So, wait, we're going to watch season two together too, right? I don't want to go to WAR by myself. Are we going to do that? We might as well, right? What else are we doing? Ok, it's settled that we will, unless an overwhelming percentage of you THOMASES tell me that we shouldn't. Great. So. This episode. The season one finale! It begins with the family coming back from their trip to London. Oh, what a wonderful trip. Sybil impressed men! Edith did not, obviously! Mary is still in London, with a bitchy aunt! Back at home, Mrs. Patmore's eyesight has gotten even worse, and there still hasn't been a decision made about whether or not Bates will remain at Downton, because for some reason Bates LOVES secrets and won't tell anyone anything to prove his innocence. Ugh, it is so frustrating how much Bates loves secrets. Secret secrets are no fun, secret secrets hurt someone, BATES. Also, Cora is pregnant! WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
When you heard that Cora was pregnant, did you also think that Mary was the one who was actually pregnant and Cora was going to cover for her? And that Mary would decide to marry Matthew, but then the baby would be a boy, and she would have to decide whether she should own up to this baby being her own OR just be married to a commoner and have her baby boy watch the throne or whatever? And then did you think, "Well, how would they cover that up? Mary being pregnant and giving birth? And Cora not being pregnant at all?" And then you thought, "That will be interesting to see!" And then you realized that Cora was actually just pregnant and you wasted all of this thought on NOTHING? Me too!
When explaining her pregnancy to the Lord, the doctor says, "You understand that women go through a certain change. Well sometimes it can result in a surge of fertility." And the Lord says, "GROSS GROSS GROSS I'M NOT LISTENING." But it turns out Cora has been pregnant for four months already? Sorry, I thought I was watching Downton Abbey, not I Downton Know I Was Pregnant. Hahaahhahahahahaha. Please RT.
Meanwhile there is some stupid jerk stuff is going on with The Jerks, obviously. O'Brien and Thomas gather in a hallway to talk about some secret business going on with another maid in another house. They got her to do something involving a letter. We assume it is about Bates because O'Brien in Thomas CANNOT let the Bates issue drop, for whatever reason. I don't even know what's in it for O'Brien at all. Thomas just wants Bates job, right? What's O'Brien's deal? She wants Thomas to succeed? She just likes scheming? She has to put her witch face to good use? WHAT'S THE DEAL, O'BRIEN?
They bring the letter to Carson, after Mrs. Hughes gets done telling him that the Lord needs to make a decision about Bates. One of them says, "Do you think a man like that should live and work at Downton?" "A MAN LIKE WHAT?" we think. What's in that letter! Tell us what's in the letter!
Back in London, the guy who was friends with Mr. Pamuk is there to see Mary. His wedding has been called off, but that's not why he's there, but then why are they even talking about it? Is Mary going to marry this guy eventually? Why do we have this information? GUYS? Anyway he's there to tell her that SOMEONE wrote a letter to the Turkish embassy telling them about Mary's horrifying night with Mr. Pamuk. BUT WHO? TELL US WHO WHO WHO?"This is the hard part," he says. "That's what she said," we say. "It was your sister, Lady Edith, who wrote to the ambassador. That's why people accept the story." Ahhh! Now Mary knows! "It's hard to believe," the guy says. "Harder for you than for me," Mary says. "That's what she said again," we say.
Now that everyone knows about Cora's miracle pregnancy, the Lord talks to Matthew about what the possibility of it being a boy means to him. He says he can't give him anything in the estate, basically, but he can keep the house in Downton if he wants to. That's nice, I guess? We've really only ever seen the living room of that house, but I'm sure the rest of it is very nice. The the Lord asks for the name of his cook, and he says Mrs. Bird, and the Lord says, no seriously, and Matthew says, no seriously it's Mrs. Bird. And the Lord says, "oooooook." Later, Matthew will tell his mom that he doesn't want the house but that she can have it if she wants. Whatever, Matthew.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Patmore hurts herself and Thomas says something shitty about William's mother, who recently died. Business as usual.
Later, Carson confronts Bates about the letter and asks if any of it is false. He doesn't deny any of it, because he is BATES and he is VERY FRUSTRATING SOMETIMES, so Carson tells him he'll have to take it to the Lord. "I hope you don't feel I've treated you unjustly," says Carson. "Oh the contrary, Mr. Carson. I'm astonished at your kindness," says Bates. "You are both nice and fair to each other," say we.
In London, Mary is spending some time with her terrible Aunt. She explains that she wants to marry Matthew, even without the title, because she loves him. Her Aunt says that that would not be a good idea. Mary is remarkably swayed by her opinion, for some reason. Why? I get that she was kind of hesitant already, but who even cares about this dumb Aunt? Mary! BE STRONGER! YOU LOOK NICE IN THAT HAT!
Once she gets back to Downton she has the same conversation with her sisters, mother, and grandmother and her grandmother tells her to marry him because "If you take Matthew now, when his whole future is at risk, he will love you forever." And for a moment we think that Old Lady is just being sweet, which is very out of character, but then she tells her that she can always break off the engagement if the baby turns out to be a boy. Hahah. OOPS! Not sweet. Just normal. But not a bad idea! In this scene, OLG also breaks the news that she's looking for a new maid because her old maid is leaving to get married. "How could you be so selfish?" she asks. "Oh, you!" we say.
In the basement, the servants are talking about how war is imminent. Like, real war. Thomas is going on about some fake war that I don't even care about at all. Daisy has to tell Mrs. Patmore to see the Lord in the library, and somebody says, "and we thought the assassination of an arch duke is a surprise." LOL. Good one. In the library, Mrs. Patmore starts apologizing immediately, because we both think she's there to be fired, but she's not there to be fired! Quite the contrary! The Lord is sending her to London to see an eye specialist, Anna will go with her, they'll stay at his sister's. That all seems very strange to me! We know the Lord is nice, but is he really THAT NICE? That is very nice! Whatever, though. In any case, he does it, and it is nice.
Next are two back-to-back scenes of people being frustrating. Outside, Mary and Matthew are fighting because Mary won't give Matthew an answer about whether or not she will marry him, and he says if she loves him she would give him an answer, and we all agree. It's not that difficult, Mary! DO YOU LOVE HIM OR NO? In the following scene, Bates is again refusing to say anything more about what everyone is accusing him of. He wants to be kept or fired based on "the facts." But it's hard to keep him or hire him based on "the facts" when he refuses to tell him any details about "the facts." YOU ARE THE WORST, NO THAT'S NOT TRUE, YOU ARE THE BEST, BUT WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? Oh jesus, and then there's a scene with Anna saying goodbye to Bates and she asks if Bates will miss her and he says, "Try not to miss me. It'll be good practice." Ugh. That was straight-up just ANNOYING.
Upstairs, the Lord and Cora discuss whether or not they should fire Bates. Cora thinks they should, because he is a thief and Cora is kind of a bitch, but the Lord tells her he agrees with Carson in thinking that Thomas and O'Brien are probably just up to something. She says, "So I should sack O'Brien instead." The Lord says, "You'll hear no argument from me." O'Brien says, "Here's the thing you wanted," or whatever, because of course O'Brien was standing there and heard the whole thing. HAVEN'T THEY EVEN EVER SEEN THIS SHOW?
Before Mrs. Patmore and Anna leave, Mrs. Patmore tells Daisy to make sure the family doesn't like Mrs. Bird's cooking, so they're happy when she comes back. Awww. Mrs. Patmore, you poor baby! After a bit of confusion -- Daisy thinking that Mrs. Patmore wanted her to poison the food, which is like, come on Daisy, R U serious -- Daisy agrees. Later, Mrs. Patmore cries in her hospital room and it is legitimately the saddest moment of the show in the entire season.
Upstairs, both Mr. Salty Pudding AND a person coming to install a telephone are there! What a day! Two guests! Salty Pudding is there to take Edith for another ride in his car, because Salty Pudding is REALLY shitty at coming up with date ideas, and Edith is super psyched about it. Telephone guy says his business is so fast paced he "can't even find a secretary to keep up," and Sybil is like, "Oh dang, funny you should say that exact thing, I know somebody for that job." And they all live happily ever after.
After dropping Mrs. Patmore off at the hospital, Anna goes to some army place or whatever to inquire about Bates. She says she's his cousin, which is A LIE. The guy says "You don't mean John Bates who went to prison for theft?" Yes, she says. "It was an odd business," he says "Why odd?" she asks. AND HE WON'T ANSWER. What's with the god damn secrecy, EVERYONE? WHO IS TALKING ABOUT BATES? AND IS BATES? They don't have a current address for either Bates or his wife, but they do have one for his mom. Gr8.
Back at Downton, Mary stops Edith in the hallway to ask if she told the Turkish ambassader about her and Pamuk. "Yes," she says. "He had a right to know how his countryman died. In the arms of a slut." WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT! What a bitch! I can't wait for Mary to get revenge! It happens super soon!
So anyway, later Thomas overhears Cora talking about the advertisement for a new maid that she put in the paper for OLG. Thomas, awful Thomas, thinks it's for O'Brien. So that, combined with the conversation O'Brien overheard earlier, starts a whole thing. Oy vey. Edith is there too and she says that Salty Pudding has a question for her and "he hopes she says yes." Is it that he wants to take you for a drive in his car, Edith?
The next scene, Molesley catches Thomas, like, going through Carson's pockets or something in his room? I don't get it and I don't care. Whatever it is, it means that Molesley tells Carson and Carson tells the Lord and then all of them want to fire Thomas. Good. NEXT.
Afterwards, at the servants dinner, Thomas tells O'Brien that Cora has advertised for her replacement. WRONG, THOMAS. Daisy watches everybody eat the dinner and they're all spitting it out and Mrs. Bird says, "What have you done with this, you little beggar." UHOH. "Just water and a bit of soap," Daisy says. Hahahaha. Good one, Daisy. Gross one. She cries and explains that she promised Mrs. Patmore that she'd tamper with Mrs. Bird's cooking, and Mrs. Bird comforts her. "There are worse crimes on earth than loyalty." Aww, BIRDIE! You're nice!
Later, Sybil talks to the telephone guy about Gwen's application. He says he doesn't want to hire her because there's nothing on her resume that proves she's a hard worker. I wonder what even IS on her resume? Just that she took that correspondence course? What a terrible resume! They should have worked on that resume. Sybil tells him that Gwen is actually a very hard worker, she's a maid at the house, and do you want to meet her? As it turns out, telephone's mother was a maid, too! My, my! This is all working out perfectly! They go for a meeting in the library. The Lord comes over and wants to go in the library and Sybil says he cant and he says, "I cannot use my library because one of the housemaids is in there applying for another job?" Hahaha. Yes.
Back in London, Anna is visiting Bates' mom's house. She doesn't care about secrets, THANK GOD, and tells Anna that Bates was only covering up for his wife when he admitted to the theft. She also says he was an abusive alcoholic? Is that right? People CAN change! So, great. That's that.
After that there's a short scene where Thomas asks the doctor if he can be a doctor too, in the war that's definitely going to come soon. The doctor basically says he can be an intern and Thomas is like, "Great." And I'm like, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU THOMAS I AM SO SICK OF YOU PLEASE GO TO WAR."
Oh, boy. In the next scene Cora and OLG are talking about hiring OLG's new maid and O'Brien overhears them, because she's in the room, and why would she ever think that they'd talk about that so openly in front of her?, but whatever. So she draws Cora a bath and Cora takes a bath right in front of her and she drops the soap and it breaks and O'Brien picks up only half and positions the other half so Cora will slip on it when she gets out of the tub and then O'Brien leaves and looks at herself in the mirror and decides she doesn't want to maybe murder Cora over this whole maid thing but before she can stop her Cora gets out of the bath and slips on the soap and loses her baby. PHEW. Holy moly. WHAT A SCENE! What a terrible scene! I do like, though, that the baby was so insignificant and killed off so early and yet caused a LOT of garbage to happen in the lives of everyone at the house. Kind of like when Blair was pregnant for two seconds on Gossip Girl. Have we ever talked about how this show is just like Gossip Girl? This show is just like Gossip Girl.
Afterwards, we see the Lord crying about the death of the baby in front of Bates. It is the second saddest scene in all of Downton Abbey. He says the baby was going to be a boy. Nooo! But the Lord also tells Bates about the info Anna got. "The good news is you won't be leaving Downton," he says, "and I need some good news today." Aww. Everyone loves Bates!
The whole episode has kind of been leading up to this garden party they're having, and so that's where we're at in the story right now. The garden party. While at the garden party the doctor approaches Thomas and tells him that he DOES have a place for him in the doctor volunteer program or whatever. Great. Thank god. I hope he goes away and never comes back.
Inside, the telephone rings. No one wants to answer it so Branson (SIGH!) (BRANSON!) does, and runs out to tell Sybil (SIGH!) (SYBIL!) what the message is. It's that Gwen has a job! Hooray! The three of them do a triple hug, but NOT a triple kiss.
Hahah, you will just have to trust me about the hug. For some reason I could not get a good image. Next, Mary gets her revenge on Edith by telling Salty Pudding, after he asked where Edith was, "I know there was some old bore she was trying to dodge. Apparently he was supposed to propose today. I can't tell you how funny she was when she acted it out. She ought to go onstage." BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Oh my goodness. That was very good revenge, even though it was VERY transparent. If I were Salty Pudding I'd be like, "Are you serious?" And then I'd be like, "Are you guys fighting?" And then I'd propose to Edith. But whatever, he doesn't, and then he leaves, and Mary tips her hat at Edith because IT IS ON.
Next, Cora and OLG tell O'Brien how wonderful she is over and over and then OLG asks if she can go inside and fetch the resumes for her new maid. BOOOOOOOOOOM! The Dowanger Countess was looking for a new maid, you dumb jerk! Not Cora! YOU KILLED A BABY FOR NOTHING! YOU ARE TERRIBLE! GO TO WAR WITH THOMAS!
Next, Molesley asks Bates if Anna has a boyfriend and Bates says that he thinks he does, "but he keeps himself to himself and he's very hard to read at times, but I'd say he's keen. I'd say he's very keen indeed." BOOM! CUTE! NEXT!
Next, Matthew is upset with Mary and wants to leave Downton. "The experiment is at an end," he says, "I'm not a puppet and I must take charge of my own life again." Mary asks if he would have stayed if she accepted him. No doy, he says. "So I ruined everything?" she asks. Awww. YES YOU DID! Why didn't you just marry him? You loved him! YOU SHOULD HAVE ACCEPTED HIS HAND IN MARRIAGE, YOU ARE BEING SUCH A BLAIR RIGHT NOW (WITH MATTHEW AS A REFORMED CHUCK). It ends with Mary in tears and it is the third saddest moment ever in Downton Abbey. Carson comes over and hugs her. It is very sweet.
The episode ends with Carson telling the Lord that Thomas has quit, THANK GOD, and oh by the way here is a note. Notes are never a good thing, obviously, and this note says that they are AT WAR WITH GERMANY! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
What an eventful garden party!
Next season: Will Thomas never be mentioned again? Will O'Brien fade to dust? Will Daisy grow a brain? Will Bates stop being so secretive and annoying and finally marry Anna? Will Mary marry Matthew? Will anyone ever have dinner again? STAY TUNED!
