Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a guess about that rapist guy - in this episode it seems like Cora's maid is putting together what must have happened. She reports this to Thomas and he is the one who kill this rapist and thus redeems himself.

ooh....I think I should go to hollywood with my wild imagination

I like this!

I don't think Thomas is interested in redeeming himself. Maybe he will black mail the rapist, that is more his speed.

If Mary & Lord Gilliam? became involved, I would think Anna could tell Mary how much she dislikes the Lord's valet and the hint would be taken. The Lord doesn't like him, he could hire Downton Abby's younger butler (that flirts with the maid) or the older one that they just brought back. Heck, Bates could even do it and then could all four of them could ride of into the sunet together.

No, Thomas will reveal to Bates who the rapist is so that Bates can kill and go to jail and Thomas can have Bates' job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a guess about that rapist guy - in this episode it seems like Cora's maid is putting together what must have happened. She reports this to Thomas and he is the one who kill this rapist and thus redeems himself.

ooh....I think I should go to hollywood with my wild imagination

I like this!

+1

Anonymous wrote:I have a guess about that rapist guy - in this episode it seems like Cora's maid is putting together what must have happened. She reports this to Thomas and he is the one who kill this rapist and thus redeems himself.

ooh....I think I should go to hollywood with my wild imagination

I like this!

I have a guess about that rapist guy - in this episode it seems like Cora's maid is putting together what must have happened. She reports this to Thomas and he is the one who kill this rapist and thus redeems himself.

ooh....I think I should go to hollywood with my wild imagination

Anonymous wrote:My unspoiled predictions - Edith miscarries, Mary winds up with her pig pen pal, Bates gets revenge somehow but does not kill or wind up in jail, Ana finds out she is pregnant but doesn't know whose baby it is. On another note, I love Edith's aunt. She has been very good to her - scolding her when appropriate but supportive when she is truly needed.

Yes, the aunt was wonderful, 'tho I seem to recall that she hasn't always been so supportive. Didn't she actually spread the story of Mary indiscretion with Mr. Pamuk?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the storyline with Rose and the singer totally unrealistic? Would an interracial relationship have even been possible at that time?

Black entertainers were very popular in England and France in the 1920s and 1930s. There were no Jim Crow laws and they were better treated than in the states. Many young people were rebelling against post Victorian mores, and Rose plays the role. It is realistic that she would be involved with the somewhat exotic black singer

Josephine Baker being Exhibitionist A. I mean, Exhibit A.

Plus, let's face it -- Yurp was getting the cream of the crop back in the 20s and 30s what with a mix of well-spoken, well-educated entertainers and (and I'm guessing) others who had the wherewithal to emigrate and set up a life in their new homelands.

When ill-educated Black immigrants started showing up in the 60s and 70s, you had the Rivers of Blood speech, etc.

Rinse-n-repeat for France with the Ay-rabs showing up around that timeframe (with bonus mistreatment of the pieds-noirs who were French but not as French as those in Metropolitan France, apparently), the Germans and the Turks, Switzerland and the Balkanites, Spain and the Arabs, then the Romanians (and now the Ukrainians), etc.

It took until more recently for Scandinavia to get in on the racist act, but with the rise of the Swedish Democrats and their ilk, all of Yurp is proving they're just as racist as we are. I mean, yelling racist shit at Black athletes has been out of bounds in the US for the past 40 years, and sports fans in Italy and Russia (among others) STILL haven't learned that lesson.

There's entire soccer clubs whose fan base are by and large racist pricks -- Millwall (England), Lazio aka Nazio (Italy), etc. The worst we have is Raider Nation, whose membership comes prepared for Halloween (sort of like the student body of VCU, but that's another story.)

BUT -- they didn't have the centuries of living alongside their betes noirs that we have over here (witness how Northern cities reacted once they were told they had to like Blacks too) and their immigrants by and large share neither a religion nor a language family with our own. I'm not a social scientist except on the Internets, but having decades of Spanish taught in school, sharing a religion with us, and hell having a few million of them whose ancestors have been in this country longer than most of us have to aid in the integration of the Hispanic community.

And yes -- there were fortune hunters a-plenty in Yurp in that era (e.g. Lord Grantham pere) and in the US you had plenty of people who wanted a title or two by their name (e.g. Cora).

Anonymous wrote:oo the German agent going home…wow. Good theory.

I keep hoping the document Edith signed turns out good--like she gets a windfall. You have to admit if it turned out to be good, we'd all be surprised...

Were there scenes for next week? I watched a rerun and there were no scenes and I started wondering if the season is over? (please no!)

There was a preview for next week, including Edith's plan to (from what I gather) live with a nearby farming family for the duration of her pregnancy. She'll get to wear cute country-style kerchiefs.

Anonymous wrote:I think Mary has to end up with the newly-engaged guy for two reasons:

First, because being newly engaged and it have been announced in the paper, it becomes a very problematic scandal, and

Second, because that means his "man"--his servant--the rapist--has to keep coming into the picture, which is going to further the Bates/Anna rape storyline.

BTW newly engaged guy I think is a good guy--the writers signaled that to us, the all-knowing public, by having him comment to Mary that he doesn't really like his "man" (the rapist) although he doesn't know why.

Although can someone comment on when newly-engaged guy asked (one of the other bachelors at DA) how the estate is doing--was that just for our benefit, or were they trying to show that everyone is out for DA financially, therefore maybe the interest in Mary is not genuine? That scene meant something but I don't know how to interpret it--as just for our benefit or to show the underlying motives of the bachelors.

The writers are really trying to stress the changing economic times, so I think they were just taking advantage of a conversational opportunity to bring it up rather than having someone give ANOTHER unnatural spiel in order to clue in viewers.

I think Mary has to end up with the newly-engaged guy for two reasons:

First, because being newly engaged and it have been announced in the paper, it becomes a very problematic scandal, and

Second, because that means his "man"--his servant--the rapist--has to keep coming into the picture, which is going to further the Bates/Anna rape storyline.

BTW newly engaged guy I think is a good guy--the writers signaled that to us, the all-knowing public, by having him comment to Mary that he doesn't really like his "man" (the rapist) although he doesn't know why.

Although can someone comment on when newly-engaged guy asked (one of the other bachelors at DA) how the estate is doing--was that just for our benefit, or were they trying to show that everyone is out for DA financially, therefore maybe the interest in Mary is not genuine? That scene meant something but I don't know how to interpret it--as just for our benefit or to show the underlying motives of the bachelors.

My unspoiled predictions - Edith miscarries, Mary winds up with her pig pen pal, Bates gets revenge somehow but does not kill or wind up in jail, Ana finds out she is pregnant but doesn't know whose baby it is. On another note, I love Edith's aunt. She has been very good to her - scolding her when appropriate but supportive when she is truly needed.

oo the German agent going home…wow. Good theory.

I keep hoping the document Edith signed turns out good--like she gets a windfall. You have to admit if it turned out to be good, we'd all be surprised...

Were there scenes for next week? I watched a rerun and there were no scenes and I started wondering if the season is over? (please no!)

Anonymous wrote:Is the storyline with Rose and the singer totally unrealistic? Would an interracial relationship have even been possible at that time?

Black entertainers were very popular in England and France in the 1920s and 1930s. There were no Jim Crow laws and they were better treated than in the states. Many young people were rebelling against post Victorian mores, and Rose plays the role. It is realistic that she would be involved with the somewhat exotic black singer

Anonymous wrote:Is the storyline with Rose and the singer totally unrealistic? Would an interracial relationship have even been possible at that time?

Based on a true story. There really was an African-American singer very much in vogue at the time in the UK (can't remember his name, someone on another thread had linked to an article about him). He had several affairs with married aristocratic women during that time, including the high-profile wife of a politician!!!
So as long as this flirting, with a young unmarried lady, is confined to reasonable bounds, then yes, it would mimic reality.

Anonymous wrote:Is the storyline with Rose and the singer totally unrealistic? Would an interracial relationship have even been possible at that time?

No, but too many people complained that there were no black people on the show.