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 Five, Episode Ten, The Christmas Special

Rich people shoot grouse at Hogwarts. A butler is a dick to Branson. Lord Grantham has chest pains. Rose saves the day. One couple calls it a day while another gets serious. Bates tries to take the heat for Anna. The house says goodbye to Branson.

Old Man Duggan: As Lady Mary stepped through the doors of the ladies' prison to visit Anna, do you think the pondered what would have happened if the world found out about her criminally inclined anus?

Wordy Ginters: I believe exactly that pondering accounted for her face, drained of color yet flush with trepidation. That heiny is like an atomic bomb in a suitcase. No wonder she's so damn cocky.

OMD: When Molesley made hilariously anachronistic mention of tea gowns when detailing how the rigors of being a Lady's maid for three Ladies would overwhelm him, I immediately thought of him becoming Mary and Edith's confidant and then jumped to wishing that was the show we were watching. This has increasingly become a problem for me watching this show. My mind wanders more and more as I long for it to be something it's not. This was not a problem in the first two seasons.

WG: It's a shame, isn't it? It would be pretty easy to shift the characters on the show like moving around a Rubik's Cube and come up with more favorable scenarios. Pratt running a Pub. The Dowager and Kuragin on the run like Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in The Getaway. Daisy reprising Eddie Redmayne's portrayal of Stevie Hawking in a made for TV 1920's British take on The Theory of Everything.

OMD: All of those would be beautiful. I, for one, am glad Susan MacClare was not invited to Brancaster. I need not look at her puckered mug again.

WG: Screw her.

OMD: It is amusing that Mary is the only one that hasn't figured out Marigold's origins, as she's the only one so self-obsessed to have paid the whole situation no attention whatsoever. Is it just me, or would Mary not look upon Edith much more sympathetically if she were to divulge the bastardly origins of Marigold to her? Nevertheless, here we find ourselves in this labyrinth of barely interesting familial intrigue.

WG: I don't know if there is anything Edith can do to wring compassion out of Mary. She is capable of compassion, but you are right, she's too self-absorbed to notice much of what happens with her sister. And, she's still pissed at Edith for dropping a dime about Mary's fatal F2FA murder of Kamal way back in Season One. Season One! Let that shit go Mary. More jarring: Seeing Edith with her golden ringlets unfurled prior to her genuinely feel-good I know what's up chat with Grantham, or seeing Kermit ride a back in The Muppet Movie?

OMD: Kermit, because that shit ain't supposed to happen.

Mr. Stowell makes Carson look downright jolly. What a stodgy piece of shit. You're still The Help, douchebag, serve, and that means Tom.

WG: Downton Abbey Clan ain't nothing to fuck with. It was fun to see Thomas, with the help from those who previously would have preferred to gouge his eyes out with salad forks, completely wreck those fools in Brancaster, from Sinderby all the way down to the comically loutish Stowell. Is there any sweetness sweeter than comeuppance?

OMD: Probably not.

Little sidenote, Brancaster Castle is actually Alnwick Castle, which serves as a primary location for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series. I thought it looked familiar, and it does for a reason. As Jack and I like to jokingly call out during movies when we've either visited a place--say, Independence Hall in National Treasure or Duart Castle in Entrapment--or obviously not ever been within thousands of miles of the place--Phuket in The Beach or Istanbul doubling as Tehran in Argo--"Been there."

WG: Awesome. Odd variation on that theme specific to this Christmas Special, Mrs Wordy Ginters kept hollering out "BATES!" during the last 20 minutes of the show, presciently expecting his triumphant return. We debated whether or not he'd reappear in a Santa costume, perhaps drunk and disorderly style like Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places, or just springing from the shadows with standard issue black stocking cap, black turtleneck, Hogan's Heroes type gear. I was secretly relieved he showed up as regular old Bates.

OMD: Any mode of return was possible given Fellowes's recent history.

The firing back and forth of pot shots and minor acts of sabotage between Denker and Spratt couldn't go away fast enough. Both share a fundamental lack of redeeming or humanizing traits, but Fellowes chose to spend unreasonably large segments of this season's run focusing on one, the other, or both, leading me to wonder if he holds his audience in contempt.

WG: Would it be too simplistic to suggest Fellowes finds petty squabbles and disputes a defining feature of the lower classes? They're dumb and mean like ill-tempered livestock.

OMD: It's certainly possible, though the most grounded, wholesome people in the show tend to hail from those lower ranks.

Apparently retroactive injury had to be added to insult and injury paid unto Anna. Of course, he had to have been molested as a child. Clearly the only way people will keep watching is if Anna and Bates are stabbed with pen knives every few episodes. Nothing fatal, of course, but flesh wounds must be inflicted for fear of loss of audience interest.

WG: That story line is the one that wears me out. Ridiculous. That shit is so sadly common in real life, and also sadly ignored, that it's shitty to use it like Fellowes has, without being able to treat the subject matter sensitively or in a way that helps anyone anywhere.

OMD: The shot of Stowell underneath the snarling mounted lion head on the is a comically obvious metaphorical juxtaposition.

WG: I noticed that too. Pretty sure that head belonged to Scar from The Lion King.

OMD: Jesus, Princess Kuragin is one dour old bitch. Violet is a cockeyed optimist and blinding ray of sunshine by comparison.

WG: I still dig that guy. He brings a wholly different vibe to the proceedings than any character before him. I don't know if it's the acting or the character, but he's sprung from something more tangibly believable than the soap opera he's been stuck into.

OMD: True dat. Robert's late night conversation with Edith was an oasis in the midst of the barren desert of niceties that is Edith's life. She doesn't get many bright spots, but his overwhelming acceptance of his granddaughter was heartwarming.

WG: Agreed. Grantham was obviously more concerned about his chest pains than he let on. He was in non-oaf mode. Which is nice.

OMD: Lady Mary siccing Thomas on Stowell is the aristocratic equivalent of using a Panzerzug to get rid of a zit. Stowell certainly had to pay Branson more respect, but an entire family was almost done on account of Thomas's handiwork. Talk about invoking the nuclear option.

WG: It was a thing of beauty. Just when you think those at Downton are sheltered or soft, they turn loose Thomas and he sets the place on fire inside of 48 hours.

OMD: "We can't all be as unselfish as you, Mary. (beat) Just joking." I laughed so hard at Allen Leach's delivery of that line.

WG: I hope they still make room for Branson next season. I suspect it's the last of him, but maybe it's better for him to get written of the show before he was completely emasculated. Who the fuck am I kidding? He was neutered long ago.

OMD: It seems odd to introduce Henry Talbot as what superficially amounts to a suitor for Lady Mary, but it would be surprising for Matthew Goode to actually join the cast as a regular, as he surely can't fit Downton into his schedule while he's a primary cast member on The Good Wife. As far as Henry being into racing, that's probably a harbinger of what's to come in the Season Six premiere. Mary and Talbot will have had an off-screen affair, only for him to run into the business end of a lorry.

WG: After the Bates/Anna/Bates murder plot twists, two car crashes isn't out of the question. Just what Downton needs, more hot car action.

OMD: Molesley & Baxter, Private Dicks. Another show I'd rather watch.

WG: Absolutely.

OMD: Violet's admission to having run away with Kuragin only to be stopped by the Princess was something everyone had expected since he first popped up in Yorkshire, but her failing to eliminate other instances in which she may have strayed may mean that we will be so lucky as to have a different septua-/octogenarian suitor risen from the dead each subsequent season. I hope next season's vier for Violet is played by Sean Connery.

WG: Was that Fellowes underlying theme this season? Old people can still live life? I'd love to see a shirtless Sean Connery in the cast. Michael Caine? How about Roger Daltrey? Is Tom Courtenay still alive? Benny Hill? This is starting to become a lot like what I imagine The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is like.

OMD: Have we come to that? Wishcasting a version of Downton Abbey that more closely mirrors The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? Jesus.

Branson running interference on Robert's drunken attempt at speech delivery was a fun bit of business. If this was a true farewell (and with Branson not actually dying, perhaps he'll make occasional appearances), the show has had worse. Lord Grantham's fond farewell showed how far the two have come. His speech to the house got me a bit choked up, but who knows how much of that is related to Branson's departure leaving little to root for in the house.

WG: At that point, I would have enjoyed it more if Branson would have been forced to continue finding ways to cock-block Grantham from getting off his speech. "And now, Mr. Moseley will entertain us with a version of Silver Bells in the style of STOMP!"

OMD: I'm glad Carson was able to put aside the airs they'd been putting on and just propose. Mrs. Hughes's sister sapping her of her money need not be a hindrance for Carson's happiness. The upright proposal was the nicest moment of the Christmas Special. The most tear-inducing moment of the finale.

WG: Hughes is a mensch. Another spin-off I'd rather watch. Carson and Hughes with an unending river of entertaining characters coming and going from the B&B.

OMD: And we end on Bates returning to presumably impregnate Anna only to have Fellowes fuck with the pair once again. It seems like the show is heading irreversibly down the path toward irrelevance, especially given Fellowes's inability to restock the show with rich, new characters who are able to draw the concern and affection of the audience. What spin-off would you rather watch than another season of this dreck?

WG: Fellowes and Mary on Naked and Afraid. What are you going with?

OMD: I'd have to say I want Molesley: Once, Twice, Three Times a Ladies' Maid to happen most. Well, if this is the last time we venture down this road, it's been my pleasure.

WG: The feeling is mutual.