Several years ago the NFL very cleverly figured out how to make the season last longer without playing more than 16 games in the regular schedule. Allow each team to skip a week of play at some point in the season. That way, a 16 week season can be televised for 17 weeks. The beer and auto companies are happy because they get to appear in front of all those testosterone eyeballs for an extra week. To say nothing of the pharmaceutical companies who have pointed out all the ailments you never knew you had until you've "asked your doctor."
So, I watched the penultimate episode of 'Downton Abbey' last night. If there's anything these TV series have done is they have introduced the word penultimate into our consciousness and made us realize the meaning is the episode before the final episode--the season finale, or finale in some cases.
So, the grim news first. Anna's been arrested for throwing the serial rapist Mr. Green under the bus. Can this be possible? Sure she's got motive, but means? She's been identified in a lineup of similar built women all wearing those cloche hats that were so popular in the era. Will this hold up? Where's F. Lee Bailey, or even Vinny Gambini to point out the witness's bad eyesight? I guess that's to come.
As Anna in handcuffs is paraded past the assembled family and staff, Lady Mary voices her outrage. She blurts out the usual about getting a lawyer, and "do you know who I am." She reserves her highest snit when the inspector doesn't call her by her titled honorific: Lady Mary Crawley.
The inspector could care less about the proper form address and tells her he couldn't care if she was "Queen-of-the-Nile." You can hear the air come out of Lady Mary's lungs. The inspector of course was deflecting the protests from the upper class. If this were a 1930s NYC detective movie, Lady Mary would have been referred to as a dame; a sister, as in "listen sister, I don't care who you are"; or even a broad. Oh boy.
This would not have gone over as well as "Queen-of-the-Nile." That at least has a bit of history to it. The other terms are degrading, and if Inspector Vyner uttered the New York dismissive dialog toward a woman, Lady Mary might have pulled that hat pin out and stabbed the bugger in the eye. This of course would have put two 'Downton' women in the hoosegow. One is enough.
It would have also necessitated producer Julian Fellowes turning 'Downton' into a British 'Law and Order' series and a 'CSI' iteration. This no doubt would have distracted from the overall upstairs, downstairs aspect of the show. To say nothing of having Lady Mary dressed in prison garb without a hat. No, no.
Lady Mary is musing that the whole gang seems to be breaking up. If you remember, 'Downton' opened with the news that the Titanic hit an iceberg, broke up, and sunk. That was 1912, and now were are in 1924. The shoals of passing time are exerting their force on the family and friends,
Aside from the Titanic, WWI and the Teapot Dome scandal, little of the outside world seems to creep into the Crawley household. Does anyone read a paper?
We have the expected dinner table chatter about the Jewish family Rose is marrying into. This is causing its share of friction on both parental sides. The groom's father, Lord Sinderby bears an absolute uncanny resemblance to Yul Brenner. He even sounds like Yul Brenner. If Lord Sinderby smoked a cheroot, plopped a hat on his head, and got up on a horse and shot at Eli Wallach and his gang we'd be cheering. Even if he is Jewish.
We have some drama over an attempt to disrupt, or even have the wedding called off, when Rose's mother, Lady Flintshire, concocts a bit of a badger game, attempting to frame Atticus with salacious photos. It doesn't work.
Poor Lady Flintshire. She seems so unhappy, not yet divorced from hubby Shrimpie and having to see her daughter headed for a home with a Mezuzah on the front door frame. If you looked like Lady Flintshire you'd be unhappy too. It seems half of her face disappears at her chin, giving her a Dorothy Kilgallen look.
I don't know what month they are in in 1924, but it could have been easy for the screenwriters to have someone bring up Harold Abrahams, the Jewish sprinter who wins the goal medal in the 100 meter dash at the Paris Olympics for England. As John Gielgud mutters from the faculty rooms at Cambridge, Harold is one of the "chosen people" isn't he? He's got to do well.
And then someone could bring up the Sabbath observing Eric Liddell, the Scottish sprinter who wins the gold in the 400 meter race. What balance! What diversity! I guess Julian Fellowes didn't want an ESPN sports conversation at the dinner table. So, instead of 'Chariots of Fire,' we get some tablespoons of Chariots of Ire. No real problem though.
Dame Violet's maid Denker adds some common touch as she gets blasted in a cellar joint, thinking she's got drinks for free for bringing pigeons in wit 'er. Oh luv, you's in for a surprise, now ain' cha'?
And of course, the war memorial and the recognition extended to Mrs. Patmore's nephew. Lord G. is positively Churchillian, and still fitting in his Boer War uniform. He must have been hitting the gym off camera. I can't tell what rank Robert is, perhaps a major, but he is a leader, especially as he leads the family and staff back to the pile.
Lady Edith's out-of-wedlock child Marigold is attracting his Lordship's attention, so much so that he peers into her features and figures out he's got another grandchild. Lady Cora is positively the mother of charity, and gets his Lordship to keep it quiet a bit longer. It will come out. Let Edith tell everyone.
He gallantly agrees. How could he not, in that uniform? An officer and a gentleman.
So, behind a week has its plus side. I can freely speculate in what Mr. Fellowes might be up to. Is there another season in the works? I think so, since I read of an actor getting a part in the "upcoming season."
How is his New York Gilded Age project coming? Is he going to advance that era a bit and fill it with a 'Downton' cast that's made the voyage across the sea to Amer-i-kay? Branson in Massachusetts? The Irish with the Brahmins? Beacon Hill and Southies? We've already had one 'Bridget Loves Bernie' in the family, perhaps one going the other way? So much to think about.
Today's NYT has a front page teaser about what might be ahead for Mr. Fellowes and his followers. With the penultimate episode out of the way, I'll head for the season's ultimate episode.
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