This season comprises eight parts and Part Four is very much a middle child — neglected and a bit out of place.
What moves the story forward then throws it back back to the starting line is young footman Alfred chasing his dream of being a chef with a do-or-die audition at the Ritz.
At first, I feared Downton Abbey would turn into a show no one wants to watch: Gordon Ramsay picking would-be chefs at the Ritz in 1922 London.
Well, the sous chef of the Ritz is not quite Ramsey, but hangdog footman Alfred doesn’t make the cut. While Alfred is disappointed he carries on and keeps cooking. Daisy, who was the instrument last week in Alfred’s broken heart, is thrilled he’s staying downstairs. After all, Alfred killed it at dinner with with his savory tarts with egg-and-cheese filling. But for those of tired of the Daisy-Alfred-Ivy-Jimmy rectangle, looks like more to come.
And Alfred’s misfortune is doubled for poor, poor Molesley. The saddest sack of an underemployed valet is again sabotaged by his own pride when he has to think about butler Carson’s offer to fill the expected vacancy created by Alfred’s departure.
He returns to Downtown to accept Carson’s offer, only to be too late again. Maybe next time he won’t take “mature deliberation” and grab the opportunity before him.
Moving out of the shadows
Anna Bates and her husband John Bates are still mired in the secrets and lies stemming from the rape of Anna by a visiting valet.
Julian Fellowes, creator and writer of the show, has dragged the viewers down this awful plot of rape, and given the last episode, I wondered how he would resolve it. And this also goes back to how this show seems to either punish women for taking initiative or being independent, or trap them in trite, storylines (Hello, Cora, looking at you here.) Still, Fellowes manages to escape this one gracefully.
Can Bates learn what is troubling Anna? Meanwhile, Thomas installs a new ally, and Alfred takes up
cooking. Shown from left to right: Brendan Coyle as Mr. Bates and Joanne Froggatt as Anna Bates.
When Anna and Bates reconcile over the attack, Anna is convinced that Bates will no longer want her as she is “spoiled.”
She misjudges the measure of a man who instead, tells her, in some fairly clunky dialogue, that he loves more than ever.
“You are my wife and I have never been prouder nor loved you more than I have in this moment.”
And this puts an end to the whole sordid tale, right? Not a chance. Bates promises Mrs. Hughes that he will indeed find the man who hurt Anna. “Nothing is over and nothing is done with.”
Will this lead to a spin-off, Law and Order: Downton Abbey?
The spy who came in from the kitchen
Thomas Barrow is now engaging in spycraft. The new lady’s maid Phyllis Baxter (Raquel Cassidy) is indebted to Thomas for recommend her for the job.
“We both know why I need it,” she says. But what does Thomas want? A priceless commodity: Information on the changes the Crawleys plan on making to the estate. And he also wants to repair his battered reputation among the servants. “They don’t like you,” Baxter remarks.
So he pushes her to ingratiate herself upstairs with the Crawleys and downstairs, with her electric sewing machine, with the rest of the staff.
Upstairs with a broken heart
An engagement notice in the newspaper informs Lady Mary that Lord Anthony Gillingham is engaged to Miss Mabel Lane-Fox. Mary sheds a tear (of regret? Relief?) over the news, but never fear, intrepid viewer, a possible Bachelor No. 2 arrives. Mr. Napier (Brendan Patricks), a mysterious former acquaintance of Lady Mary, who was investigating the decline of stately homes in Yorkshire, is another entry in the race to win the hand of the grieving widow. But Napier also, unwittingly, sets up yet another suitor, his own boss, Mr. Blake. (Given that he has a headshot in the PBS media materials, more to come next week.)
Taking charge
Lord Grantham also takes the reins and overruled Mary and Tom Branson on a bit of estate management. An elderly tenant farmer, far behind in his rent, has died and now his son aims to take over. The farmer’s family has worked those lands for since the Napoleonic Wars, he reminds Lord Grantham.
“We’ve worked this land in partnership with the Crawleys for more than a century.”
But the would-be farmer doesn’t have the 50 pound to make up the debt, and proposed a payment plan. Robert, who seizes on the partnership angle, offers to loan the man the money and he can pay off the debt.
Mary is unconvinced, telling her father that “The world moves on and we must move with it.”
Still, Robert doesn't want to chuck out the old for the sake of the new.
“If we don’t respect the past we’ll find it hard to build our future."
Robert hides the loan from Mary and Tom, and the the farmer’s son later lets it slip. Mary isn’t upset but rather pleased to be in partnership with a good man.
Greener pastures
Tom Branson has made no secret of his unease trying to live among the upper class when he is decidedly working class. He proposes going to America, for a fresh start for himself and baby Sybbie, where “she won’t e the daughter of an uppity chauffeur.
Still, I can’t imagine Lady Grantham (ooh, a plotline for Cora beyond planning Robert’s birthday party?) will so easily surrender her granddaughter across the pond.
A single mum?
Laura Carmichael as Lady Edith
She slips off to London, after Michael Gregson has left for Germany, to a surgeon’s office.
To confirm a pregnancy or to end one?
Abortion is still illegal in England, even to save the life of the mother.
Not a futurist
The march of technology still perplexes Mrs. Patmore, who is not a futurist as Thomas points out. Watching Baxter use a sewing machine and Lady Grantham propose for a refrigerator, almost undoes Mrs. Patmore. When asked what of the past she would be glad to leave behind, Mrs. Patmore eagerly says, “my corset.” Will ladies of today soon be saying the same of Spanx and other shapewear?
Random thoughts
Not one of the best episodes: The plotting was haphazard and there was too much corny dialogue.
Not much of Lady Rose this week, thankfully, but never fear she'll be back as there’s a birthday party for Lord Grantham in the works. Want to be that she’ll take change of the guest list? The small party envisioned by Lady Mary might need a singer to jazz up the birthday song? Wonder what day Jack Ross is off from the Lotus Club?
When Lord Grantham and Mr. Drew, son of the late tenant farmer, are discussing the pending foreclosure, Lord Gratham says he is no “Simon Legree, in reference to the vicious plantation owner in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom's_Cabin
The back-and-forth between Isobel Crawley and the Dowager Countess over the hiring and then possible firing of Young Peg as an assistant gardener was lackluster and predictable. Yes, Isobel would be the do-gooder, and the Dowager would huff and puff and ultimately agree. Better to have them spar over substance. Such as Edith’s choice for a husband.
Best of the Dowager Countess:
Somewhat slim choices, but I loved her reaction to Lord Grantham’s proverb about the past affecting the future.
“It was too good. One thing we don’t want is a poet in the family,” the dowager says.
Isobel Crawley asks if that would be a bad thing.
“The only poet peer I am familiar with is Lord Byron. And I presume we all know how that ended,” the dowager says. (Quite badly: Byron is associated with incest, violence and death.)
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