Downton Abbey Series 3, Episode 4

Every time Fellowes introduces a new plot line you can be sure it’ll get killed stone dead three scenes later. Or so it would seem. As another reviewer noted, ‘things happen, but not a lot changes’ at Downton Abbey these days.

Mrs Hughes’ cancer scare is completely forgotten. The Swire family are neatly deceased. Edith accelerates toward spinsterhood and Branson, sorry, ‘Tom’ (I can’t get used to it either) still refuses to adopt some semblance of tact in dealing with his in-laws, despite multiple warnings. A potentially meaty debate on religion and ‘Johnny Foreigner’ Catholics with the Archbishop was interrupted before it even started.

I’m not entirely sure what the scenes concerning Sybil and Tom were supposed to achieve. Based on our knowledge of Sybil’s character, any escape plan was going to be contrived with a greater degree of rationality than her father would give her credit for possessing. Was the whole episode supposed to test Sybil’s loyalty? There was a touching enough scene showing her and Tom’s reunion; the separation was obviously traumatic for him, providing some compensation for his blinding Irish pride. Downton is to be his prison after all.

Bates is in turns wonderful, guilty, not guilty, definitely guilty, scary, wonderful… not guilty? Free him up already. I will grudgingly admit that there was a little, a tiny little bit of relief from the waning dramatic tension of the prison scenes. The guards’ withholding of contact provided an interesting test to the slightly tiresome Bates-behaves-‘gallantly’-Anna-must-insist-she’s-going-nowhere storyline, and found him wanting. As Branson’s pride is undercut, cracks begin to show in Bates’ facade of honour.

Lady Edith proves herself not so desperate as to take up gardening, thank God. On the Dowager Countess’ insistence that she is ‘a woman with a brain and reasonable ability’, Edith does indeed ‘stop whining and find[s] something to do’, writing to The Times on suffrage. That she is to be made a columnist on the strength of one letter to the Editor shows how times have changed indeed.

The episode’s action was saved by the introduction of handsome footman Jimmy (Sybil totally picked the wrong servant) and an outstanding performance from Amy Nuttal, who plays Ethel. ‘The hardest thing to do’, this is a poignant reminder of the harshness of poverty, it forces one to deal candidly with opportunity.

The trailer for this episode showed serious potential. Cryptic phone calls, hints of further complications for Bates and Anna, and the suggestion that Matthew’s residency is rumbling the running of the household: all but the latter were resolved before the hour was out.

I’m not sure whether this ‘stability’ is comforting or not. Exposed as cynics, we must nevertheless be reassured that good will always triumph over evil, that despite shock, horror and gossip Downton will survive. That, we should be more than content with.