The House Party from Hell has come to an end. But not all of guests’ departure are as welcomed as others. Sure the farewell of sexual predator is always a good thing but when his boss, Lord Gillingham admitted to Lady Mary that he doesn’t even like his servant then the audience and I were all for “fire him and stay to woo the lady”. He doesn’t fire him. After all with Anna telling everyone her bruises came by the way of a wall; there isn’t a plausible reason to fire the guy. Although Gillingham isn’t done with Mary just yet.
How can he when everyone else including Lady Cora are encouraging a match. They want to see Mary smile again. The way Matthew used to make her do but no one can rush a grieving widow out of mourning. Which leads us to one of the cliffhangers from last week.
There was some confusion on whether anything actually happened between Edna and Branson. Here are some hurtful truths. She took advantage of him because she is nothing but a scheming social climber. There is no passionate love for Branson she’s harboring. It’s his position she wants. She wants to become part of the Crawley family. That’s why she attempts to use the oldest trick in the book. She confronts Branson with a possible pregnancy. She wanted to guilt trip him into marrying her.
Well that was never going to occur on Mrs. Hughes’ watch. She appears to have become the confidant of all the lost souls at Downton. That’s why she did her very best to convince Anna to say something to Bates if no one else. Anna keeps pushing away her husband out of misplaced guilt. He can’t understand what’s going on or why he can’t touch his wife. Then from out of nowhere she wants to put back into the big house and away from him leaves confused and can’t really blame him for being angry. Her behavior has changed drastically overnight. And she rather no one finds out why.
The whole episode was centered around the notion of repercussions. be they real or made up like in Edna’s case. Thankfully she was giving the boot by Mrs. Hughes but poor Cora is starting to think she’s cursed with ladies maids. She obviously never found out the real reason Edna gave her walking papers.
Speaking of someone else is preparing to leave. Alfred wants to leave Downton and go off to become a chef. He would have stayed but in a moment of weakness Daisey revealed his crush, Ivy to sneaking in kisses with Jimmy. Daisy was sick of hearing how wonderful the girl was so she just wanted to tarnish her a bit. What she ended up doing was giving Alfred the perfect reason to leave. Daisy wants to be happy for him yet it’s hard. Thankfully she has Mrs. Patmore who understood the situation better than some would have guessed. She tells Daisy that this way is better than living with a one-sided love.
Then there is the ladies of the house. They went off to London, some for pleasure and some for work. Aunt Rosamund with the help of Cora again attempt to pair up Gillingham and Mary. This time though she was a little more truthful with him.b She told him she wasn’t ready to move on and she knew he had his mind set on marriage in the near future. He claimed that wasn’t necessarily so yet after another rejection he informs her he’s preparing to propose to someone else. He had a family on the mind and in the end Mary was right. He couldn’t wait around till the undetermined time she got over Matthew.
Lady Rose didn’t really surprise this week by kicking up a stir. She went out with family and dance partner in tow. In the beginning they all were enjoying herself then her date got really drunk. They were in the middle of a dance when he had to run off the floor searching for the nearest bathroom or most likely plant to get sick in. She was embarrassed to be left there when the band leader came off stage to dance with her. It was very kind of him but her family felt the need to intervene. They didn’t intervene when she was dancing with a Tipsy gentlemen but they’ll intervene when she’s dancing with a black man.
Not that rose saw anything wrong with it. To her he was her hero. To everyone else it was time to head home in a hurry.
Last and always considered least there was Sybil. Her carrying on with a married gentlemen could have been excused if she had come home before 6 in the morning. It made her get a stern warning about her reputation. As Aunt Rosamund says things are changing but certain structures remain the same. A girl’s reputation is very important.
With people like that guarding chastity belts it’s easy to see how someone in Anna’s position wouldn’t have gotten much sympathy. If she could have been assured of society’s sympathy then she wouldn’t have suppressed what happened to such an extent. Where is women’s liberation when you needed. Sybil was the suffragette of the show but with her passing they need someone new to fill her shoes.
