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<p>Haha… I put that cartoon up on my FB wall. It was hilarious!</p>
<p>I think I read Elizabeth McGovern has lived in England for a long time, maybe 20 years. She hadn’t been acting too much prior to Downton, but had just the right actual background to play Cora. I don’t think of her accent as a British hybrid, but now that it was mentioned, there is a little bit there. I actually think someone who had lived there for that long would sound much more British.</p>
<p>To me it was always obvious that the show wants to convey that Mary is the heart of the show, but she’s never felt that way. Every so often, the show plays “pin the empathy on Mary” but the rest of the time, she’s so non-empathetic towards anyone, that it’s just hard for me to like/care about her. This season, she was relatively benign (nothing like losing the woe-is-me worldweariness of the first two seasons–she could only go up in my estimation from there) but then, yup, her cynicism and snobbiness pop up again.) I can’t pinpoint one person as the “heart”, I’m not sure there is one, for me. I could say “Downton”, but that doesn’t feel really so to me, either.</p>
<p>Actually, I think Matthew may have been–he reflects the intersection of the different worlds that are meeting in this time period at DA.</p>
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<p>I think it’s really noticeable when she says “Robert”. She pronounces the second ‘r’ more like an American than an upper-class Brit, while the ‘o’ is more British than American.</p>
<p>I’m curious to see what type of mother Mary will be. In the season 4 premier (which will be set 6 months from the finale) I can see her having either little to do with her son, relegating everything to nannies, or being an extremely overprotective helicopter parent. While I doubt we’ve seen the last of the succession crisis, I really hope that “Patrick” does not return. To me, that plot line was the low point of the second season.</p>
<p>Elizabeth McGovern has been married to British director Simon Curtis for about 20 years. They have 2 kids. She’s lived mostly in Britain since marrying him.</p>
<p>I just read her wikipedia entry. She was once engaged to Sean Penn! Looks like he dumped her for Madonna, based on the time line. Boy, did she dodge a bullet there!</p>
<p>About 30 years ago she was in a wonderful movie with Sean Penn called Racing with the Moon.</p>
<p>Loved that movie, Booklady!</p>
<p>The Facebook version of episode 7 is posted!</p>
<p>[Downton</a> Abbey Facebook Recap Season 3 Episode 7 | Happy Place](<a href=“http://www.happyplace.com/21471/downton-abbey-facebook-recap-season-3-episode-7]Downton”>http://www.happyplace.com/21471/downton-abbey-facebook-recap-season-3-episode-7)</p>
<p>Love it. As usual. </p>
<p>Who creates these?? Kudos to whoever it is.</p>
<p>Love those facebook recaps… right up until that last instagram photo. :(</p>
<p>Tom and Lorenzo’s Downton Abbey blog gave an interesting idea about the show going forward:</p>
<p>“This is such a hard left turn in the plot that we almost feel like we wasted our time with all that marriage and entail drama of previous seasons. And where is the story to go from here? Mary will never be the Countess of Grantham, which is a goal that has driven all of her actions since the opening scenes of the first episode. Little Matthew Junior will inherit the title and we find ourselves wishing that, for the next season, Fellowes just skips ahead about 16 years and we settle in to watch the nearly grown Sybil Branson and Matthew Crawley Jr. take over the reins of Downton as World War II bears down on them. The prospect of watching the family shuffle through the rest of the 1920’s bores us, especially since the only interesting thing happening to a Crawley right now is Edith’s decision to become a mistress to a married man… Just skip through the whole mourning process and the dreary “raising a child on your own” story and just have teenage Matthew Jr. inherit his estate just as war breaks out again. It’s the only potential plotline with any interest to us.”</p>
<p>Tom and Lorenzo Fabulous and Opinionated - television - Downton Abbey: Visitors from the South - posted Feb. 18, 2013</p>
<p>^^ All true, but I still like looking at the clothes, and the manners and customs.</p>
<p>Just a thought - we all do a lot of complaining about certain characters or plotlines, but we keep eagerly coming back for more! DA must be doing SOMETHING right :p</p>
<p>I’m with you, VeryHappy! I’d watch just to look at everything. I am interested in what the 1920s will bring, though. No prohibition in the UK so they will kind of lack the punch (pardon the pun) that that era had in the US, although there may be aspects of British interwar history that I’m not aware of that will play into the story.</p>
<p>I would love to have them meet Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, maybe have Edith stay over at Aunt Dahlia’s, have Tom fall in with Barmy and the Drones.</p>
<p>Re Bertie Wooster and gang: I’d like to see Edith engaged to Gussie Fink-Nottle, at least until he’s able to squirm out of it. She’s always reminded me a bit of Madeline Basset, even more so now with her writing career.</p>
<p>Here’s the cartoon: <a href=“http://fresnobeehive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pbs-pledge-drive.jpg[/url]”>http://fresnobeehive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pbs-pledge-drive.jpg</a></p>
![http://fresnobeehive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pbs-pledge-drive.jpg[/url]](http://fresnobeehive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pbs-pledge-drive.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>We can’t jump to when the babies are much older, otherwise they’d have to explain how the Dowager is in such great shape for 90.</p>
<p>Well, the dowager and the rest of the bunch haven’t aged since 1912, so maybe they have a secret we don’t know about. (I guess they’ve aged a couple of years).</p>