by saying, “Borrow? Are you going to bring it back when you’re finished?” Hmmmm…</p>
<p>And remember the scene where Mrs. Patmore accidentally sprinkled some kind of poison on the food thinking it was salt or something because her cataracts prevented her from reading the label clearly? One of the servants had to run upstairs and retrieve the poisoned food before it was served. I wonder if that was some kind of foreshadowing.</p>
<p>If the business with the poison being stored in the kitchen next to similar powders in a similar jar WASN’T foreshadowing, then it was terrible writing (and Mrs. Patmore’s an idiot). Chekhov’s gun needs to be fired. Cf. the riding lawnmower in the classic episode of “Mad Men.”</p>
<p>Chekov wrote well-made 3-act plays, not TV serials with dozens of episodes written over the better part of a decade. If every gun placed on the wall at some point had to be fired before the conclusion, by the third season you would have nothing left to do but fire the guns. These serials don’t work that way. When someone hangs a gun on the wall in episode 1.6, the writers may have a sense that it could be useful to have it go off later in the season, or maybe next season, but all they have for later in the season is a bare outline, and they don’t even have that for next season. (They don’t even know if there will be a next season.) Shows like this are littered with guns that were never fired.</p>
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<p>Anna’s detective work reveals that Bates really did it. How does she get her head around that? </p>
<p>That would make the plot more interesting than it, unfortunately, is. </p>
<p>Julian F. does not seem that creative. Bates is getting tiresome. After all the drama of Mary and Matthew finally achieving their hearts’ desire, they seem like they’ve been married 40 years not 40 days.</p>
<p>Well, even if we find Bates’s predicament tiresome or we’re disappointed in Mary - yet again - the show must be doing something right because we all keep watching and we all keep talking about it! I think what keeps me coming back is that the characters, like Mrs. Patmore and Mr. Carson and so many of them, are so “knowable.” We watch and say, “Oh! That’s sooo Mrs. Patmore!” Or “I knew O’Brien would have something to say about that!” And the dialogue is just so enjoyable! Even when they are insulting each other, they are so gracious about it (if that’s even the right word.) I remember Violet and Isobel at the flower show, when Violet makes a comment about Isobel, and Isobel says, “I take that as a compliment!” But Violet turns to Cora and says, “Oh! I must have said it wrong!” Hilarious!</p>