Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Series Four, Episodes One and Two

Dukes and Duchesses (Duchi?), we're back to hold your hand or possibly even your hair back as you vomit into the nearest toilet. This week, PBS pulled another one of those air-two-episodes-back-to-back-for-no-good-reason-other-than-that-they-are-the-first-two-episodes-of-the-seasons. That means you'll have to suffer through an exceptionally long back-and-forth from myself and our old friend, Wordy Ginters. In this double-installment, we suffered through an especially bitchy Lady Mary lashing out at everyone in her own privileged way, watched helplessly as that horrendous Edna snaked her way back into Downton, wondered why Lord Grantham has to be such a dumb cluck, and breathed a sigh of relief when Mary was found to have inherited Matthew's portion of the estate after all. The ghost of Matthew Crawley still casts a significant shadow across the estate.

Old Man Duggan: For as evil a shrew as Mrs. O'Brien was, Julian Fellowes sure dicked the audience over on her exit. No cathartic firing where all of her dirty deeds were exposed. She simply slips out in the dark of night. I'm sure this is a byproduct of Siobhan Finneran not coming back for a fourth go at things, as that was also why Matthew died so suddenly. I guess this leaves the door open for the insidious O'Brien to slip back through should Finneran want/be asked to return. Still, disappointing that her goodbye wasn't more explosive. Hell, she could have at least slipped on a bar of soap and cracked her fucking skull open on the side of the tub.

Wordy Ginters: O'Brien slinking into the gloomy dark was a buzz-kill. Were there any justice, the divisive seeds of anger and strife she has sewn over the years would have resulted in some kind of hilarious comeuppance. Fellowes gets off on denying we viewers our simple pleasures. I would have settled for seeing what pithy comments she left in those cards on the mantle. "Dearest Anna, Please fuck right off." I had conveniently forgotten how much her hair skillz were appreciated up north in Duneagle with the country cousins.

OMD: In the past, I have definitely been a bit of an apologist for Lady Mary, but holy shit was she unbearable this week. Skulking about the house in black, "Poor little orphan" this, "Have a happy time" that. Just sitting around doing absolutely nothing while expecting the world to pity her. We jump ahead six months, and she's still sulking like Matthew had his run in with a lorry last week. And her lashing out at Carson when he tries to encourage Mary to take an interest in the running of the estate was most definitely irksome. When Mary began to cry in Carson's office after apologizing to him, I thought she was going to morph into the alien from Alien.

There ain't no iguana.

WG: In my mind, every time Mary spoke I could only hear the Rolling Stone's "Paint it Black." When Kanye West plopped young Lord George in Mary's arms for the first time, you would have thought she had given Mary a diseased iguana. I'm glad Carson stood up to Mary. She was headed straight towards Cruella DeVille territory, which may have been interesting, but you've got to keep your love/loathe ratio of characters in balance.

OMD: Of course, much of Mary's malaise was being enabled by Lord Grantham, though for his own selfish reasons: his need to feed his fragile ego by running the estate into the ground. He's the proto-Dayton Moore--probably a nice enough guy, well-intentioned, but clearly outmatched when it comes to carrying out the task at hand. Thank sweet baby Jesus for the Dowager Countess. She slapped the dick right out of his mouth.

WG: I consulted last years edition of Downton Prospectus, they list Dayton Moore as Grantham's top comp, right in front of Jim Fregosi and Bob Boone. How many times does Grantham get to squander the family fortune before they take away the checkbook? If Lord Grantham needs to be a heel to introduce nascent women's rights issues, so be it. I'd love to see Fellowes have the balls to go 12 Years a Slave and display how gruesome male/female relations really were back then.

OMD: It's weird when a character is so odious as to have you rooting for Thomas, but it was obvious Nanny West was a foul fucking creature. Where the fuck does Nanny West get off telling Isobel she can't see her grandson?

WG: Yeezy was hilarious. A shittier Patmore.

OMD: At least we still have Molesley for whom to feel empathy toward. It doesn't hurt that Spratt was such a dick to him. Speaking of Spratt, is it just me, or was he Joel Murray channeling Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys? Mashing the tar. 'Tis a sad state of affairs in Mr. Molesley's world.

WG: Poor Molesley. Crying and tarring. Bubbles is spot on. What the hell is going on with the servant class back in England circa 1922? Talk about a bunch of scheming round heels. God forbid that Thomas and Spratt ever sync up, they'd be damn near unstoppable.

OMD: It's been very clearly established that Lady Edith cannot have nice things. Where is this German divorce play heading? Does Michael Gregson become a key figure in the National Socialist Party? Is he Hitler?

WG: Edith hasn't got what she wanted since she sexually accosted that commoner in the work shed a few years back. I had high hopes that maybe we'd run into Gertrude Stein or Hemingway at that "literary" party. I'm kind of digging the evolution of Edith. You are right though, moving to Germany for a divorce doesn't seem like the wisest move.

OMD: So Gwen's married? That typing fetched her a husband, I see. I'm assuming it's Jon Snow.

WG: Red Wedding part duex?

OMD: At first news of Matthew having drawn up an informal will leaving his portion of the estate to Mary, Robert starts a-draggin' his feet. There are so many times that I want to ascribe the label 'twat' to him, but here in this moment at the beginning of the second episode I feel justified in stamping it across his forehead. His first instinct is to hide the letter from Mary until its legality can be determined. Ugh. Once Mary says she has an interest in the estate, Robert starts in about all of the minutae, taking the piss out of her at the dinner table.

WG: His Lordship can be a real horse's ass. I think the alliance between Branson, Carson, and the Dowager will probably keep him in line. I still get a kick out of Branson having his humble roots jammed back in his face from time to time. Hopefully he flips out and burns something down.

OMD: Bates: The Social Butterfly. I could get used to that. I loved Bates's reaction to Anna and Molesley's surprise at his friendliness. I really liked how Bates worked up the fake IOU. Did you get a load of those pound notes? Gigantic.

WG: Jesus H. Christ, I loves me some Bates and Anna. Totally my fave couple. What the hell is Anna doing though? She's setting herself up for some Thomas fuckery. Completely inevitable, right?

OMD: I'd bring up the Rose/Sam Thawley bit or the return of Mr. Grigg, but really who cares? Having seen the next episode (or at least the next hour), I can safely say I'm not looking forward to next week.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Series Three, Episode Three

Thanks to PBS's dumb airing and alterations, I get to start off every entry with the disclaimer that if you watched these as they aired on ITV, then this is actually the fourth episode that aired. As aired on PBS, this is the "third." As always, Wordy Ginters and myself will be your spirit guides. Come get some.

Old Man Duggan: I got seven-plus minutes into rewatching this episode before I was first struck with a moment that stood out on its own merits to write about. That's not a good sign. "Edith, dear, you're a woman with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do." The dichotomous nature of The Dowager Countess is endlessly fascinating to me. Violet seems so beholden to the old ways almost all the time, but she'll make these small yet extremely important gestures and statements that encapsulate everything that works about the show so well, and those are often coming from a surprisingly feminist point of view, ultimately.

Wordy Ginters: In general, I'm a big fan of anti-whining advice. It's not easy to hear, but it's almost always excellent counsel. And you are exactly right, for all of the over the top "can you believe she said that" lines of dialogue that The Dowager gets to gnaw on in Downton Abbey, she is also typically the most pragmatic. That her pragmatism overlaps with pro-fem views on occasion is welcome ballast to some of the standard anti-fem shenanigans. Some of those tired old views are a reflection of the era, but also reflective of mass entertainment today.

OMD: There's also a little moment previously in that scene where Violet makes a little comment wherein she expresses surprise at the price of the sedate(?) that Edith brings which led me to believe that perhaps Fellowes was making a sly comment about inflation. He was not. Upon further investigation, I don't think that could have been the case as in 1920 the UK was actually in the midst of its first year of post-war deflation. I suppose it's possible that Violet hadn't purchased her medicine since 1914, but I highly doubt that. From 1920 through 1935, there was only one year in which the UK experience anything other than deflation, some of which was due to the astronomical rates of Great War inflation that was simply unsustainable which was then likely stretched out because of the wider effects of the Depression. That's a significant tangent, but I left it in here to illustrate that sometimes I give too much credit to a deft storyteller like Fellowes only to find out that I read way too much into something.

WG: Where else can you go for that kind of research and piercing insight? Nice hustle. I assumed it was an echo of the precarious financial situation from the previous episode. Regardless, what the hell is a sedate? Could a narcotics jones be the real reason behind the Dowager's unflappable demeanor?

OMD: The Bates Lettergate of 1920 was fairly tedious, reeking of invention of conflict for the mere sake of adding tension to an otherwise static situation. Having said that, it still provided the nicest moment of the episode: Anna getting the veritable fuckload of letters. Despite irritating me for the greater part of the episode, it was still hard not to hold back a few tears for Anna's happiness. More often than not, it is the random moment of unbridled happiness that gets me on this show. I guess that shows I'm a bitch to character. That said, the shitstorm that follows Bates does become truly unbelievable at times.

WG: The orgiastic letter reading scenes were excellent TV. I read lots of criticism of Downton. It's PBS. It's a soap. It's predictable. It's saccharine melodrama. It is all these things, and it still manages to pull of scenes like that and make them feel authentic.

OMD: Speaking of tedious and irritating, Ethel's back. Fuck my life. She's not just back. She's. Back. In the fore. Mucking up the works. Holy shit, do I want that character out of this show. Nothing good can come of that randy ginger being involved. I truly give zero shits about her, and her presence and Isobel's responsibility for it make me grow to dislike Isobel. Ethel is a cancer, a pox on this house. At least the charisma-less sack of potatoes finally did the right thing and got rid of her kid.

WG: She does have a charisma deficiency. Fellowes may be getting his feminist on with this plot thread as well. Her baby daddy is dead and happy. Ethel is the one left with a shit stain where her life used to be. I did get a kick at how vile the idea of "prostitution" apparently was in those august circles. Many of the characters couldn't bare to utter the word.

OMD: In her youth, the actress who played Mrs. Bryant had to have been Olive Oyl in something, right?

WG: I was thinking J Crew's Jenna Lyons.

OMD: How about that weird Lord Grantham anti-Catholic line that came without warning? Obviously it sets up something, but sometimes he'll do or say something that seems so out of character with the rest of the traits that Fellowes has laid out for Robert. Then when he takes umbrage that Lady Edith for having penned an op-ed about women's suffrage, you can't help but wonder what happened to the Lord Grantham of old? Sure, he'd be slow to accept what his daughters wanted to do, but it doesn't seem like he would get all up in arms about something so sensible as having his daughters want to be granted some semblance of equality. At the very least

WG: The anti-Catholic jab was out of nowhere. Not that I didn't get a kick out of it. Speaking of Manti Te'o, I kind of liked this.

OMD: As for what the line sets up, there's the same old tension between Robert and Branson. As one of the elite, Fellowes takes his opportunity to once again show that the idealistic revolutionary is too naive to understand the error of his beliefs. Granted, revolutionaries are typically naively idealistic, but sometimes it comes across as condescending when the point is being made by one of the elite. Fellowes might want to consider that before approaching any more revolutionary story arcs. I did like Branson telling Robert, "We all live in a harsh world, but at least I know I do." Want another go around with the paper man, Robert?

WG: I wish Fellowes cared as much about class-consciousness as he apparently does about Feminism. Branson fucked up though. Leaving Sybil behind was too self-serving. Can he redeem himself from that? I don't know. Perhaps more details will come about, but I don't blame Grantham for being chapped that his daughter was left to twist in the wind. Wait, is that an anti-fem point of view? Of course Sybil can take care of herself... Whatever. Which spoon is for the custard? Speaking of spoons, when Carson was schooling Alfred in the art of spoons, were you instantly taken away, like I was, to the scene from Pretty Woman when Hector Elizondo taught Julia Roberts about cutlery etiquette?

OMD: Can't say that I did, as I try to block Julia Roberts from my mind.

Carson's equation of a dangerous revolutionary to an electric toaster was priceless yet totally in character.

WG: He shit white for a solid week after Grantham had phones installed several episodes back. I shudder to think of how he'll handle the toaster. I think someone will be ordering some sedates. The look on his face when the devil toaster was revealed is worth a second look. Acting.

OMD: Jimmy Kent. The world stops when a pretty face enters the room. It's strange, but there are very few characters who have been introduced into the mix part way through the series who are engaging. Other than knowing that Jimmy is the belle of the servants' ball, early returns are not promising for him reversing the course. And I'd say that it's hardly shocking that Mary was championing the cause of rewarding good looks. All I can say is, bring back Gwen

WG: Ah yes, sweet, silly, Gwen. Sexy ginger housemaid with aspirations to be an admin assistant. James will be lucky to stay out of Thomas's clutches. And if James' female counterpart, Ivy, somehow gets between Daisy, the carrot in her mouth, and Alfred, all the better. Daisy sucks.

OMD: The brief addendum to the Jimmy conversation was great. Carson praising Alfred only to say, "...Even if he is Miss O'Brien's nephew," which is met with laughs and Matthew saying, "Clearly nothing worse could be said of any man." I'd say that's true. At least pre-Hitler/-Stalin. Great. Another flimsy conflict that will surely fail to engage because it involves two characters who we barely know and about whom we care very little. Who might be so lucky as to be deemed first footman? Will it be Alfred? Will it be James/Jimmy? Will anyone care? And then Ivy comes in, and it would seem that Fellowes is going to set up some sort of love shape. A love triangle? A love quadrilateral? A love pentagon? Daisy gets what she wants only to have it immediately complicated, recalling a certain Stones tune. I'm speaking, of course, about "Brown Sugar."

WG: "House boy knows that he's doin' alright."

OMD: When Sybil re-enters through the doors of Downton Abbey, the first thing that comes to mind is, of course, holy shit, how bad is that hair? What the hell were they thinking?

WG: Another Stones' song to the rescue: "Paint it Black."

OMD: And it takes forty minutes, but finally we have a simmering conflict that seems to matter for the overall narrative. Matthew and Robert with differing views about how to run Downton. New school versus old school. The moded versus the outmoded. Youth versus the aged. The competent versus the incompetent. Here is some fertile ground for meaningful tension. Please breathe fresh air into this world Mr. Fellowes.

WG: Agreed. Limpid pools of blue-eyed Matthew is just the sort of principled and persnickety sonuvabitch to show Grantham the error of his ways. Grantham hasn't been as grateful or deferential as he should be. He was this close to spending the rest of his days shuffling around the race track, sorting through cigarette butts and looking for coins. With ONLY eight servants to wait on him back at Downton Lite.

OMD: This episode had plenty of eye candy for the ladies. The arguably attractive Jimmy Kent with his shirt agape was the obvious one, but I'll say this: Branson's ass looked mighty well-formed in those pajama bottoms while he stood at the desk/dressing table/whatever the fuck that thing was. I'd take a bite out of that sumptuous rump roast.

WG: Dude is like the Irish 50 Cent.

Reading Rainbow: Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

After an eleven-year hiatus, our old friends Patrick Kenzie and Angie Kenzie (née Gennaro) are back, having last been seen patching things up in Dennis Lehane's 1999 novel Prayers for Rain. While the fifth novel in the series was integral in that it saw the two patch things up, Moonlight Mile--taking its name from what might be my favorite Stones tune--ties in much more to the best-known book in the series, Gone, Baby, Gone [commas dropped in the Affleck-directed film adaptation], as it follows up with Amanda McCready twelve years after she was returned to her woefully neglectful mother, Helene.

Unlike the rest of the novels in the series, Gone, Baby, Gone had plenty of room for a proper sequel, and given the opportunity to explore the ramifications of Patrick's choice at the end of that novel, the ground for a thematically interesting book is fertile. Thankfully (and predictably), Lehane does not disappoint, having the consequences of Patrick's actions a dozen years prior wreak havoc throughout the book.

What transpires is a mesmerizing exploration into the far-reaching consequences of a single act, one made in a no-win situation, and it is delivered by one of the most enthralling voices out there. Lehane's books are ones that get their claws in you and don't let you go until you've devoured them and are left still wanting more. Moonlight Mile is another in a long line of dark page-turners, that despite their best-seller status and focus on crime never quite feel low or pulpy. That isn't to say that pulp is bad, but somehow Lehane seems to transcend the mystery/crime genre, existing in a world all his own.

Or perhaps I'm trying to validate a genre that I really don't think needs validation, as I'd much rather read Lehane or Chandler or Cain or Jim Thompson than James Joyce.

Regardless, Moonlight Mile is a worthy [apparent] conclusion to the saga that is Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's arc, the only book series I have read from front-to-back in at least a decade, and probably the only one I'd recommend to everyone out there.