Downton Abbey

So true. Since Mary refused to marry Matthew back when what's-her-name got pregnant, I lost all my sympathy for her character. And while the other sisters adapt to the war and the changing times, she stays the same, and spends her days sulking about self-inflicted bullshit problems. In the end I didn't understand why Matthew was so fixated on her when he was surrounded by vastly better options.

It's such a flaw in what is otherwise a great show with great characterizations that I wonder if it's not intentional or if there's something being lost in the American v. English translation. I mean Mary is just resoundingly unlikable and unsympathetic to me. I can get that she wasn't thrilled in the first series at being married off to someone just so the family could keep the house (and she was totally up for doing so in her ever-resigned way anyway--as long as it was to a "gentleman"). But rather than rebelling against her fate, she's just so...blah about everything. Wah wah I'm not going to marry Matthew even though I like him because it's expected. Oh no, my reputation might be ruined because I'm not a 40 year old virgin. Oh no I turned down the guy I liked cause he wasn't rich anymore and people should feel for me. Oh no I broke up with the rich newspaper guy not because he was abusive but because I was tired of him.

I mean, the writers are obviously aware of it: Mrs. Hughes pretty much says what I think about Mary on a regular basis. I could buy people throwing themselves at her for her money and nice house but people seem to be doing it because everyone is in love with her. It not only makes me dislike Mary as a character, it makes me dislike otherwise pretty awesome characters like Matthew and Carson because of it.

That said, almost every single one of the servant story lines are far more interesting to me than the main family.

Ignoring Mary, sometimes I just want to smack Cora.

Ummm What about Edith writing the letters about the corpse in season 1? I always get a "Marsha Marsha Marsha" vibe from her.

Yeah, I see your single example of how bad Edith is and raise every scene Mary is in ever.

If I recall correctly that was only after Mary ruined Edith's proposal and Edith overheard her telling her mother that Edith had nothing to offer anyone. Also aftter the whole "I'm not going to bother mourning Patrick who I didn't want to marry anyway and am glad is dead" in front of Edith who, again, was upset.

So: Mary fucking deserved that one. And yet still we have never seen ANY fallout from that. At all. Ever. Anyone Mary's told? Forgives her. Cause Mary's middle name is Sue.

Meanwhile all poor Edith wants is to love and be loved and is instead forgotten. Poor Edith :(

It's been a while since I've seen season 1, but I recall thinking Edith was a scheming bitch early on. As opposed to Mary, who was a non-scheming bitch. However, over time Edith got better, which is how character arcs are supposed to work, characters grow with time. Sometimes even the arch-demons O'Brien and Thomas have show occasional signs of improvement, that generally they seem to relapse when they start to appear sympathetic.

In any case, I don't like Mary at all, and while I don't have Quackers' sympathy for Edith, I no longer think of her as awful.

But Downton Abbey is very bad about this, and that's one of my main gripes with it. We've seen some minor examples, but in the grand scheme, nothing changes. Matthew is crippled! No wait, no he's not, he's just very pale now! Thomas is gay! But let's forget about that. Instead, he has a crippled hand! Now he wears a glove! It goes so very well with HIS OLD FUCKING UNIFORM WHICH JUST HAPPENED TO BE KICKING AROUND IN DOWNTON WHICH HE JUST HAPPENED TO END BACK UP IN. The cook is old, and going blind! How sad! Wait, modern medicine is wonderful. Cookie is back! Daisy is an inexperienced girl-woman! Eight years later, Daisy is... an inexperienced girl-woman. She goes well with Professor McGonagall, who is old! But not older than she was eight years ago.

Incidentally, Mary is pretty awful, but she is also pretty. And Matthew is insufferable, good god.

I could take issue with some of your other points, but this one is very well taken. I wasn't even consciously aware that 8 years had passed, because not enough changes, particularly not Daisy. At some level I think of the whole thing as taking place in a few months despite the Titanic to post-WWI timeline, mainly because of how static characters like Daisy are.

I loved season one, it's that sort of magical, and completely unchallenging drama, which whisks you off to a past time and inserts lots of unrealistically nice people. Where minor problems are built to look like big drama, but not in a threatening way. Just wonderfully pleasant to watch. Except when Mr Bates goes all martyr, then you want to smack him.

Alas, season two was not so good. My biggest issue was the checkbox nature of the plots, they just felt like someone had an idea they wanted to put into the show and then it was shoehorned in regardless of character fit. The Lord Grantham and his maid affair was obviously telegraphed and comes out of nothing, indeed they even have a couple of scenes where he has a disagreement with Cora as a quick attempt to retcon in a reason for this plot line. Likewise the Sibil and Branson romance, which is missing any actual romance. Branson just tells her she likes him and then later she runs off with him. What? The whole season was filled with nonsense like this. There was one positive though in that Thomas and especially Miss O'Brian, become far more interesting and less two-dimensional characters.

The Christmas special was better than the entire second season and thus far I think the third season has made for a return to quality. Those looking for deep and layered drama though, this isn't the show for you. It's a pleasant escape.

Uh, he was blackmailing her. She becomes tired of him because he's always on the defensive, constantly angry and insecure in his position.

That's not how I understood it. Never once was she like "Man, he is abusive!" in the end she just did her Mary-sigh and was all "I'm bored."

She specifically comments on how he always sounds angry. He's not abusive, but she gets tired of him being angry because he feels insecure being a new money man amongst all the old money.

Oh, he's abusive. We specifically see him grabbing her and pushing/pulling her as well as threatening in at least two scenes. But that never, ever gets mentioned. Just Mary being Mary.

In his defense, maybe she just bruises easily.

I think from Mary's perspective she just sees that as a continuation of his insecurity with his position, rather than as potential for domestic violence in the future.

He spies on her, attempts to dominate her life and ultimately threatens her when she refuses to do as he demands. It is altogether likely that he is insecure around the lords and ladies of Downton Abbey, but this does not preclude him from also being an abusive figure.

The question is why doesn't Mary raise it, not whether he is or not. As I said, I think she views it as insecurity and not abusive behaviour.

Is this one of those situations where you have to consider the era?

God, Mary is still such a bitch. I wish someone would punch her in the stomach.

P.S. That'll work.

Oh dang!

Well, Merry Christmas to you too! Daaaamn.

Could they have made Matthew look any deader? That's like the deadest dead ever. Fucking car on his face dead. Thanks, show, for letting us know he's dead. Really dead.

I'm still half expecting him to be alive at the start of the next season. Like Christmas specials don't count or something.

If he is, I hope it was actually Mary who got squished by the car. No way does she deserve to live and he doesn't. Sure, he was a cock, but I didn't hate him nearly as much as Mary. But as Quackers said, yeah, that'll work.

my forum name is unironic

There's no way they'd bring him back. They already had him in a wheelchair, they won't do that again. So death via City of Angels stupidity it is. I half expected the Googoo Dolls song to start playing. AND I DON'T WANT THE WORLD TO SEE ME! CAUSE I DON'T THINK THAT THEY'D UNDERSTAND! I CLOSE MY EYES WHEN ON A BUSY ROAD! AND GET KILLED CAUSE I AM A DUMBASS!

It goes something like that anyway.

So. Are we going to see Tom/Mary now as they both raise their infants alone?

(I haven't read the thread because you all watched this last fall, you filthy internet pirates and/or British people) Major Spoiler:

THEY WORE THE WRONG TIES TO DINNER!!! THE MONARCHY WILL FALLLL!!!!!!

The next six weeks ain't gonna be easy for spoiler-keepin'.

Not photoshopped. I knew she looked familiar. No wonder Mary is such a bitch.

Two weddings and now a funeral!

I thought they'd just put her in a coma (because it's Downton), but they went full bore. So now childbirth = WWI in terms of tragedy at Downton Abbey. Actually childbirth wins, because WWI only took out a lowly footman.

Loved scene with Mary and Edith after the big event..

Me too. It was simply...lovely. Nothing more that I can say about that. :)

I have to say that being ahead of the curve is absolutely funny when it comes to reading reactions.

Apparently we don't talk about Downton, I just post silly things about Downton.

They're all so scruffy!

Carson would be appalled.

I...I end up wondering who Bates is going to shiv. You can see it in those eyes.

First rule of Downton Club...

Well, season 3 proper has now finished airing in the US and I think it was generally a lot better than the 2nd season. Without the bizarre timeskips in which everything at the abbey stood still, not to mention all those bizarre plotlines, it was a lot more solid. Bates's storyline was still dull as hell and had basically no suspense or intrigue or escalation or tension or anything resembling fun TV, but everything else picked up the slack: Ethel's storyline started out groan-worthy then became interesting enough; Mary and Matthew proved that they're much more interesting as a stable couple than otherwise; dear ol' Robert settled into a very interesting set-in-the-old-ways type guy, though Thomas is perfectly fine because reasons; and so on.

I was also, surprisingly, rather satisfied with the way that Thomas's plot resolved. I've always felt that much of his nasty behavior comes from feeling isolated by his sexuality; I assume that things didn't end well from wherever he came from and so he has no reason to trust others and so that's why he acts so selfishly... it might not be a particularly stable headcanon, but whatever. I'm certainly glad that James was never on the table as an actual love interest; the only way I'd be able to like Thomas as more than a character is if he can actually grow as a person into someone a lot nicer, and I think that change would come from a romantic interest, whereas Thomas was the one influencing James to be nasty and not James influencing Thomas to be nice. It seems that some people's opinions is that the ending to his plotline was poor due to its relative historical inaccuracy; Robert and Carson are really the only ones on the show to be super outspoken about their conservative viewpoints, and Robert ended up being the one to keep Thomas around. However, I really do like the way it ended up; while Thomas getting thrown out and having a terrible live and dying unhappy or whatever may have been ~historically accurate,~ I feel that all too often minorities in fiction are given plotlines about dealing with oppression because of ~accuracy~ and these plotlines often end in sorrow of some form. And so while one would be accurate, seeing a potential happy ending for a character dealing with extreme oppression is way better than seeing them treated horribly--in my opinion.

I probably should've done this thoughtspew on Tumblr or something, but eh, maybe it'll spark discussion? Though sheesh, all the "proper" discussions I've been involved with have been about homosexuality. XD

So when does the Christmas special air in America? Cos you guys really can't talk openly with those of us who've seen it until you're really caught up.

I'm not trying to be mean. It's just ... I mean ... really.

Yes, come back next week.

THEY GO TO SCOTLAND.
There are bagpipes there.
They are awesome.