Wordy Old Men on Deadwood: The Movie

After more than a dozen years spent anxiously awaiting a thing that it seemed would never come, the final (?) chapter of Deadwood is upon us. This was such an occasion that it felt like Wordy Ginters and I had dust this old thing off to talk about it.

Old Man Duggan: Fuck.

I mean—fuuuuuuuck.

We just finished watching the original run of the series this past week—I was rewatching while Jack Attack was seeing it all for the first time. It was a real trip seeing all our best friends and E.B. all grown up. And that fucker George Hearst too.

Wordy Ginters: The physical effects of time on most of these actors definitely caused some cognitive dissonance. I had the same feeling watching Twin Peaks: The Return. These beloved shows, and these characters, are a delicate thing to be picked up after years in storage. The two series (Deadwood and Twin Peaks) are too disparate for any meaningful comparison, other than their shared greatness, but it’s interesting to me how the passing of time itself, evident in the faces and bodies of the characters, ends up being a physical representation of some of the themes explored.

OMD: Indeed. It's kind of funny that they had to make some of them up to look even older because they hadn't aged as much as their characters should have. Still, Dayton Callie, Ian McShane, W. Earl Brown, even a suddenly almost distinguished looking Sean Bridgers all seem to have worn the weight of their characters' theoretical interseries/movie lives.

Not gonna lie, there’s so much to fucking unpack here. It’s daunting. May as well start at the top with the changes to Deadwood being shown in the form of the railroad carrying telephone poles and that “murdering, conniving, thieving cocksucker" Hearst, invading our wild-ass mining hamlet. Verizon and the Chicago and North Western Railroad doing their damnedest to gentrify what should surely have remained raw and untamed. Can you hear me now? Go fuck yerself, Change. Coming out of the darkness and emerging into the world strapped to the front of a train. I guess you’re gonna make us embrace change whether we want to or not, Mr. Milch.

WG: I’m thrilled that Milch was able to get the movie done. But after three seasons and 36 hours of Deadwood, it’s almost impossible to advance the cause in a satisfying way in 110 minutes.

OMD: It was weird seeing them refer to Jane as “Calamity Jane” for what I believe is the first time. Guessing the moniker was affixed to her after departing Deadwood sans Wild Bill. While she did grate on the nerves from time to time, there was something sweet about kicking shit off again with her slurring to herself, farting on muleback whilst lamenting loves lost, hoping to get the one she can back.

WG: I thought it was the perfect open. Calamity Jane. Drunk. Hanging the Deadwood-ese tapestry of swears over the valley. The half-crocked and mindless toss of the empty bottle brought to mind Tootie chucking a hunk of ice into the back of the ice wagon in your favorite movie, Meet Me in St Louis. Oh Mr. NEEEEEELEEEY.

OMD: Fuck that dumb movie. What kind of piece of shit culminates in marveling at a city in the throes of wishing it was Chicago while hosting a disaster of a World's Fair/Olympics. That dumb damn family was probably responsible for the historically disastrous Olympic Marathon, but Vincente Minnelli had them whitewash it all.

WG: We part ways on this one OMD.  I'm unapologetically on board with that flick.  I do admire the intensity of your ire.  

OMD: Jumping to the Gem, glad to see there’s not been much turnover in terms of most of the staff. Obviously ten years in the life of a prostitute in the late 19th Century has to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 years now, so the women of the Gem from the series have surely gone to greener pastures, but Al Swearengen, Dan Dority, Johnny Burns, and Jewel are still holding things together—the glue the holds the whole damn place together, I suppose.

WG: The “brotherhood” amongst those villainous bastards was some of what makes this show so damn great. The monsters, they have heart. They bleed. They love each other. I hope they have some younger muscle on staff that they’ve been mentoring though. Should any events that require cardio present themselves, I’m not sure Dan and Johnny can be counted on for more than a round or two. By this point, they’ve got “guys” they send into the fray on their behalf. Right?

OMD: I mean for their sake, I hope so. But given the fact that Johnny and Dan are out in the thoroughfare, having Bullock's back, firearms at the ready, Johnny getting shot in the shoulder in support of the cause, I'm not so sure they've got young studs in the stable.

WG: I suppose the natural progression of old-timey muscle is to transition from hand-to-hand combat and knife work to the relatively less physically taxing gun-play.   I still think Swearengen, being the mustachioed Machiavellian that he is, has to have some young beef at the ready should Dan need to tag-in someone else for a breather.  We speak later of the Swearengen/Trixie relationship.  The bond between Dan and Al also goes down as one of the all-time great pairings.  

OMD: Seeing Al so haggard and jaundiced—a man whose previously indefatigable lifeforce propelled virtually everything in pre-territorial Deadwood—was jarring. As he seemed so much to be the mouthpiece for the show’s ailing creator, Al’s evident mortality and failure to recall the day of the week is poetic, sure, but fuck me, does it ever shake you to the core. A life lived hard. A liver done gone.

WG: One thing rewatching Deadwood drives home is exactly how much Milch has probably written himself into Swearengen. I don’t think it was a particularly big secret, but I didn’t realize Milch was a gambling addict. Ex-heroin addict too. Alcoholic. Stories came out a couple of years back about how he gambled away hundreds of millions. Mostly at the track. In several episodes, characters mouth the addict's lament—let me have my vices. Don’t bother me. I know it’s shameful, but I can’t do it any other way. I found an article from way back in 1994, the cultural conservatives (Rev Donald Wildmon) were shitting themselves over Milch’s NYPD Blue (nudity! swears!). Milch’s response to Wildmon’s concerns was something straight off the pages of a Deadwood script, “I represent the apotheosis of everything for which he has unaffected scorn and great alarm." Swearengen might be my favorite TV character of all-time. Seeing him diminished took a lot of the fun out of the movie for me. However, it was probably fitting closure and a true through-line of his character arc, from satanic to anti-hero to cucked good guy.

OMD: In the it’s-nice-some-things-haven’t-changed department, glad to see Doc Cochran is his old, cantankerous self, serving up his diagnoses with a heavy dose of piss and vinegar, all while having his medical advice roundly ignored.

WG: Brad Dourif one of my favorite actors. Wise Blood. Dune. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Bunch of Lynch films. Speaking of horse racing degenerates, he stars in a movie called Horseplayer. I haven’t seen it in years, but I loved it at the time. Dourif rocks a querulous perm in that one. Weirdly owns it.

OMD: Can't wait to track that one down. Need. The. Dourif. Perm.

Charlie Utter. First, he’s told by those pole cats that he needs to get with the times. Then, Don Swayze and Tony Curran—eventually revealed to be Hearst’s latest batch of henchmen—whose lack of manners rub Utter entirely the wrong way. Milch wastes no time with his hour-forty-five in getting things moving, setting up the incident that shoots the narrative into high gear in the first few scenes.

WG: Was the young lady they were harassing (Caroline?) supposed to be the sister of the prostitute Al whacked at the end Season Three as a fill-in for Trixie?

OMD: I've yet to find anything definitively linking Jen to Caroline Woolgarden, the newest would-be practitioner of the world's oldest profession. I suspect she's meant to stir those feelings in Johnny while showing that the more things change the more things stay the same.

WG: In retrospect, the timing and ages probably don't square. I happened to rewatch that particular episode prior to the movie, so the question of "notifying next of kin" was fresh in my mind.

OMD: The familial interplay at the Bullocks’ breakfast table was nice. I’m glad Seth and Martha were able to build a life together for themselves after William’s passing. Almost as pleasant was Hearst being thrown off his game as Bullock planted himself front and center while giving the speech commemorating South Dakota’s statehood. Think his ear was burning?

WG: Bullock dragging Hearst around by his ear is the most gratifying truth to power visual in the history of moving pictures. I’d like to see Bullock just ear drag him around Deadwood all day long, as he goes about his rounds. To the post office. To the goods and sundries store. To the courthouse. To the public telephone. To hot yoga class.

OMD: Old Man Hearst lamenting his back pain whilst Bullock busts out his downward dog, ear still firmly in Seth's grasp, would be manna from heaven.

WG: "Jesus H Christ Hearst, your ear is greasy."  Bullock, probably, relatively early in the day. 

OMD: Leave it to Trixie, the only character on the show more irascible than Bullock, to not be able to stay in bed while hurtling at breakneck speed toward the delivery of the Baby Star and instead barges out, mid-cigarette, to the balcony to call the now-Junior Senator from the State of California out as a “murdering shitheel” and a bevy of other factually (at least within the construct of the show) accurate and exceptionally foul things. If ever David Milch’s penchant for gutter-mouthed diatribes doubling as poetry were on display, it was being spewn forth from Paula Malcomson’s mouth, raining down on the "bald pate" of Gerald McRaney. Self-preservation is not in Trixie’s being.

WG: Trixie gonna Trixie. Milch’s penchant for showing how melodious the siren call of self-defeating behavior can be. No wonder the wet-mouthed rubes get all lathered up at Trump rallies.

OMD: While glad for the brevity of the exchange between Alma and Seth upon getting her settled at the hotel, Molly Parker and Timothy Olyphant still have that pregnant tension thing going. Bullock’s irritation with Charlie at having suggested the Bullock Star Hotel as Alma’s landing spot for her stay was priceless, as was Utter asking Bullock outfit him with a diaper upon suggesting that Bullock deal with Hearst in Utter’s stead regarding the sale of his land.

WG: It’s like reading Joyce. Or Cormac. It takes a few minutes to get attuned to the dialogue. Procure me an infant's linen.

OMD: I seriously wonder if there was anywhere else in the world where Hearst caught as much shit as he does here in Deadwood. A town refusing to bend the knee. Trixie’s public calling out followed by Al’s more measured undercuttings like “Does brevity exist in your repertoire, sir?” The fucking cocky grin on his face with Hearst’s returned stone-faced glare was a masterful bit of business.

The most surprising fate of any of the characters from the camp ten years prior has to be Aunt Lou, no? I mean who’d have thunk she’d have stuck around?

WG: Someone has to boss Richardson’s ghost around.

OMD: She better be continuing the antler-handed tributes on the stairs in his memory.

Utter prodding Jane to put aside the bottle and just go talk to Joanie was a nice moment. One last moment between friends of thirty years, and it’s one where he sets her head straight for maybe the first time we’ve ever seen on the show. Then Utter gets one last moment of giving no fucks about who he might be dealing with, suffering no shit from no one. His complete lack of deference to a man he knows to be a murderous fuck had me cackling. At every turn, Hearst gets virtually none of the respect to which he is accustomed from the denizens of this unruly boom town.

WG: I was hoping someone would throw a milkshake at his entitled ass.

OMD: I'd have been happy to see a Cornishman chuck a pickaxe headward.

Charlie’s not showing up for dinner set the same sinking feeling off that went down when Ellsworth got taken unawares while conversing with his dog in his tent. Hearst’s M.O. is pretty fucking cowardly, frankly. With the exception of the Captain’s brutal brawl with Dan, his men basically go in and shoot whomever Georgie Boy fingers from behind. Effective? Sure. Honorable? Clearly not. It seems clear that this is exactly how our sitting Shitbird-in-Chief would operate were such actions still viable.

WG: No accident, right? The Trumpian parallels. The great unwashed hectoring the one percenters. Maybe it’s just the times that color the perception. But yeah, Hearst is a decent precedent and stand-in for our current Shitbird-in-Chief. Fucking Gerald McRaney.

OMD: Major Dad. Who'd've thunk it?

Bullock shooting his gun off in the thoroughfare, Charlie Utter slung lifeless across his horse, putting Hearst on notice in front of the whole fucking town was a baller fucking move. The massive brass balls on Bullock never cease to impress. And his matter-of-fact “No” in response to Al’s asking “You ever think, Bullock, of not going straight at a thing?” was pitch fucking perfect. And setting fire to Hearst’s telephone poles? We get to see the fire brigade in action. Bullock’s just gonna keep yanking Hearst around by the ear, and I’m on board for every moment of it.

WG: "You ever think . . . of not going straight at a thing?"  That was one of my favorite scenes. Pump Swearengen’s contemptuous yet incredulous reactions to the whack-ass or irrational thought processes of those who surround him straight into my veins.

OMD: If I could mainline that, I might never come back.

I have to say I like E.B.’s pervy upgrades to the hotel. That he can incontrovertibly confirm that Hearst pulled the strings in Utter’s execution leaves me once glad for Farnum’s general odiousness. That he got to call Lead and struggle with technology was just gravy.

WG: Of course E.B. has peep holes in his hotel. His peep holes have peep holes. He’s probably got an old-timey camera man stationed under the floorboards in the lady’s pisser.

OMD: Peddling fuzzy Daguerreotypes of water sports clearly became Farnum's metier in the years we missed.

The gall of Jewel putting out peaches for the auction. How dare she? Perhaps she knew that the town was going to rise up, middle finger defiantly extended, determined to outbid that fucker, ultimately saved by Alma, besting her ex-husband’s murderer this time.

WG: Thank God Jewel was smart enough to know that the Cinnamon stays in the pantry.

OMD: The one time I wish maybe she hadn't exercised the heroic restraint required to not put out the cinnamon. Perhaps Harry'd have gotten another gut full of pain. Gastric distress is the least that turncoat deserved in the lead-up to the climax.

“Wu, feed that fuck to the pigs.” The, ehrm, the General really gets the short end of the stick at almost every turn. Such a good dude. Don Swayze—his character’s name is Seacrest, but anyone who knows who he is ain’t calling him anything but Don Swayze—tries to leverage Wu’s grandkid at gunpoint against Bullock. Clearly he didn’t get the memo. Bullock and fucking around are not acquainted with one another. Mengyao ends up wearing some of Don Swayze’s brains on his shirt while Bullock beats the fuck out of Hearst’s other heavy.

WG: One of the many great things about Deadwood is how most of the characters know all the angles. And when the angles are lined up in opposition, a world weary fait accompli.

OMD: The stand-off in front of Hearst HQ was pretty fucking great. Really getting the full monty from Olyphant here, hanging acting dong with aplomb. Milch sure ratcheted up the tension there.

“Heavens open up. She expresses contrition.” What a delightful line. Mortality looming large in the first scene back between Al and Trixie. Guessing the Doc gave him liquid cocaine to get him going enough to make the wedding, as I can’t imagine what other elixir of the time might endow him with the energy to support his resolve. Maybe a liquid speedball? Al’s magnanimity in doling out advice and control of the Gem in the event of his imminent passing was a nice touch. The Gem as a dance hall. Hard to imagine, but as long as the peaches are always at the ready, Deadwood will probably approve.

WG: The love story between Al and Trixie is so well done. The relationship and marriage to Sol surely isn’t getting in the way of it. I wish parts of it weren’t made so explicit in the movie. It’s too holy to speak of out loud.

OMD: With the clock running out, both for Al and ultimately Milch, I think any point in secreting away those feelings, leaving them unsaid, sort of loses its utility.

Gotta be honest, Jane and Joanie’s reconciliation at the livery had me a little choked up. They’re both so broken and beaten down, that their finding happiness with one another—and a seemingly lasting happiness, at that—warms the heart.

WG: SAME.

OMD: When Bullock cockblocked Hearst’s arrest of Trixie at the reception, cuffing him and telling the Sheriff from Lead to go fuck himself, I was grinning from ear to ear, but Merrick’s getting a pic of Hearst mid-perp-walk with a “Smile, Mr. Hearst” for good measure was too much. I laughed so fucking hard.

I’ve joked on Twitter and in conversation, but holy hell was I glad to see the thrower of the bottles at Hearst was our old friend Garret Dillahunt, playing his third character in the burg of Deadwood. Bullock standing by until seeing his wife ushering their children away from the scene and realizing he couldn’t just let the mob tear that shithead limb from limb still allowed us a little catharsis. Hewing to history has its limitations, and in this case, we know that Hearst dies in Washington, D.C. two years later.

WG: I’m glad you confirmed that, I thought that was him! Since you reran the series in its glorious entirety, you happen to catch the Nick Offerman cameo? If I recall, he was a card player at one of the tables at Tom Nuttall’s place? Season 1?

OMD: Oh, there's a lot more Offerman than that. He's one of the rogue road agents living the high life at the Gem after they slaughtered Sofia's family on the trail. Full frontal Offerman. That's what he gets for running with Persimmon Phil, I guess.

Nothing made me more glad than Bullock pulling Hearst into the cell by his ear. Or at least not until Jane got her big moment, taking down Harry Manning, who was in Hearst’s pocket and a second away from killing Bullock, and getting her groove back. After those moments during the series where her impotence in the moment led her spiraling into the oblivion found at the bottom of the bottle, it was fucking beautiful getting to see her step up to the occasion and succeed where she hadn’t been able to previously.

Hot on the heels of that overwhelming emotional moment, we’re treated to Bullock at Samuel Fields’s bedside, having his old friend Utter’s final moment related to him, the two commiserating over their friend being at peace when he went. Olyphant has two lines in that scene—five whole words—and it’s maybe the best acting he’s ever done. Fuck. Just destroyed me.

And finally we get a little bedtime duet from Jewel and Al of “Waltzing Matilda” setting off a montage in which snow lightly falls on a town in which the dust is settling after another Hearst power play has nearly torn it asunder, its residents going back to their lives, Bullock finally coming home. Duet having given way to an instrumental version of the Aussie ballad, Trixie sits down at Al’s bedside, his last breaths coming, and damned if he doesn’t go out on the highest note I can recall, cutting off the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer with a “Let him fucking stay there.”

WG: This is what got me. Having watched some of the older episodes myself, I was again struck dumb by how emotionally poignant Deadwood can be. Think back to Season 1, Jewel in her orthopedic boot, dancing around with Doc. “Tell me I’m as nimble as a forest creature”. The same emotional fuckery got me when Jewel started rubbing Al’s feet and singing "Waltzing Matilda."  Again, hard not to imagine Milch thinking about his own mortality. Earlier Al opines that it’s the unseemly process of dying, the “chewing up and spitting out” that he finds distasteful. He just wants to get it over with. Decries the self-pitying aspect of it. I like the dignity involved of knowing the angles and accepting them.

OMD: We’ve all been waiting a long goddamn time for this. It’s hard to imagine how I could have been more pleased with what I just saw, having now watched it twice. I mean obviously, we’d all love for this world to just keep giving us stories with these characters in Milch’s voice forever, but short of that, this was a feat I worried was not going to be achieved. What thoughts have you?

WG: I didn’t enjoy it as much as you did. But I’m such a fan of the series in general, and these characters, I can’t be too disappointed. It’s a shame we didn’t get more from Milch. I like how he examines truth, and dignity and degeneracy, and honor. Sometimes all jumbled up in the same character. There is really no one like him.

OMD: If nothing else, the last 25 minutes or so are some of the best television I can remember seeing. I don't know how much I cried, but it was a lot. Bullock at Samuel Fields's bedside. Jewel and Al singing. Joanie and Jane looking like they're headed for a lovely final act. A seemingly finally soberish Jane stepping up and saving Bullock. Al staying secular to his literal dying breath. Fuck me. So much brilliance in that final act. Hell, I'm still numb to a world without Al Swearengen.

WG: Let's pour one out for Al.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Season Six, Christmas Special, Series Finale

We're finally here. The last singles standing are wedded. Thomas is granted a reprieve.

Old Man Duggan: We are mercifully let off the hook and no longer need to write about a show that's seen better days. Praise be to Allah.

Wordy Ginters: Forever and ever Amen.

OMD: Good ol' Septimus's sincere concern for being seated in the same room as Lady Edith in the Dower House was almost as hilarious as the shocked eyebrow raise after being told how his tips on how to please your husband were going to garner him a full page a month in The Sketch. Spratt's transformation into women's advice columnist du jour has probably been the best and weirdest development in Downton Abbey's history.

WG: I'd watch a Spratt/Dowager/Denker spin-off, provided it's written by Tim and Eric.

OMD: Molesley's moving on up to the teachers' cottages. One couldn't help but think that a Molesley spin-off a la The Jeffersons is in order. I'd rather watch that than a Robert and Cora prequel that may or may not still happen. Give us more Molesley, Mr. Fellowes.

WG: What is the scoop? I've seen Fellowes talk about a Downton movie, I didn't know a prequel idea has been floated. Take some liberties Fellowes, screw the prequel, flash that mofo forward to the 1990s. I could see Daisy's great-grand-daughter being a roadie for Bratmobile.

OMD: Is the scarf slit in Edith's yellowish dress not the most distracting wardrobe feature in the last three years of Downton? The only other thing that comes to mind is when Tony Gillingham walked around with his dick hanging out and clanging betwixt his thighs for three episodes, but that was probably a choice, not a wardrobe feature.

WG: Hilarious. That jumped off the screen. The wardrobe game on Downton is plus-plus, but viewing that weird scarf-hole was distracting me from thinking about how Edith almost blew her second chance with Bertie by being shitty, instead of grateful, at the big reconciliation dinner.

OMD: With each tremor shooting through Carson's arms, Barrow's future at Downton became more and more certain. "The palsy." If Carson knew this was coming, then what the fuck was he doing seeing Barrow off while Molesley was gearing up to become Mr. Chips?

WG: Obviously, Carson was afraid The Palsy would reflect poorly on the house.

OMD: When Bertie Pelham and Edith are sitting down to dinner for the first time since Mary dropped the Marigold bombshell, Bertie says, "I've done a very bad job" of living without her. Then the waiter drops the champagne and menus at the most inopportune of times, as it seems like the dam is about to burst and Bertie's going to unfurl every last detail of pulchritudinous--yes, dear reader, I'm using this in the spirit of the word by definition--debauchery that would make dear Lady Edith simultaneously irate and randy. The true villain of this show is now this jack-off waiter who ruined what would surely have been the lewdest act committed upon a table at the Ritz in its history--a proper animalistic fuckanalia of a transgressive sort that would make Pier Paolo Pasolini blush, shit himself, and die from shock well before he could ever have been murdered for being a communist and/or a shocking pervert. To think a simple waiter deprived us of such an epic and shocking fuckfest.

WG: Carnal beauty.

OMD: Patmore's dressing down of the dumbfuck Daisy complete with you-don't-like-guys-who-like-you mic drop was great. Patmore's secondary "Well, you were never much of a judge in that department" slam when Daisy wistfully thinks back upon the time when she was hard for Thomas was even better. Daisy doesn't deserve such brutal honesty. She should be left to wander the desert with a bottomless canteen of water hung label-less 'round her stupid neck from which she's too dumb to suss out that salvation is mere inches from her whinging, parched maw.

WG: Fellowes should have stuck with Daisy as full-on heel. Cold. Aloof. Irritating. Daft. That she apparently began to warm to Patmore's and Mason's pleading was just another example of the rainbows and unicorns finale.

Everything came up aces.

OMD: So Jack and I jokingly shoot "been there" back and forth while watching things, typically when it is a breathtaking place that neither of us has ever been to. In the case of Brancaster Castle, we actually have been there. It's Alnwick Castle (pronounced AN-ik) in the town of the same name in Northumberland, just south of Scotland and just north of Newcastle a few miles inland from the northwest coast of England. Its previous claim to fame was that much of the exterior shots of Hogwarts were filmed there.

WG: I admire your globetrotting. Sadly, my travels are hilariously banal by comparison. I went to Council Bluffs in Iowa one time. A hair-metal bar called The Joker. The band I saw was On the Fritz. The Joker couldn't hold a candle to the beautiful Brancaster Castle. Which made Downton look like a hostel. The quality of the story-telling careened downhill over the course of six seasons, but the visuals were always stunning.

OMD: Bertie's mom seems like she could double for Ted Cruz's campaign spokesperson. Peter was an amoral hedonist with a thirst for Tangerian prostitutes after whom the position of the Marquess needs a complete moral rebranding. Can I add a spin-off based on Peter, the Tangerian Whorehound, as another show that I'd rather see than The Courtship of Cora Levinson?

WG: Bertie's Mom gives the humorless scolds of the world a bad name. I'm in with that spin-off, provided it's written by Tim and Eric.

OMD: Co-sign.

It's kind of great that Bertie basically told his mom to fuck right off and that Marigolds Two, Three, and Four were going to be springing forth from Edith's loins before the dour Mirada Pelham could count one-two-three.

WG: Bertie was one guy on the show who could be "in-charge" without coming across like a dick. Being decisive without being a prick is a great skill to have. Bertie would destroy employment tests like Molesley destroys cricket balls.

OMD: Larry and Amelia Gray, heinous fuckoes of the highest order. Sidenote: you know you might have run afoul of the virtuous path when you need to consult Google as to which is the proper way to spell the plural form of 'fucko.' Amelia's true colors shone through like sick, greenish shit through disintegrating, years-old whitey-tighties. Moreover, Larry's sunken eyes and pallid complexion makes me think that AIDS was spontaneously borne within his shitheel heart and festered in silence for a handful of decades before being loosed upon every last bloody toilet seat of the world.

WG: I'm just going to sit here and admire that salvo like watching fireworks explode across the sky.

OMD: Can I just say thank fucking Christ that Edith gets the happy ending that she so rightfully deserves?

WG: Hell yes. Preach it. It feels good. Warms the thighs.

OMD: To an alarming level. I'm calling my physician forthwith.

Barrow toiling away for three months in the service desert of tending to Sir Mark Stiles should surely make him glad to return to save the day and hoist Georgie back upon his back.

WG: The new gig was a tad stuffy.

OMD: Talbot & Branson Motors more or less sets them up for some Six Pack action, right? Just looking for the right, rag-tag band of orphans.

WG: I think that episode put them at a four pack.

OMD: Does Lady Rose proffering American aphorisms that ultimately show a more worldly and knowing view than Robert somehow imply that Julian Fellowes wishes he were American?

WG: Possibly. He's not a straight-up right-wing goon like David Mamet, but he's got some elitist tendencies. On the same hand, he appears damn near enlightened at times. Portraying the glacial movement of women's rights, class consciousness, and even dabbling in race relations is a delicate business, it could have been handled a lot worse.

OMD: Especially given how far afoul some of the characters' storylines went and how sadistically he treated the Bateses.

Daisy futzing with scissors and Lady Mary's hairdryer to win Andy's heart should surely have ended in another fire from which Thomas should have saved people, right? That she made a mistake that anyone past the age of eight wouldn't make is a testament to just how fucking dumb and beyond redemption this character is.

WG: When she absconded with the 50-lb. hair dryer, I was hoping that she'd get busted with it and summarily dismissed on the spot. What was more startling though, was her Clar Bow hair-do, which my loving wife Eileen dubbed "the chemo wig".

OMD: That's spot on, Lady Ginters.

Denker's outing of Spratt backfired as per usual. I hope Spratt's column just turns into savage takedowns of old, foolish ladies' maids. Can we get this as an eBook henceforth, Fellowes? When Spratt gave his triumphal, retributive slap-down, it wasn't hard to imagine a world in which Septimus and the Dowager Countess enjoyed a torrid affair while Denker wept at her deserved misfortune.

WG: So many merch opportunities by the wayside. You've got to have somebody, maybe Tim and Eric, crank out a few volumes highlighting a "best of" from Spratt's advice columns. I'd buy it.

OMD: Carson's indignation at the prospect of Anna popping out a kid in Lady Mary's bed was a nice final moment of wrongheaded shock borne from a sense of decorum well past withered. Even after he's handed the reins over to Barrow, he must be the agitated old crank cursing the new world that has impinged upon his sense of what is right in the world. Mary's automatic, emotion-free response to Anna's water breaking upon her carpet nearly made me think that we'd suddenly found ourselves watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers and that Mary was a pod person devoid of emotion.

WG: An oddly stilted reaction. She was too busy quick-calculating the thunder stealing equation to react like a real human lady. Lots of body fluids this season on Downton. It fairly oozed.

OMD: Mr. Mason and Mrs. Patmore are gonna get D-O-W-N.

WG: Patmore, without question, will be a sensuous and knowing lover. She's like a volcano just waiting to tilt. Mason, a guy who wears a three-piece suit to slop the hogs, has no idea what he's about to bite-off.

OMD: With Laura Edmunds catching the bouquet, it seems all but certain that Tom Branson's future is sealed and that said future sees him being balls deep in the editor of The Sketch. Fellowes seems to be leaving no single uncoupled in the finale, and this is the most overt of the sexual synchronicity.

WG: Of course they'll hook up. Treacle.

OMD: Despite its saccharine aftertaste, I will say that the closing scenes, particularly the staff joining in "Auld Lang Syne" downstairs, got me a bit teary-eyed. That the show's last words were exchanged between the begrudging septuagenarian best friends upon whom the show's bridged goodwill was built was touching. A lesser show would probably have last hovered upon younger romantic leads, but Fellowes sent Downton Abbey off with a tasteful bang. There may not have been bloodshed or righteous comeuppance for those not deserving a happy ending, but at least there was closure.

WG: Cheers to tasteful bangs. Amen.

OMD: As-salamu alaykum. The last song to send the series off with is a dedication from Patmore to Mr. Mason with the lyrics representing what she wants to hear from him.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Season Six, Episode Eight

As one suspects in a Downton Abbey season finale or Christmas special, there are scrapes with death and the prospect of nuptials. And Patmore's House of Ill Repute.

Old Man Duggan: Bertie Pelham, Marquess of Hexum. Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. Stand-up chap, that one. Of course, everything can't happen smoothly when it comes to Edith's happiness, and Marigold and Mary must gum up the works before all is said and done. That said, Edith's blow-up, while lacking the "see you next Tuesday" that seemed to be brewing, felt mic-droppingly cathartic even if it did come from behind a veil of tears.

Wordy Ginters: Boil lanced. Shame is a powerful thing, it was nice to see Edith crawl out from underneath Marigold's horrific shadow. I kid, I kid. I get the scandalous possibilities, especially considering the time, and the family. But it still seemed to carry much more weight than it should have.

OMD: Everyone having a good laugh at Mrs. Patmore's temporary misfortune is a nice respite from family drama. One philandering fake doctor getting some extramarital strange at a B&B shouldn't be that odd in 1925. What B&Bs are for if not for stepping out?

WG: Stepping out so un-strange that the incessant knee-slapping howls from virtually the entire cast seemed out of place to me. It ain't that funny you rubes.

OMD: Carson's horror at the prospect of the family supping at the very same table that the ignominious Mr. McKitt and Mrs. Dorrit guzzled tea was predictably absurd. That said, it may not have been as ridiculous as the rousing ovation that Robert, Cora, and Rosamund received at shoveling scones into their maws.

WG: PBS is missing a golden merch opportunity, "Patmore's Scones" would fly off the cyber shelves. Speaking of merch, I've been saving up for some Downton Abbey figurines. I'll need something to fill the void after next week.

OMD: Speaking of Carson, it seemed like Fellowes used him this episode as a vehicle for showing how small a place the pomp and circumstance of this old way of life had in this changing world. His handling of Thomas showed he couldn't read a person right in front of him. His squeamishness at the thought of the family lending Beryl Patmore a helping hand with their presence at tea was, as mentioned, absurd. His not understanding the point of Molesley wanting to teach showed his real limitations though. It seems his fate will likely be that of a senile old coot wandering around the streets of Thirsk in a threadbare suit and a nightcap hunched over but speaking gibberish in a commanding tone tending to a highborn dinner guest dead since the 1880s. It was a nice moment to have Lord Grantham rebuff Carson's stodginess in an act of reciprocal loyalty to Patmore. One of those nice moments in which the help gets one of those tear-jerking little victories.

WG: It was a solid episode, in large part because Fellowes allowed a partial tear-down of the reverence he's spent years building to honor the culture of the lordly upstairs inhabitants of the castle. Carson seems like the go-to character for underlining the buffoonery and tin-eared tropes of the gilded class. There is justice in seeing Carson painting himself into a smaller and smaller corner. I'm guessing Fellowes sees himself as Lord Grantham, but he's more likely to be Carson.

OMD: Speaking of tear-jerking wins, Molesley got a big one. First the second go at teaching where the kids were eating out of his hand, then Daisy and Bates praising him and speaking so kindly of him, punctuated with a round of applause at the dinner table. The only thing left to go well for Molesley would be to get Baxter's hand in marriage. Regardless, it's about fucking time shit went Molesley's way.

WG: I got a kick out of Moleseley's first day teaching. My family is packed with teachers. The idea that someone with zero training would get turned loose in a classroom of middle school kids is just cruel. I'm Molesley's biggest fan. His figurine is the one that I'll play with the most. I can see Molesley figurine, Big Jim, and G.I. Joe kicking much ass.

OMD: After that first classroom scene, I was seriously worried that he'd fail as he'd had no classroom experience. Things must have been more expedient back then.

How many lives could Mary have ruined if she went without a serious shtupping from her handsome mechanic? I'm guessing WWII would have started ten years early.

WG: It was kind of fun seeing her cut a swath of bile through every scene she wandered through. If Molesley is the character I was rooting for the most, Mary is the one who I wished to see squashed by a random falling anvil, like something from a Road Runner cartoon.

OMD: Given Fellowes's occasional heavy-handedness, I'm surprised Branson did slap the sense into Mary. His patience and perseverance may make him eligible for sainthood. If Downton Abbey operated under the same set of laws that Caligula did, Branson would be buttering up at episode's end, and Henry would be conceding first entry to Emperor Branson, as none of this would have been possible without him.

WG: Kind of hard to fathom Branson's tenacity on that one. He's the moral anchor pulling the family from bat-shit tradition to modern realities and common sense, but Mary was such a pain in the ass, I'm surprised he stuck with it. Probably had more to do with his love of cars. He fucking LOVES cars.

OMD: Mary's revelation at breakfast was without a doubt the shittiest thing she's done in the series's run, at least if you don't credit her asshole's murderous intent happening with her conscience's blessing. Given that, her lack of remorse, and the guilt trip she laid on Robert after Thomas's clothed bath, it made the later tearful acknowledgment that her fear of marrying Henry Talbot sprung from Matthew having widowed her ring hollow. Given the six seasons the audience invested in her, it seems like a little more breathing room was probably necessary if we were to join in the waterworks. Instead, Fellowes loaded that scene so close to Mary deservedly being called a "bitch" either literally or figuratively that the acrid taste of her churlishness was fresh in our mouths.

WG: Bloodshed. Bitch. Two things I never expected from Downton. An emotional hairpin turn to ask the audience to travel happily along from Mary coldly and gleefully fucking over her sister, to being happy for her marriage in what seemed like a few scant minutes later. Maybe more surprising for me was the Dowager acting as the voice of reason to ultimately set Mary straight. The Dowager was basically feeding Mary the same advice as Tom, but of course, Tom is really just a dolled up mechanic masquerading as a swell. Mary needed to hear that advice from a blue-blood in order for it to have any heft.

OMD: The counterpoint to this is Thomas's suicide attempt. Fellowes spent the greater part of this season trying to rebuild Barrow's humanity. Despite having once been seemingly irredeemable, Thomas reaching the end of his rope and later admitting regret to the ways in which he's interacted with the staff in his past cashes in the pity card better than Mary's petulance throughout the episode.

WG: Maybe this is the main reason I dislike Fellowes, for making me care about Thomas.

OMD: Septimus Motherfucking Spratt. Who'd have thunk that he was Cassandra Jones? I knew instantly when they spoke of "Miss Jones's" secrecy that this advice columnist was a man, but Spratt? If Molesley didn't get such a big win in this episode, that reveal would have been the episode's high point for me. Even with the "where the fuck is Spratt?" tip-off from Violet, I was caught completely off-guard. I'm sure all of his columns are thinly veiled takedowns of Denker.

WG: I laughed out loud. It was a beautiful touch. You know everyone at Downton went back to their laptops and scoured through old columns to ferret out thinly veiled references to their own trials and tribs.

OMD: With all the time wasted this season on the completely uninteresting hospital board storyline and the positively awful second episode, it seems like this season could have spaced out the nuptials a bit more judiciously. Instead, Mary gets married four seconds after she destroys any goodwill the audience might have had for her, and the only one at her wedding that anyone is happy for is Mr. Talbot largely because it means we don't have to watch him bang his head into a brick wall any longer.

WG: I'm thinking everything post-Matthew has failed to live up to the promise this series had pre-Matthew. Absolutely they could have focused on some of the relationships more, and shit-canned the silly hospital board kerfuffle. Same goes with the silly police interludes.

OMD: With just the special remaining, it looks like there will be two weddings thrown together haphazardly, with an outside shot at three, if Molesley gets his gal. While wedded bliss seems such a limiting means by which characters can achieve happiness, if these are the rules we're given in this world, may Molesley enjoy it, too.

WG: I hope all the characters get married. Thems that are already bonded by holy matrimony should get their vows refreshed. Pair them all up. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Season Six, Episode Seven

The Crawleys have a day at the race track while most of the servants get time off to encourage Molesley and Daisy in their exams.

Old Man Duggan: Judging from the tea-time light sniping between the sisters Crawley, it sure looks like Edith and Mary are headed toward one last sororal kerfuffle to fill Fellowes's quota for the series. While it seems they should be past it all, Mary's continued curiosity surrounding Marigold and her casual jabs regarding Bertie sure portend a row.

Wordy Ginters: Did you catch that look? Serious eye-fucking. I enjoy the pettiness between the two. Nothing says sisterly love like throwing shade.

OMD: Mrs. Hughes ascertainment that Thomas might find more happiness in another setting might be more true than he'd care to admit. His disposition clearly defaults to underhanded shitheel, but since O'Brien departed, he has been decidedly less horrible. Most of his conflict with staff comes from a storied history of conniving. Maybe a new setting and a fresh start could actually see him change his spots or more importantly find something resembling happiness, roots notwithstanding. Of course, it probably wouldn't have been easy to find many accepting of a gay man as a butler--under or otherwise--in 1925 England.

WG: Thomas is more screwed than any of the characters. Most of them have a new lease on life, or are too old for it to matter much. Thomas is the one who appears destined for heartache and woe. No job. No prospects. Getting the Bates and Anna treatment to an almost comical degree in this episode. He was cold-shouldered and shunned at every turn. Bringing lemonade to a picnic is the basis for the first chapter of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People for fuck's sake. I was hoping Fellowes would have him step on a rake just to drive the point home.

OMD: Much as I suspected Amelia Cruikshank is a serpent befitting her heinous fiance. At least she is calculating enough that Isobel could conceivably be happy with Lord Merton as it suits Miss Cruikshank's needs. Violet accurately surmising "I expect they'll have to drag you out as you break your fingernails catching at the doorcase" was outstanding and painted a delightful picture that would have been right at home in a Roald Dahl story.

WG: Excellent line. Fave Dahl movie adaptation? Fantastic Mr. Fox is too easy, I'll go with James and the Giant Peach.

OMD: While I read a ton of his books as a child, I've only seen the first adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr. Fox. If we're ruling out Fantastic Mr. Fox, then I've got no other recourse than to go with the other one I've seen.

A few minutes later of screen time after her meeting with the undesirable Miss Cruikshank, the Dowager Countess opined that a month amongst the French should make her long for home. Strong showing early in an episode that saw her exit so early. Of course, the concern here is that for drama's sake she'll end up washed up on some remote island, sans beach ball, never to return for the sake of the show. Given that the S.S. Paris suffered no major catastrophes in 1925 per its Wikipedia page, we can safely assume that if anything happens of that nature, it will have happened because Violet fell overboard.

WG: It would be a Game of Thrones type gut-punch to cast the Dowager into the void. She was the shits early on, but at this point she's on the beloved TV curmudgeon icon Mt. Rushmore, right up there alongside Fred Sanford, Lou Grant, and Archie Bunker.

OMD: The back-and-forth courtship proceedings that Mary puts prospective mates through must be exhausting. Henry Talbot must be the 46th pursuer. Her post-race convo with driver Hank was inevitable because it's the dastardly anused Mary we're talking about, but how many fucking wedding are going to get packed into the special? It seems like Edith couldn't possibly get married by the end of the next episode, and Isobel and Lord Merton aren't anywhere near that point unless they head down to the Justice of the Peace.

WG: One episode and a Christmas Special left, right? The wedding gambit is such a tired and stale move for a TV series. Leaves me cold. At this point, with the head fakes and dilly-dallying, it's hard to see how any of them get to the altar unless Fellowes gets out a shoehorn and forces the issue in the last 2 episodes.

OMD: The racing scenes were decidedly less exciting than they probably should have been, but I suppose that should have been expected. Downton Abbey isn't exactly going to be breaking new ground in filming car racing scenes, but the score probably acted against any tension that could have existed in those sequences apparently serving the function of "let us delight in the marvels of 1920s technological advances" more than anything else. That said, if ever there was a clear red shirt in the show--or in his case, a red scarf--Rogers was set on a fated course toward dead man's curve from his initial entirely transparent introduction.

WG: Man, those racing scenes were flaccid, weren't they? So British. So NPR. Where was Sacha Baron Cohen's Jean Girard when we needed him most? Once again, Fellowes badly telegraphing his punches. Was there any doubt blood would spill on the famed Brooklands circuit?

OMD: With all of Mary's apprehension leading up to the race? No doubt whatsoever.

Despite it being the site of the revelation of Andy's illiteracy, the testing-break picnic was a nice scene. It's weird how refreshing it is to see the staff enjoying an afternoon in a meadow out of uniform and just enjoying each other's company. Of course it also serves the purpose of exonerating Thomas of any wrongdoing, as Patmore knows why Carson was amping up the prodding of Thomas to find other work. Carson's stodginess upon Thomas's return to find the couple Carson furtively enjoying a seat in the library still shows his desire to rid the house of him, but at least there was a moment of communal staff respite from their work cave.

WG: For me, that picnic was an example of the satisfying pay-off you can achieve when good character work is established early on. I think Boardwalk Empire in particular was great at doing this type of thing. Because the characters are sturdy and fleshed out, it's enjoyable just watching them do shit that isn't obviously driving the plot forward. Mundane day-to-day scenes work in service to the story because the characters are established and three dimensional. You want to hang with them because you like them. It's a shame the show didn't develop more in that direction, instead of the tired old bullshit with Mary playing the dating game, and the Bates' various Making a Murderer sideshows.

OMD: While believing Mr. Dawes's statement as to Molesley's test scores being better than some Oxford and Cambridge grads is a tall order, his finally getting a victory was such a relief. The heart of the last couple seasons gets his deserved exit from service. This is something that would be too bad if there weren't just two episodes left, but as the series is eying the finish line, this is fantastic.

WG: Fuck yes.

OMD: Molesley's position presumably being vacated and Andy aspiring to pig farming means Thomas's job search has probably been for nothing. The underbutler will simply have to do everything that the butler and valet don't do.

WG: A possible ray of light for Thomas. Why not?

OMD: Septimus Spratt: Bringer of Isis, Jr. The look on Robert's face as he ran to embrace that furry little shit machine was that of a five-year-old boy. His eagerness to bring the untrained pup upstairs can be directly tied to the zero shits that he'll have to pick up. The rest of the servants will eye that dog with the disdain that they usually reserve for Thomas.

WG: It reminded me of a three or four episode run a few seasons back when it was pretty evident that Lord Grantham preferred Isis to Edith. Fellowes should have edited in a shot of someone downstairs rolling their eyes, or at least looking peeved at the idea of hauling dog shit and incessantly scrubbing shit stains out of the carpet.

OMD: Hopefully the last shot of the show is an old Thomas feebly scrubbing a dilapidated rug with adult George wandering around the manor in an open bathrobe, boxers, and a stained wife beater muttering to himself about that damned rock and roll.

Patmore's plan for Carson preparing the dinner was fucking high art. It made every second of oblivious assholery he doled out pay off spectacularly. Hughes continuing to pile work onto his plate was gold. Judging by the man hiding in the bushes with a notepad and camera, Patmore's evil genius will see a karmic comeuppance in the next episode, unless Fellowes is tossing us one last misdirect. Maybe her bed and breakfast makes Michelin, and Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon visit it 85 years later.

WG: That's a crossover I'd love to see. Coogan and Brydon fucking with each other in Patmore's B&B? I'm in. Why isn't Coogan HUGE over here? I think Saxondale is considered a minor work, and it's fucking genius. Jesus Christ, a guy like Seth MacFarlane is relatively huge, and I can't even easily access Alan Partridge stuff. Almost makes me think Trump is on to something.

OMD: Nearly all of the Steve Coogan stuff is currently available on Hulu. Everyone should brush up now.

Two more episodes. Any bold predictions past the presumed triple wedding?

WG: I'm going to pull a 180 and root for more deaths than weddings.

OMD: Same here.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Season Six, Episode Six

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Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Season Six, Episode Five

Work delayed this entry a full week, but it will be followed quickly with this week's entry. The episode starts with more of the same--Daisy whining about Mr. Mason (despite a favorable resolution to his situation), forboding about Donk's demise, and hospital politic tedium--but at least there's the promise of Minister of Health and future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain coming for a visit.

Old Man Duggan: Dinner at Casa de Carson went well. Undercooked lamb and bubble and squeak--which is a shallow fried dish of leftovers from a roast consisting primarily of potatoes and cabbage that can also have carrots, peas, Brussels sprouts, and other leftover vegetables tossed in--somehow doesn't seem like a dish the stodgy and particular Mr. Carson would like too much. The tamped down tension and resentment from Elsie's side of the table was a delight. Something tells me a tumble twixt the sheets is not in Carson's immediate future.

Pre-Mickey slipping

Wordy Ginters: Poor Carson. Looks like he'll be learning the hard way. From the altar to sleeping on the couch in record time. Oddly, I was a fan of his boorish stodginess. It rings true. To see Carson and Hughes glide into a Cliff and Clair Huxtable simpatico vibe would be discordant. You know Carson has to be a throbbing pain in the ass to deal with. Hughes, as per usual, is a goddamn saint.

OMD: There seems to be a lot of build-up with Patmore feeling at least a little envious of Mrs. Hughes becoming Mrs. Hughes-Carson. Something tells me that the continued presence of Sergeant Willis may be Fellowes's attempt to make a love connection for another potential old maid. I'm sure Patmore would go wild for a distinguished gentleman in uniform.

WG: Like a redheaded moth inexplicably drawn to flaming dogshit. Patmore is one of the few decent characters on the show, and apparently she's never been carnal. She deserves a good old fashioned steamrolling. I think Fellowes can really cover some new ground with the last few episodes, featuring lots and lots of lusty action between 50- and 60-year-olds. How about a sexy montage of Carson and Hughes, Patmore and Sergeant Schultz, Bates and Anna, and maybe a splash of sappho with Isobel and the Dowager all tangled up in a love knot? Underline the scene with "Every 1's A Winner" by Hot Chocolate.

OMD: I liked Branson's explanation for how the balanced personalities of Sybil and himself made for a blissful (albeit brief) union. Clearly this is laying the groundwork for Mary to evaluate Talbot with a fresh set of eyes. Let's just hope she doesn't sic her murderous asshole on poor old Hank. It's claimed one and likely two men's lives. Let us all hope the killing has stopped.

WG: That thirsty asshole isn't done yet. I fear more men will be dispatched into the yawning void via its erotic clench. Branson's ode to relationships was surprisingly solid insight. That guy should shitcan his wrenches and his car fetish and think about setting up shop as a marriage counselor or a therapist.

OMD: Why can't Fellowes just let a cancerous devil like Denker shuffle off into Interwar poverty? I was so happy when I thought she was gone. If only it wasn't for Septimus's shitbag nephew dropping by unannounced and on the lam. Would anyone have blamed Clarkson if he produced a scalpel from his bag and cut her to bits? I suspect he'd have gotten a slow-clap from the townsfolk to rival the letter jacket scene in Lucas.

WG: Corey Haim, where are you now when we need you the most? Septimus Spratt sounds like a Harry Potter character. To cute by half Fellowes.

OMD: "Shall I go back in an ask him to plead not guilty after all?" Molesley bringing the quick quips. What doesn't he bring to the show now? I can't wait to watch the Molesley and Baxter spin-off in which they start a bicycle rental business on Crete to get away from the hustle and bustle of service.

WG: The rebirth of cool for my main man Molesley continues to shock. Just like the anxiousness I feel at the inevitable doom awaiting Anna and Bates, I keep wondering when Fellowes is going to drop the hammer on Molesley. He spent too many episodes and too many scenes making him look like a dope to let him off the hook this gallantly in the final season. He'll spend the next episode with 12 yards of toilet paper trailing off his shoe, and no one will have the guts to tell him except Thomas.

OMD: And in a decidedly derisive way, I'm sure.

Branson's cutting through the veiled courtship bullshit was hilarious. "Why can't you just say, 'I'd love to spend more time with you. When can we do it?'" Mary's not getting any younger and if the battlefield's worth of down men behind her is any indication, there can't be many eligible bachelors left who've not been felled by her sword.

WG: "These dumb proles have some good qualities, although they are coarse as hell." Julian Fellowes, apparently.

OMD: Speaking of courtship, it sure looks as though Lady Edith will finally find happiness. The Beer Hall Putsch already happened, so Bertie can't be killed there. What horrible fate could befall him to rob Edith of another man?

WG: Death by a hail storm of toads a la Magnolia. Or is it a la mode? Frog a la mode.

OMD: If I had the photoshop skills and this weren't a full week late, I guarandamntee you that this would be highlighted with a picture of frog and ice cream.

So it appears as though Barrow's redemptive arc this season is in serving as Andy's tutor.

WG: I want Thomas to be the bad guy. Please Fellowes please, keep the black hat firmly on his head. Is there anything more darkly evil than a mediocre tutor?

OMD: The anti-Molesley.

So the buildup of Robert's failing health paid off big time. Even if this doesn't spell his complete demise, blood spewing volcanically from his mouth across the white linens on the table was quite the dramatic visual. I wonder how much of Donk's stomach they removed? I'm glad Molesley got one light-hearted jab in when Thomas revealed that despite his assumption that he wouldn't care, he was relieved to hear that Robert's surgery seemed a success. "Don't let the other animals find out, or they'll pounce."

WG: An impressive bit of bloodshed for Downton. Were you thinking Alien or Hateful Eight?

OMD: Oh, Alien for sure.

I really hope Mary piecing together Marigold's origins doesn't go the way that the score over that last scene indicated it would. I would suspect that her evolution as a person would have softened her feelings toward her last living sibling, but who knows with her? She certainly could backslide into her old ways, though I suspect the music and Mary's expression at episode's end were a misdirect by Fellowes, and he'll use this opportunity to show how Mary's grown.

WG: I think you've got it pegged. Unfortunately. You can't have every character work their way to some nice and tidy resolution. Thomas is humanized. Mary has grown. Edith finds success. That means there has to be some ballast on the other side of the ledger, right? Granthan dies? Anna and Bates get thrown back in the mud? Regardless, I admit I'm a sucker because the blood bath at the end of this episode has me eager to see the next episode. Something I haven't felt for awhile.

OMD: Indeed.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Season Six, Episode Four

While the Carson's away, the Thomas will play butler. An old maid comes to dinner. Anna and Lady Mary run off in the dark of night to try to save the baby Bates.

Old Man Duggan: Can I just say what a delight it was to have Branson back for a full episode? It is almost as though an amputee suddenly got its leg back and started walking about normally again. Was this a vintage-quality episode? Probably not, but having Allen Leech back on the show cut the second-guessing why I was still devoting energy to this show evaporate into the ether.

Wordy Ginters: I'm still second guessing. But good to see a chubbier Branson back in the mix regardless of my Downton doubt. The burgeoning race car fixation is fun. You see Josh, he used to be the lowly car guy at Downton way back in the early days when the show was engaging rather than just a habit.

OMD: So it took five minutes for Sergeant Willis to make an appearance. The busiest cop in Yorkshire. The only cop in Yorkshire. This shitbird who screwed Baxter over must possess a silver tongue and a golden rod what with his ability to get women to do his dirty work . As his name was Mr. Coyle, we have to assume that Julian Fellowes is giving a sly nod to Brendan Coyle, don't we? What does this say about our dear Mr. Bates in real life?

WG: You know all you need to know about Brendan Coyle by the way he makes your thighs tingle when he prowls through a scene. The man exudes a powerful sexual magnetism. Fellowes saddled him with a leg brace and then a cane in a futile attempt to dampen Coyle's natural sex powers lest they distract viewers from the finer subtleties of the plot. Now in the final season, Fellowes is throwing a Hail Mary via a thinly veiled name-check. It's like trying to put a spigot on Niagara Falls.

OMD: "'All that's needed for evil men to triumph is that good men do nothing.'" Molesley's roughly quoting Irish philosopher and father of modern conservatism Edmund Burke there. It's funny that Fellowes has one of the middle-aged folks living quaintly in servant's quarters quoting a man whose ideology would want to protect the institution that has largely kept poor Molesley down.

WG: Nice legwork. I've heard that quote many times but always assumed it was a post-WWII response to Hitler, or maybe Don Wakamatsu and Pedro Grifol discussing Ned Yost's proclivity to bat Alcides Escobar in the lead-off spot. More astonishing to me is the continued hot streak that Moseley is rolling on. He hasn't fumbled anything in several episodes. Carson hasn't shamed him for months. He's tutoring Daisy and even acting as Baxter's consigliere in her dealings with the buffoon Sergeant Willis. By season's end, he'll be shirtless on horseback.

OMD: In one of the most unexpected developments ever, Molesley has become the heart of the show at this juncture.

Seriously fuck Daisy. How badly did you want her to get sacked this episode? I was hoping her head would be on a pike the next morning. A little bit of knowledge in dimwitted hands is a dangerous thing.

WG: That would have been pleasurable.

OMD: Patmore was straight bringing it this episode. "You couldn't be harder on those potatoes if you wanted them to confess to spying." "She knows the mystery of life by now. Which is more than I do." "I wonder if Karl Marx might finish the liver pate?"

WG: One of the rare times that Patmore removes her head gear too. Release the ginger Patmore. Release it!

Phone sex may have been foisted upon a minor during the making of this film

OMD: I have to say I'm looking forward to Branson being the pit crew leader to Henry Talbot. He'll be the Diane Lane to Henry's Kenny Rogers. Maybe love can turn all of them around. Of course, I can't imagine Mary will be jonesing to get in bed with a race car driver after Matthew's run-in with a lorry. Hopefully Tom and Henry's love bug will keep their fuel pumping.

WG: Downton as Kenny Rogers vanity movie project Six Pack? I love it. Jesus H. Christ I love that song. I love that movie. I love Erin Gray. I'll look forward to seeing Lil' Georgie Crawley working his magic with a wrench and a socket.

OMD: Can you imagine how great it will be when Leech's hands are at Matthew Goode's ankles ensuring the quality of his sit-ups?

How much do you think Thomas's balls shriveled when he saw Branson and Gwen supping with the aristocrats?

WG: Shriveling so severe it made an audible noise. Like when Mario dies in Donkey Kong. Why must Daisy be so damn dumb? Why must Thomas be so damn unlikable? Once upon a time, Fellowes would go out of his way to make Thomas almost sympathetic, or Daisy almost honorable. I assume he's still got those moves in his playbook, but at this point, it seems stale and steamless and all too predictable.

OMD: Gwen coming back into the picture was nice. Showing the entire family not knowing who Gwen was made me chuckle at their classist tunnel vision. Her story of Lady Sybil changing her life made me long for the days before preeclampsia (and three-year contracts) robbed us of much of the show's heart. If this reminder makes Mary look beyond herself a bit more, it can't have been a bad thing. Edith lamenting the family's not having spoken to someone who'd been in their employ for so long speaks to her own growth by leaps and bounds.

WG: The best scene of the episode. It had some emotional heft.

OMD: With as many times as Robert and Anna were doubled over with abdominal pain, I'm shocked they both made it out of the episode alive. One of them dies this season, right? With lip service being paid this episode to George being heir to Lord Grantham's title and Lady Rosamund joking about Violet being at Robert's funeral not vice versa, his number seems all but punched. Does Ryder's stitch keep Anna with child, or does another key female character die while trying to bring life into the world?

WG: I think Anna is doomed, as she has been from Isis's first ass shot. If the show had any guts, they'd all die in some wonderfully boring way.

OMD: Dysentery hits the Abbey.

Robert wondering what time Mary would get to London was hilarious in its complete missing of the point.

I wonder what sort of train station grab-and-go sandwich Branson ate. I'm sure it was as delightful as Robert suspected.

WG: A hilariously odd detail. As long as you are putting it in there, why leave the audience hanging on the exact nature of the sandwich? Melted Cheese on Toast? Ox Tongue? Sardine? Egg Salad? I want to know what the sandwich choices were in mid '20s England.

OMD: It would be considerably nicer if Mr. Mason's good fortune didn't owe at all to Daisy. Her dumbfuckery should have been his undoing.

WG: How about blithely overlooking the misfortune of the poor fucking Drewe family in the equation?

OMD: Isobel asking Violet if she had her passport to visit the kitchen was possibly the highlight of the episode.

WG: It's always jarring to see the swells hanging around the servants quarters. Just as unusual to see Isobel land a crisp jab like that. She usually works in more civil territory than the Dowager.

OMD: There was something a bit sad about Carson taking one last look at the meager accommodations in which he'd lived for somewhere north of four decades. It was sad more for his not having experienced than it was that he'd be leaving that tiny-ass room.

WG: And sad that he was going to miss it.

OMD: I do have to say this was another relatively strong episode that has me hoping that the show ends its run on a high note after a few rough seasons. What your guess on when Robert croaks? Next episode?

WG: Not soon enough. A little death is just the tonic this show needs.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Season Six, Episode Three

The denizens of the Abbey prepare for the wedding of the century while Lady Edith is away becoming an editor.

Old Man Duggan: After a particularly dismal second episode to the sixth run of Downton Abbey, at least this one was better.

Wordy Ginters: This season has been across the map. A strong opener. A dud. Tonight's episode somewhere between. At this point, Downton Abbey is a yappy dinner guest who catches second wind and obliviously sails into an anecdote they have already shared twice. Are you overstaying your welcome? Hahahaha. Don't be silly Downton. I'm riveted. Still, Fellowes can occasionally bring the tingles. In his hammy hands, issues of class have the not so faint whiff of aristocratic dick waving. It was nice to peer through the fog and see the proles win a battle or two, namely Hughes at the helm of her own wedding.

OMD: Indeed. He still does succeed when it comes to delivering a small, meaningful moment for a character whose life isn't otherwise filled with meaning.

I still can't believe Fellowes wants the audience to care about this fight over the control of the hospital. Maybe there's some historical context that I'm completely missing here that makes this more meaningful, but I did cursory searches to see if there was some larger development in the practice of medicine in the UK in the mid-to-late 1920s, and there didn't seem to be. The NHS didn't launch until 1948, so it's not tying into that at all. In other words, it's just another way for Fellowes to show the tired, aged hand of privilege trying to cling to something, only here it seems only so negligibly relevant as to render the whole to-do pointless.

WG: The hospital kerfuffle is a flaccid attempt to wire up some tension for Isobel and the Dowager. They need some reason to trade bon mots. It serves the dual purpose of further emasculating Sir Dick Grey and Doc Clarkson, a trick Fellowes uses as a shield so that he doesn't end up looking like Archie Bunker. I wish they'd all just end up in the sack together already. Regardless, the faux hospital angst can't be as portentous as Lord Grantham's scene stealing indigestion?

OMD: There are at least two moments every season where Robert expresses discomfort and I become certain that he's going to croak in the next episode.

So fuck it, I don't want to wait for it. At least the Ghost of Branson looming over the first three episodes emerged from the shadows.

WG: That was fast, eh? Do you think he caught wind of the Catholic priest abuse scandal and moved back to England for Sybbie's protection? If Spotlight teaches us anything, it's that nowhere is safe from the pervy hand of the Catholic Church. Welcome back to Downton, Branson, but you can't hide. The sun never sets on the Papal empire.

OMD: If Fellowes is using this pregnancy as yet another way to pull the rug out from under Anna and Bates, I'm going to flip my shit.

WG: Prepare accordingly.

OMD: This Daisy bullshit with the farms has got to stop. Take her out back and put us out of our misery, Fellowes.

WG: Another empty-headed Fellowes prole. No amount of tutoring from Professor Molesley can compensate for that unfortunate breeding. Lack of social grace allows her to cause problems, and she doubles down on the error by wishcasting a solution that may or may not exist. Will the benevolent aristocracy bail her out?

OMD: That the goings-on downstairs at Downton have rendered the ground for story so fallow that we have to suffer through these little exchanges between Denker and Spratt speaks to the depths to which the show has fallen. Holy shit, it's like I'm having to sit through Seasons Two and Three of Game of Thrones all over again. Every moment they're on screen I keep wishing that there was something going on that I cared about at all.

WG: I bristle at all attempts to humanize Denker or Spratt. I prefer viewing them as a physical manifestation of the tradition-laden, shitty, snide, snobbish aspects of the upper class.

OMD: It is becoming abundantly clear that Thomas's skillset is one that will have been learned just a bit too late. These job interviews are not going so well for Mr. Barrow. If he wasn't such a shitheel, I'd feel bad for him.

WG: That formerly grand house was jarring. Bear skins and animal heads. I thought Downton was heading into some exciting territory. A little Killer Bob action might liven things up.

OMD: If only.

Thank Jesus Edith fired that toolbag Skinner. I couldn't tell if he was sweating out his liquid lunch or in dire need of air-conditioning. Still, while this development could have happened last episode and made me happy, at least Edith is finally getting to realize her potential outside of the stricter bounds of what's expected of women in polite society circa 1925 to make no mention of the fact that she's clearly got a mate lined up now, though I doubt she knows this quite yet.

WG: It made me nostalgic for my high school yearbook days. Who knew putting magazine layouts together would make such great TV? Like watching a documentary about Ken Burns making a documentary.

OMD: Is it just me, or is it insane that Sergeant Willis is the officer dealing with every police inquiry in the show? Is he the only cop in Yorkshire? Wasn't he also dealing with the death of the odious Mr. Green which happened in London? What the hell is his jurisdiction? Is he the only cop in the UK from 1924 on?

WG: The show badly needs a laugh track. Every time Sergeant Schultz/Willis enters a scene, he should look at the camera palms up, shrug his shoulders, cue laugh track.

OMD: Has there ever been a scene less in character in the show's run than when Cora flipped on Anna, Patmore, and Hughes? Honestly, I can't remember a single situation in which Cora reacted to anything anywhere close to that angrily and I don't recall when it was ever misdirected like that. It was so uncharacteristic that when she proffered the overcoat as a gift the gesture was lost in the ham-handed manipulation that showed a complete deafness to character.

WG: Right? Everything seems compressed. They aren't creating enough space between some events and reactions to make them seem remotely believable. Anachronistic soundtrack suggestion for the unauthorized dress up with Cora's overcoats: "Fashion" by David Bowie.

OMD: The wedding was nice. I'm sure the wedding night was debauched. I hated seeing that old shit Reverend Travis. Screw that guy.

WG: I had a bet with my wife that Hughes would utter the line "we've waited long enough Carson, get your cock out." I think you can plausibly infer that it happened off screen.

OMD: Molesley's lamentation that he'd "missed everything" was probably the saddest moment in the show's recent memory. Why he wants to help that simple fool Daisy is beyond me, but Molesley's quietly the show's hero.

WG: He's filled the yawning void left by whatever happened to the husk of Bates's character. From class clown to hero. Anachronistic soundtrack suggestion #2: "Heroes" by David Bowie, played over montage of Moseley alternately tamping tar into potholes, dropping tea service, smashing rounders on the cricket pitch, and learning Daisy her comparative history.