By Joanna Robinson | TV | January 6, 2014 |
By Joanna Robinson | TV | January 6, 2014 |
In lieu of a standard recap, we’ll be doing a Monday morning b*tchcap for Downton Abbey’s fourth season run on PBS. Although many of you might have somehow seen Season 4 already, I’ll ask that you refrain from spoiling any Americans in the comments section below. So please feel free to discuss everything up to and including Season 3, Episode 5 of the PBS version of “Downton Abbey.” But, before you do, here are this week’s b*tch rankings.
Runners up: Lady Mary who gets a pass for b*tchily raining on Edith’s parade and sniping at Carson on account of the fact that she lost the love of her life. You get a pass this week, Mary. But watch it. Also, the Dowager Countess’s butler Spratt for sabotaging poor Molesley, all the footmen for not seeing how adorable Daisy is and new-fangled kitchen technology for making Mrs. Padmore feel inferior.
5. Lady Susan/O’Brien: Well at least they didn’t kill her off, right? Siobhan Finneran wanted to leave the show and unlike Matthew and Lady Sybill before her, she was allowed to do it under her own steam. This caused quite a fuss, however, and I think we can all lay some blame on fictional Lady Susan for depriving us of those adorably scheming corkscrew curls.
4. Carson: Carson was pretty heartless about his former theater buddy and fairly clueless when it comes to Valentine’s Day and Mrs. Hughes (kiss her, man!), but he doesn’t rank too high this week because of his tender treatment of Mary. That being said, it’s just the kind like snobby Carson to have all the sympathy in the world for Lady Mary and none for his penniless partner.
3. Lord Grantham/Male-preference Cognatic Primogeniture: I’m of the opinion that Lord Grantham is secretly the villain of the piece. We can blame him for a lot of the misery at Downton. But his villainy wasn’t very secret this week. He’s trying to put baby in a corner and keep Mary in her funk so he can have everything his way Very shabby indeed.
2. Edna Braithwaite: Is this the new O’Brien? She’s a poor substitute. We have to admire her ability to worm her way back into Downton. Particularly after all this post-Sybill nonsense.
1. Nanny West: I did think for a second Nanny would be our new O’Brien. Or, alternatively, that Thomas was being out of control in his Nanny protest. But, no, we wasted no time revealing her to be a torrential, racist *sshole. The upshot? Cora got to have a pretty bad*ss moment. Those are few and far between.
Most Heartbreaking Moment:
I suppose it’s supposed to be this. But I don’t get what you all see in Mary.
So I’m going to say it’s when I decided that Lady Edith’s darling, married boyfriend might secretly be a Nazi or something terrible because Julian Fellows despises Edith and likes to see her suffer.
Best Dressed:
Lady Edith!!!! Who is an absolute stunner in these new modern fashions.