Downton Abbey Series 3, Episode 3

‘Something happening in this house is actually about me.’ Oh, little did she know. Never was there a more sobering plotline as ‘poor Edith’ being jilted at the altar. The […]


‘Something happening in this house is actually about me.’ Oh, little did she know.

Never was there a more sobering plotline as ‘poor Edith’ being jilted at the altar. The hints were there, for it was all coming together too neatly. This was a wedding laid out with more pomp and resplendence than star-couple Matthew and Mary’s; hell, the latter even went in for a moment of sisterly bonding, putting aside her haughty demeanor (for all of thirty seconds) to wish the bride well.

While Lady Edith was left understandably dumb with shock, the Dowager Countess stepped in. She, for one, was relieved to see Strallan prove himself a vertebrate with his assertion that ‘darling’ Edith’s world is and should still be her oyster (à la Russe), and that he should never have let it go so far. Which he really shouldn’t have, ironically emerging as the least ‘gentlemanly’ of Lord Grantham’s motley crew of son-in-laws. The trouble with this sense of honour—as in Strallan’s with respect to Edith, Matthew’s concerning the Swire fortune, and Bates’s regarding Anna building a life without him—is that it makes each man’s wife quite miserable. A ‘drudge’ Edith is left, in spite of Cora’s motherly assurances that such a test will only make her stronger.

This episode was an explicit test of our affections for ‘plain’ Edith, so often overlooked by both cast and viewers. It certainly strengthened my sentiments: let Edith try her luck in New York, I say.

Below stairs Daisy ‘saves the day’, the new footman’s popularity is peaking and Carson is singing again. In fact the butler is proving himself to be quite the detective, ensnaring Mrs. Patmore (worst patient advocate) and the doctor to boot. Unless any of the cast members stumble upon fictional-contemporary Poirot in the next few episodes, I would heartily suggest that Anna get Carson on Bates’s case. As far as Vera is concerned, I’m still clinging on to the hope that it was she who poisoned Bates’s ‘tea’, taking the wrong serving in her ‘nervous’ state.

The rather short-lived ‘Downton Place’ drama was averted by another example of good-taste from the late Swire family. Somehow, with the pretty picnic and reassurance from Lord Grantham that they ‘still own[ed] most of the village’, it was hard to feel quite so sorry about the impending doom Mary has been feeling. I’m sure many would have paid good money to see the Dowager Countess open a shop, restoring the family coffers in a jiffy.

Lastly, what happened to ‘it was LUST, Matthew!’ Lady Mary? I realise they’re in the midst of a money war, but the total lack of charisma in the heir’s bedroom is a little surprising. Or perhaps not, when Fellowes *wink, wink* inserts lines such as ‘I’m not accusing you of faking it’… An indelicate observation, but, to misquote Sybil, he started it. ‘Vulgarity is no substitute for wit’, indeed.