Funny, I never thought I'd be sad to hear The Paradise would be discontinued. However, it picked itself up so considerably in its second series that it does seem a bit of a shame that the Beeb is axing it. Its viewer numbers apparently - and unfairly - dropped a little, from six to five million, but that's no disaster surely? Meanwhile Mr Selfridge on ITV did better and will be returning for a third series. I did read, though, that the average viewer numbers for series two were 6.4 million. That's not that much more than The Paradise. On average, I would have wished both series to have been rewarded with increasing viewer numbers, as they were both more ambitious second time around - and they'd both added some v for villain factor.
Finally, villains seem to be in again. After the cosy country-life drought (see Cranford), and the prestigious high-brow drama drought (see Parade's End), they're back. This return to traditional storytelling virtues - including classic plot ploys like the mischief-making villain - can only be applauded. Has the lesson finally been learned now? No more "anti-Downton" shows, please!
To start with The Paradise, the characters finally managed to get and hold on to a bit of depth this time around. Sadly, Patrick Malahide's Lord Glendenning has kicked the bucket, but in return his daughter Katherine's gone and married the sinister ex-soldier Tom Weston, after she was thrown over by Moray - an event she somehow seems to have managed to look like she threw him over. After a year, Moray, ousted from the store by Lord Glendenning, is recalled as manager by Katherine, who wants to find some way to get even. Weston isn't fooled by her "we just went separate ways" story and soon realises that her old love lingers (and gets in the way of her revenge plans). Not even an easy-going hubby would be pleased by this, and Weston is emphatically not an easy-going hubby. Meanwhile, Denise - whom no-one has even contemplated giving the boot - is working her way up the store ladder and is outshining her beau Moray at every turn, as the Westons are pleased to be able point out to him.
Weston is villain No. 1 - what you could call a villain pin-up. He's good-looking in a craggy sort of way, he has a fetching traumatic past, and Ben Daniels who plays him has earned the "and-slot" in the credits, reserved for actors whose characters stick out from the crowd that extra little bit. But there is also a villain No. 2: Moray wants to get back ownership over The Paradise, and so unwisely enters an alliance with another storekeeper, Mr Fenton. Fenton is a more traditional kind of villain: he has gold-rimmed spectacles and a slight stammer and sits in coaches a lot plotting away. We know he's bad news because he starts out trying to sabotage The Paradise, before hitting on an extremely elaborate plot by which Moray should make the Westons disappear simply by being a first-class pill. I'm not in any way denigrating villain pin-ups - they've done the villain-loving community a great service in later years by making baddie-fancying more of a mainstream pastime - but it is pleasant to encounter a good old-fashioned unglam plotter now and again, the kind of crook who in days gone by would have been played by Donald Pleasance. In this instance, Fenton is played by the always excellent Adrian Scarborough. He was the sweet butler in the new Upstairs Downstairs, but as Doctor Who fans already know, he can do bad guys just as well.
Now, of course it's not just because of the villains that The Paradise series two is an improvement on the last one. In fact, the most interesting characters besides the lovely Denise are Katherine and Clara, her erstwhile rivals (though Clara is now a chum). Sympathies and alliances extend across the good character-bad character border, which is always enriching for a drama. It's drearily predictable when all the good characters like each other and hate all the bad characters, and the bad characters hate them back and are either grumpily allied to fellow baddies or at each other's throats in order to show that they don't get on with anyone (and yes, I'm aware that this description fits just about every Dickens novel there is). Here, Weston sees Denise's potential; Moray feels sorry for the wretched Katherine (don't think that traumatic past makes her husband a soft-soap villain option: his marital warfare is borderline Gothic) and Clara, who has back-story scars of her own, feels a certain affinity to Weston, even if she stops short of wanting to sleep with him. As mentioned, Moray plots with Fenton, and Jonas, the one-armed intrigue-spinner who's sometimes a villain surrogate, sometimes a villain for real, plots confusedly with just about everyone. All in all, very enjoyable.
But, it has to be said, Mr Selfridge (which I see I'll have to save for a later post) is still better. And it's not as if I've actually fallen for Weston of Fenton. It's just nice when someone makes the effort to please the villain-loving part of the audience. Do try, try and try again, dear costume-drama makers. After all, Downton will finish one day, and then we will need replacement therapy more than ever - both on the story-telling and on the villain front.
söndag 30 mars 2014
onsdag 19 mars 2014
Solemn entertainment
Pocahontas may be one of my least favourite animated Disney films, but there is one quote from it that has stayed in my mind. When the heroine's father tells her that the noble warrior Kocoum wants to marry her, her not-too-thrilled reaction is "Kocoum? But he's so serious." The same words are later echoed by the Wise Tree Woman - for which one is grateful, because normally Wise Tree Women tend to be a bit over-serious themselves.
What makes me think of poor Kocoum's objectionable seriousness are books written in an unremitting solemn tone, with hardly a joke on the way. In my opinion, any book benefits from some humour now and again, even if it is of the grimmer sort. My favourite authors - Dickens, say - tend to have a sense of humour, or a least an enjoyably wry way with words. I find po-facedness hard to bear, and especially in light entertainment genres. Recently, I started a romance of the same type as The Memory Garden and gave up after only thirty pages or so. The main reasons were 1) the pervading seriousness of the style 2) the over-sized trauma of the heroine. And that's another thing that riles me: those "I'm serious, me"-themes threaded into just about any romance or chick-lit novel you come across. It's not enough, apparently, to offer your readers a touch of escapism: the authors must needs add a spoonful of medicine to the sugar, just to show they're not as shallow as all that. They can do sorrow.
It's all right, of course, if it's all part of a strong and important storyline - I'm not saying any book, whatever the genre, has to be all sweetness and light (unless it's a P.G. Wodehouse pastiche). But often the seriousness feels pasted on. In some cases, as in the romance above, the solemn theme is simply too much - it threatens to unbalance the whole plot. The heroine was alone and vulnerable because she had lost her husband and a child in an accident (I didn't read long enough to find out exactly what happened).
I accept the husband. Spouses and parents must be allowed to die, even in the lightest of fictional concoctions (though preferably their death will be several months in the past and off-stage). But a kid? How are we supposed to care whether the heroine bags the ex-lord of the manor or not when she's carrying that kind of burden? A mournful theme like that, I imagine, requires another kind of book. If you're in mood for a romance, you don't want to read about how the loss of a child affects a woman. If for some reason you feel like a bracing, therapeutic read about loss, surely you don't want it served up in a romance?
I'm not sure I'm doing very well out of the romance genre altogether, at least not the kind with titles like "The Deserted Greenhouse" or "The Ruined Cottage" (made-up titles: apologies to any book that's actually called this). I have only recently discovered that there appears to be a whole romance sub-genre of quite thick volumes with flowers-over-a-wall-and-an-old-garden-folly covers, where there's one plot taking place in the present, concerning a heroine who for some reason has difficulty finding love, and one taking place in the past. It sounds dandy, doesn't it? Historical fiction with a bit of modern identification thrown in? The problem is that the Kocoum factor in these books is considerable. While chick lit at least tries to be funny, even if it often fails, ruined-cottage romance authors seem to be a worryingly earnest bunch. Even so, the formula is enticing: I probably should give the genre at least one other go.
What makes me think of poor Kocoum's objectionable seriousness are books written in an unremitting solemn tone, with hardly a joke on the way. In my opinion, any book benefits from some humour now and again, even if it is of the grimmer sort. My favourite authors - Dickens, say - tend to have a sense of humour, or a least an enjoyably wry way with words. I find po-facedness hard to bear, and especially in light entertainment genres. Recently, I started a romance of the same type as The Memory Garden and gave up after only thirty pages or so. The main reasons were 1) the pervading seriousness of the style 2) the over-sized trauma of the heroine. And that's another thing that riles me: those "I'm serious, me"-themes threaded into just about any romance or chick-lit novel you come across. It's not enough, apparently, to offer your readers a touch of escapism: the authors must needs add a spoonful of medicine to the sugar, just to show they're not as shallow as all that. They can do sorrow.
It's all right, of course, if it's all part of a strong and important storyline - I'm not saying any book, whatever the genre, has to be all sweetness and light (unless it's a P.G. Wodehouse pastiche). But often the seriousness feels pasted on. In some cases, as in the romance above, the solemn theme is simply too much - it threatens to unbalance the whole plot. The heroine was alone and vulnerable because she had lost her husband and a child in an accident (I didn't read long enough to find out exactly what happened).
I accept the husband. Spouses and parents must be allowed to die, even in the lightest of fictional concoctions (though preferably their death will be several months in the past and off-stage). But a kid? How are we supposed to care whether the heroine bags the ex-lord of the manor or not when she's carrying that kind of burden? A mournful theme like that, I imagine, requires another kind of book. If you're in mood for a romance, you don't want to read about how the loss of a child affects a woman. If for some reason you feel like a bracing, therapeutic read about loss, surely you don't want it served up in a romance?
I'm not sure I'm doing very well out of the romance genre altogether, at least not the kind with titles like "The Deserted Greenhouse" or "The Ruined Cottage" (made-up titles: apologies to any book that's actually called this). I have only recently discovered that there appears to be a whole romance sub-genre of quite thick volumes with flowers-over-a-wall-and-an-old-garden-folly covers, where there's one plot taking place in the present, concerning a heroine who for some reason has difficulty finding love, and one taking place in the past. It sounds dandy, doesn't it? Historical fiction with a bit of modern identification thrown in? The problem is that the Kocoum factor in these books is considerable. While chick lit at least tries to be funny, even if it often fails, ruined-cottage romance authors seem to be a worryingly earnest bunch. Even so, the formula is enticing: I probably should give the genre at least one other go.
onsdag 12 mars 2014
Downtonathon: Predictions for Downton Abbey series five (and yeah - it's still wild guesses)
Just one more blog post, and I'm through with my Downtonathon - for now. Though I had mixed success with my predictions for Downton series four, I'm by no means dissuaded. Some of them were fulfilled at any rate - or sort of. Also, predictions are a good hook to hang follow-up posts on (and of course there will be at least one of those when the time comes). So here are the ones for series five:
Mary chooses Charles Blake: Fellowes has been canny when creating Mary's two new serious love interests (no, sorry, Evelyn Napier, I don't think you can be counted to be among them). Neither of them is in any way an obvious Mr Wrong, like - it had to be said - Sir Richard Carlisle was. Both of them are set to remind Mary of Matthew, but in different ways. Whereas Lord Gillingham has Matthew's tender love-lornness and high principles, Charles Blake is the one who tests Mary's mettle and makes her face up to the changing times. As with Matthew, Mary started out clashing with him, which in romantic tales is always a good sign. She ended up playfully smearing him with mud after a combined pig rescue where he could prove how efficient he was, and she could prove that she didn't mind mucking in - literally - in order to save the estate.
And this, surely, is why it has to be Blake. Romantically speaking, mud smearing beats a lingering kiss any day. As nice a fellow as he is - and not prepared to just roll over when Blake shows up, which does him credit - Gillingham comes across as a gold card version of Napier: a faithful Dobbin who doesn't give the wilful Mary the challenge she needs. It doesn't help that his infatuation with her - and her returning fondness for him - just aren't that convincing. Yes, they know each other of old, but he wasn't in love with her then. And suddenly he shows up and falls head over heels in the span of a few days, throws an impending engagement overboard and asks her to marry him. I couldn't quite believe it. In contrast, the Mary-Blake relationship crackled from the word go. It may be a bit of a reprise of her first fights with Matthew, but it works. Not that everything will be plain sailing, though...
There'll be trouble with the Blake inheritance: Blake may look like a great catch, but the estate he's to inherit has two disadvantages. 1) It's in Ulster. This may not be the Seventies, but still - will Mary want to live in Ulster, so far away from Downton? And what does Branson think about having a future Anglo-Irish - albeit North-Irish - landlord as a potential brother-in-law? 2) The current incumbent is still alive. Unlike Lord Gillingham, who has already come into his inheritance, Blake is only the heir apparent. What do we know of Sir Severus Blake? He might belong to the kind of men who, in Count Fosco's words, "live long and marry malevolently". If he feels like marrying a chorus girl on a whim, and suddenly produces an heir, then Charles will be absolutely nowhere.
But I wonder. I can't but feel that with a Hogwartsy name like Sir Severus, Charles Blake's relation is bound to enter the narrative at some point. And if he were of the simple, chorus-girl-marrying kind, where would the drama be? He could do that without ever coming near his present heir, let alone Downton, which would be a shame. I bet he has something up his sleeve, though. Charles has not proven to be a very eager heir, and there must be a reason why Sir Severus is not called Sir Jolly Cheeryble Blake. Perhaps - with potentially restive locals around the corner - he has a case for petitioning Parliament to end the entail?
Bates didn't do it: I admit, it's not a given, this. Things look pretty cut-and-dried at the moment, and Bates has always had an aggressive streak and a bit of a Wild West complex. Remember his unsuccessful stare-offs with the dispirited Thomas at the end of series three: you half expected the frustrated Bates to yell "Why won't you fight? - YOU'RE THE ONE WEARING THE BLACK HAT". Another small point is against him: the character who most resembles Bates in the Fellowes-scripted Gosford Park turned out to be a cool customer with murderous intent. And we were still meant to think it was good and proper that he and the sweet young lady's maid got it together.
But even so. Cast your mind back to the Christmas special of series two, when Bates was tried for the murder of his first missus. Remember the agony suffered by poor Anna when a plainly psychic (how could he know just the right questions to ask of every witness?) prosecutor reduced Bates's defence to rubble, and when it looked as if Bates was going to swing. And then came the hard trials she faced while he was in prison. Would he really, in a million years, risk putting her through all that again? Surely he would realise, before administering the mortal shove, that that would be even worse than what the horrible Green did to her. It's not as if it were the perfect crime either. Anna, Mrs Hughes, Mary and Miss Baxter all suspect what has (seemingly) been going on. If Miss Baxter had only felt a smidgen more affection for her benefactor Thomas, Bates's arch-enemy himself would know almost the full story by now.
Also, being aggressive is one thing, but being a cold-blooded murderer is another. I never for a moment thought Bates murdered his first wife: he may cave someone's head in when in a fit of rage, but poisoning is entirely unlike him, and so is dispatching a man while making sure it looks like an accident. Finally, whatever Mrs Hughes says, is Fellowes really expecting us to condone a straightforward lynching, however vile the victim may be?
This is my theory: Bates travels to London with the intention of killing Green. Green spots him first, however, and becomes so rattled he carelessly runs into the street and is run over. When seeing the broken corpse, it dawns on Bates that he would never have been able to go through with his plan, and he feels ashamed of not having killed Green for his wife's honour's sake. This is partly why he doesn't want to admit ever having been to London on the day (also, he realises how it might look).
There are a dozen ways in which this could come to light. My favourite scenario is this: Thomas finds out about Anna's plight, Green's death and Bates's trip to London without any help from Miss Baxter (he has many clues in his hands already, and some sleuthing skills: he did figure out about Miss O'Brien and "her ladyship's soap", something she never told him about). Instead of ratting as one would expect, though, he decides to keep mum so he can repay the irksome debt of gratitude he owes Bates for the latter's part in the Save Thomas campaign at the end of series three. He tells his old enemy of his intention but at the same time makes clear that he'll stand no more self-righteous needling from the likes of Bates. "I may be many things, but I'm not a killer." Beat. "As it happens, neither am I."
Bates then reluctantly reveals what really happened, while Anna eavesdrops - or Thomas, disgusted at not getting even, may testily suggest that Bates puts the wife's mind at ease, as a blind man can see that she's been worrying herself sick. At which point, by making sure Bates and Anna have it out, he will unwittingly have repaid his debt of gratitude after all.
Far-fetched, maybe. You could almost guess there was something fishy about me defending Bates, now couldn't you? Still, wouldn't it be very neat?
Gregson is a spy: There is something a bit James Bond-y about his card-playing talents and his "misspent youth". And he knew he might get into trouble when in Germany, which was why he gave Edith power of attorney. Yes, I'm sure he intended divorcing as well. At the same time, what a perfect cover that story is for an Englishman having a good nose around in "his new home country". If he's been unmasked as a spy for the English government, then no wonder everyone is being so unhelpful when Edith and Gregson's newspaper are trying to find him. The Weimar Republic may have been fearfully democratic, but I doubt it liked being spied upon. Gregson getting into a fight with brown-shirts does seem a bit silly in the circumstances, but who knows: he may have been trying to infiltrate them. In any case, I hope the English government - maybe after a bit of energetic lobbying from Edith - manages to locate Gregson and get him off whatever charges he may be facing. It would be an anticlimax if he were simply to disappear. But German citizenship is off, naturally.
Molesley faces up to Miss Baxter's past: Thomas's implied threat to Miss Baxter - "Do what I say or I will tell the family about your sordid past" - has one flaw. He recommended her for the job of lady's maid: even if he claims not to have known anything to her disadvantage at the time, any mud he slings on her will stick on him as well. But there is one person he can tell what he knows, if he wants to punish Miss Baxter, and that is Molesley. And lets face it: there's only so much non-ratting a villain can be expected to do in one series. In this case, I have little doubt that Thomas will split.
Most likely, Miss Baxter has been a nobleman's mistress, lured from her place as a lady's maid with his family to an apartment in London. Later, when he discarded her, she had to be inventive to make ends meet - maybe renting lodgings by the night and not asking too many questions. This is how Thomas may have come across her while on one of his London sprees. All this will be hard to stomach for Molesley, who's spent his whole life in a quiet village and may never a courted a woman properly before (except the unresponsive Anna), least of all a notorious one. Another hurdle for this couple will be Molesley's lowly position: he can't be expected to be content as a second footman forever. He will come up trumps in the end, though, and as a reward the intelligent Baxter will help him with his career planning (won't Lord Gillingham be needing a new valet?). But it will be a close run thing.
New faces we know about: Official gossip has let slip three new characters we will see in the new series:
Simon Bricker, art historian as played by Richard E. Grant. It is a truth universally aknowledged that a single gentleman in possession of an invitation to Downton must be in want of a love interest. With Mary (hopefully) out of the running, as well as Rose (surely she's too young for him?), this opens up interesting possibilities. But an art historian? Maybe his plot-line is not about love at all but about money? Perhaps he finds an old master and tries to buy it from the Crawleys for a song.
Lady Anstruther "Wasn't that a bit forward?" a worried Thomas asked when Jimmy revealed that he had sent a Valentine to his former employer, Lady Anstruther, whom he abandoned when she went to France but who is now back in Blighty. What with Lady A being played by formidable-woman-role expert Anna Chancellor, the answer to that question is most likely yes. Jimmy has hinted that his relationship with the Lady was pretty close. She can't have liked it when he left simply because he "didn't think he'd like the food" in France. My guess is she'll not be seeking to renew any affair they might have had: rather, she'll be wanting to slap him down and let him know that she's over him. Which will in turn demonstrate that she isn't, quite.
Kuragin, Russian refugee First, I imagined a wild-eyed man with a straggly beard to whom Daisy may show kindness by surreptitiously pilfering from the food store. Then again: he's a Tsarist refugee. Maybe it's an impoverished Russian aristocrat who has no need for the kindness of assistant cooks as long as he can scrounge on his fellow noblemen in England. I predict confrontations with Branson: maybe some choice memories from Revolutionary Russia will finally prove the death-knell to his old socialist ideals. Or Kuragin will prove such a pill that Branson becomes more socialist.
New faces/old acquaintances we don't know about: Will Miss Mabel Lane Fox, Gillingham's ditched fiancée, really give up without a fight and without putting in an appearance? I doubt it. And as an upstairs villain is still needed, maybe we will be seeing Sir Richard Carlisle again? Or the duplicitious Duke of Crowborough? Come on, it could happen.
Mary chooses Charles Blake: Fellowes has been canny when creating Mary's two new serious love interests (no, sorry, Evelyn Napier, I don't think you can be counted to be among them). Neither of them is in any way an obvious Mr Wrong, like - it had to be said - Sir Richard Carlisle was. Both of them are set to remind Mary of Matthew, but in different ways. Whereas Lord Gillingham has Matthew's tender love-lornness and high principles, Charles Blake is the one who tests Mary's mettle and makes her face up to the changing times. As with Matthew, Mary started out clashing with him, which in romantic tales is always a good sign. She ended up playfully smearing him with mud after a combined pig rescue where he could prove how efficient he was, and she could prove that she didn't mind mucking in - literally - in order to save the estate.
And this, surely, is why it has to be Blake. Romantically speaking, mud smearing beats a lingering kiss any day. As nice a fellow as he is - and not prepared to just roll over when Blake shows up, which does him credit - Gillingham comes across as a gold card version of Napier: a faithful Dobbin who doesn't give the wilful Mary the challenge she needs. It doesn't help that his infatuation with her - and her returning fondness for him - just aren't that convincing. Yes, they know each other of old, but he wasn't in love with her then. And suddenly he shows up and falls head over heels in the span of a few days, throws an impending engagement overboard and asks her to marry him. I couldn't quite believe it. In contrast, the Mary-Blake relationship crackled from the word go. It may be a bit of a reprise of her first fights with Matthew, but it works. Not that everything will be plain sailing, though...
There'll be trouble with the Blake inheritance: Blake may look like a great catch, but the estate he's to inherit has two disadvantages. 1) It's in Ulster. This may not be the Seventies, but still - will Mary want to live in Ulster, so far away from Downton? And what does Branson think about having a future Anglo-Irish - albeit North-Irish - landlord as a potential brother-in-law? 2) The current incumbent is still alive. Unlike Lord Gillingham, who has already come into his inheritance, Blake is only the heir apparent. What do we know of Sir Severus Blake? He might belong to the kind of men who, in Count Fosco's words, "live long and marry malevolently". If he feels like marrying a chorus girl on a whim, and suddenly produces an heir, then Charles will be absolutely nowhere.
But I wonder. I can't but feel that with a Hogwartsy name like Sir Severus, Charles Blake's relation is bound to enter the narrative at some point. And if he were of the simple, chorus-girl-marrying kind, where would the drama be? He could do that without ever coming near his present heir, let alone Downton, which would be a shame. I bet he has something up his sleeve, though. Charles has not proven to be a very eager heir, and there must be a reason why Sir Severus is not called Sir Jolly Cheeryble Blake. Perhaps - with potentially restive locals around the corner - he has a case for petitioning Parliament to end the entail?
Bates didn't do it: I admit, it's not a given, this. Things look pretty cut-and-dried at the moment, and Bates has always had an aggressive streak and a bit of a Wild West complex. Remember his unsuccessful stare-offs with the dispirited Thomas at the end of series three: you half expected the frustrated Bates to yell "Why won't you fight? - YOU'RE THE ONE WEARING THE BLACK HAT". Another small point is against him: the character who most resembles Bates in the Fellowes-scripted Gosford Park turned out to be a cool customer with murderous intent. And we were still meant to think it was good and proper that he and the sweet young lady's maid got it together.
But even so. Cast your mind back to the Christmas special of series two, when Bates was tried for the murder of his first missus. Remember the agony suffered by poor Anna when a plainly psychic (how could he know just the right questions to ask of every witness?) prosecutor reduced Bates's defence to rubble, and when it looked as if Bates was going to swing. And then came the hard trials she faced while he was in prison. Would he really, in a million years, risk putting her through all that again? Surely he would realise, before administering the mortal shove, that that would be even worse than what the horrible Green did to her. It's not as if it were the perfect crime either. Anna, Mrs Hughes, Mary and Miss Baxter all suspect what has (seemingly) been going on. If Miss Baxter had only felt a smidgen more affection for her benefactor Thomas, Bates's arch-enemy himself would know almost the full story by now.
Also, being aggressive is one thing, but being a cold-blooded murderer is another. I never for a moment thought Bates murdered his first wife: he may cave someone's head in when in a fit of rage, but poisoning is entirely unlike him, and so is dispatching a man while making sure it looks like an accident. Finally, whatever Mrs Hughes says, is Fellowes really expecting us to condone a straightforward lynching, however vile the victim may be?
This is my theory: Bates travels to London with the intention of killing Green. Green spots him first, however, and becomes so rattled he carelessly runs into the street and is run over. When seeing the broken corpse, it dawns on Bates that he would never have been able to go through with his plan, and he feels ashamed of not having killed Green for his wife's honour's sake. This is partly why he doesn't want to admit ever having been to London on the day (also, he realises how it might look).
There are a dozen ways in which this could come to light. My favourite scenario is this: Thomas finds out about Anna's plight, Green's death and Bates's trip to London without any help from Miss Baxter (he has many clues in his hands already, and some sleuthing skills: he did figure out about Miss O'Brien and "her ladyship's soap", something she never told him about). Instead of ratting as one would expect, though, he decides to keep mum so he can repay the irksome debt of gratitude he owes Bates for the latter's part in the Save Thomas campaign at the end of series three. He tells his old enemy of his intention but at the same time makes clear that he'll stand no more self-righteous needling from the likes of Bates. "I may be many things, but I'm not a killer." Beat. "As it happens, neither am I."
Bates then reluctantly reveals what really happened, while Anna eavesdrops - or Thomas, disgusted at not getting even, may testily suggest that Bates puts the wife's mind at ease, as a blind man can see that she's been worrying herself sick. At which point, by making sure Bates and Anna have it out, he will unwittingly have repaid his debt of gratitude after all.
Far-fetched, maybe. You could almost guess there was something fishy about me defending Bates, now couldn't you? Still, wouldn't it be very neat?
Gregson is a spy: There is something a bit James Bond-y about his card-playing talents and his "misspent youth". And he knew he might get into trouble when in Germany, which was why he gave Edith power of attorney. Yes, I'm sure he intended divorcing as well. At the same time, what a perfect cover that story is for an Englishman having a good nose around in "his new home country". If he's been unmasked as a spy for the English government, then no wonder everyone is being so unhelpful when Edith and Gregson's newspaper are trying to find him. The Weimar Republic may have been fearfully democratic, but I doubt it liked being spied upon. Gregson getting into a fight with brown-shirts does seem a bit silly in the circumstances, but who knows: he may have been trying to infiltrate them. In any case, I hope the English government - maybe after a bit of energetic lobbying from Edith - manages to locate Gregson and get him off whatever charges he may be facing. It would be an anticlimax if he were simply to disappear. But German citizenship is off, naturally.
Molesley faces up to Miss Baxter's past: Thomas's implied threat to Miss Baxter - "Do what I say or I will tell the family about your sordid past" - has one flaw. He recommended her for the job of lady's maid: even if he claims not to have known anything to her disadvantage at the time, any mud he slings on her will stick on him as well. But there is one person he can tell what he knows, if he wants to punish Miss Baxter, and that is Molesley. And lets face it: there's only so much non-ratting a villain can be expected to do in one series. In this case, I have little doubt that Thomas will split.
Most likely, Miss Baxter has been a nobleman's mistress, lured from her place as a lady's maid with his family to an apartment in London. Later, when he discarded her, she had to be inventive to make ends meet - maybe renting lodgings by the night and not asking too many questions. This is how Thomas may have come across her while on one of his London sprees. All this will be hard to stomach for Molesley, who's spent his whole life in a quiet village and may never a courted a woman properly before (except the unresponsive Anna), least of all a notorious one. Another hurdle for this couple will be Molesley's lowly position: he can't be expected to be content as a second footman forever. He will come up trumps in the end, though, and as a reward the intelligent Baxter will help him with his career planning (won't Lord Gillingham be needing a new valet?). But it will be a close run thing.
New faces we know about: Official gossip has let slip three new characters we will see in the new series:
Simon Bricker, art historian as played by Richard E. Grant. It is a truth universally aknowledged that a single gentleman in possession of an invitation to Downton must be in want of a love interest. With Mary (hopefully) out of the running, as well as Rose (surely she's too young for him?), this opens up interesting possibilities. But an art historian? Maybe his plot-line is not about love at all but about money? Perhaps he finds an old master and tries to buy it from the Crawleys for a song.
Lady Anstruther "Wasn't that a bit forward?" a worried Thomas asked when Jimmy revealed that he had sent a Valentine to his former employer, Lady Anstruther, whom he abandoned when she went to France but who is now back in Blighty. What with Lady A being played by formidable-woman-role expert Anna Chancellor, the answer to that question is most likely yes. Jimmy has hinted that his relationship with the Lady was pretty close. She can't have liked it when he left simply because he "didn't think he'd like the food" in France. My guess is she'll not be seeking to renew any affair they might have had: rather, she'll be wanting to slap him down and let him know that she's over him. Which will in turn demonstrate that she isn't, quite.
Kuragin, Russian refugee First, I imagined a wild-eyed man with a straggly beard to whom Daisy may show kindness by surreptitiously pilfering from the food store. Then again: he's a Tsarist refugee. Maybe it's an impoverished Russian aristocrat who has no need for the kindness of assistant cooks as long as he can scrounge on his fellow noblemen in England. I predict confrontations with Branson: maybe some choice memories from Revolutionary Russia will finally prove the death-knell to his old socialist ideals. Or Kuragin will prove such a pill that Branson becomes more socialist.
New faces/old acquaintances we don't know about: Will Miss Mabel Lane Fox, Gillingham's ditched fiancée, really give up without a fight and without putting in an appearance? I doubt it. And as an upstairs villain is still needed, maybe we will be seeing Sir Richard Carlisle again? Or the duplicitious Duke of Crowborough? Come on, it could happen.
onsdag 5 mars 2014
Downtonathon: series four follow-up II (or, a plotter without a cause)
A virus is descending and putting a whole new meaning into "fevered imaginings". I'd better get cracking before I'm completely floored. But I just have to finish what I started: hopefully the subject matter will give me strength.
Here, then, are my remaining predictions for Downton Abbey series four and how they worked out:
Alfred leaves - but may possibly fall for Daisy first: YES. What took them so long, though? I never thought Alfred would last the whole series (excluding the Christmas special). To be fair, he was more bearable this time around than in series three, but I probably only think that because he got quite chummy with his old enemy Thomas (what would Auntie have said, after having given up her only friend for him?). His behaviour towards Daisy remained hard to stomach, and the crush on Ivy was just plain silly. It was highly satisfactory that, once his eyes were finally opened, Daisy turned him down, and in such a noble and forgiving way too that he couldn't possibly complain about it. You go, girl!
Talking of going girls: did anyone see the write-out of Ivy coming? I didn't. Maybe the actress got another part (though it must be hard to find a job better than Downton: ask Dan Stevens). It seems a bit of a cop-out otherwise. Newbies, as I've said before, need a bit of time to gain the amount of sympathy enjoyed by The Old Downton Guard, and it wasn't Ivy's fault that she was stranded in an uninvolving storyline of under-plotted romances. She might have done better had she stayed around for a while.
A housemaid and/or a nursery maid make their mark: NO. There was hardly a sight of one. A pretty nursery maid pushed the pram containing Sybbie when Thomas and Nanny West had their first dust-up, but she wisely chose to stay silent. After Nanny West left, her replacement was not endowed with a personality: instead, she faded into the group of Background Servants.
A confusing - but necessary - element of Downton is that the household contains more servants than the ones the story focuses on. I don't think this was the idea to begin with: judging from Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey, Fellowes originally pared down the staff so as to be able to focus on them all (in a house of Downton's size, eight would have been the usual amount of footmen, not two). This became untenable after a while, though, because the household is so huge. Hence hall boys to whom we haven't been formally introduced turning up in cricket teams and shadowy maids helping the unmarried girls out (the girl who plays Madge, sometimes talked about but seldom seen, must feel a little bitter). But now when Ivy has left - and will maybe be replaced by a Background Servant - might there be room for a housemaid to come to the forefront again?
Thomas and Miss O'Brien are reconciled and once again become the perfect double act: ALAS, NO. Oh, how I miss Miss O'Brien! Even when she was plotting against rather than with Thomas, she was a darned sight easier to have around than the duds who've followed her. I do see why Siobhan Finneran left - she got a plum part in another series - but her parting is much regretted, leastways by me.
It's true that by this time, Thomas has enough savoir faire to go it alone as a villain. He was hampered in this series, however, and not just by O'Brien's disappearance. Having had a strong, redemptive storyline at the end of series three, it was hard to get him back into bad guy mode convincingly. He can never be allowed to become as black a sheep as he was in series one: on the other hand, Downton needs a baddie, so like it or not he has to step up to the mark. His position is not made easier by the fact that he has fulfilled his goals in life, at least where his career's concerned. As an under-butler, he cannot rise higher in the Downton household (at least not until Carson retires): he's even placed a bit higher than Bates. What's there for him to plot about now?
As a result of these circumstances, Thomas did a great deal of water-treading in this series. His ousting of Nanny West was marvellous, and I also hugely enjoyed the Truth Game scene with the spiteful Edna. But otherwise, he's stuck in a long-drawn-out storyline - still not resolved - where he tries to get O'Brien's and Edna's replacement, Miss Baxter, to spy for him (to find out what exactly?). Miss Baxter had all the hallmarks of a defecting baddie sidekick from the word go. In spite of Thomas getting her the job, after she has been out in the cold for quite a while, she shows precious little sense of gratitude and addresses him in tones of barely-suppressed loathing. We're supposed to wonder whether she will spill the beans regarding what she's heard and guessed about the Bateses' situation to Thomas, but it is pretty clear that she never will.
Maybe in this case this is just as well for Thomas: there are some things it is better for an under-butler not to know and be tempted to rat about. Nevertheless, I'm not a great admirer of defecting baddie sidekicks - say Micawber or, even worse, Newman Noggs and I shudder - and in the role of potential Thomas ally I even preferred Edna to Miss Baxter. She may not have liked him, but at least she was prepared to keep her part of a deal. Baxter plainly isn't, and the "Tell me what you know - No, shan't" scenes between her and Thomas are getting wearying. (But I have to admit the Baxter-Molesley romance is sweet.) Another unrewarding plot-line for Thomas was his suddenly flaring resentment towards Branson - where did that come from? It's not unbelievable in itself that he should resent Branson, but if that were the case, surely we would have seen more of it before?
Not that there's not some mileage to be got even from weak Thomas plot-lines. His self-deprecating mud-slinging scenes are great, even when we don't really know why he's mud-slinging in the first place. He may do a lot of smirking in the background while more substantial drama goes on around him, but he does it very prettily. I do hope there's something better storywise lined up for him in series five, though.
Here, then, are my remaining predictions for Downton Abbey series four and how they worked out:
Alfred leaves - but may possibly fall for Daisy first: YES. What took them so long, though? I never thought Alfred would last the whole series (excluding the Christmas special). To be fair, he was more bearable this time around than in series three, but I probably only think that because he got quite chummy with his old enemy Thomas (what would Auntie have said, after having given up her only friend for him?). His behaviour towards Daisy remained hard to stomach, and the crush on Ivy was just plain silly. It was highly satisfactory that, once his eyes were finally opened, Daisy turned him down, and in such a noble and forgiving way too that he couldn't possibly complain about it. You go, girl!
Talking of going girls: did anyone see the write-out of Ivy coming? I didn't. Maybe the actress got another part (though it must be hard to find a job better than Downton: ask Dan Stevens). It seems a bit of a cop-out otherwise. Newbies, as I've said before, need a bit of time to gain the amount of sympathy enjoyed by The Old Downton Guard, and it wasn't Ivy's fault that she was stranded in an uninvolving storyline of under-plotted romances. She might have done better had she stayed around for a while.
A housemaid and/or a nursery maid make their mark: NO. There was hardly a sight of one. A pretty nursery maid pushed the pram containing Sybbie when Thomas and Nanny West had their first dust-up, but she wisely chose to stay silent. After Nanny West left, her replacement was not endowed with a personality: instead, she faded into the group of Background Servants.
A confusing - but necessary - element of Downton is that the household contains more servants than the ones the story focuses on. I don't think this was the idea to begin with: judging from Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey, Fellowes originally pared down the staff so as to be able to focus on them all (in a house of Downton's size, eight would have been the usual amount of footmen, not two). This became untenable after a while, though, because the household is so huge. Hence hall boys to whom we haven't been formally introduced turning up in cricket teams and shadowy maids helping the unmarried girls out (the girl who plays Madge, sometimes talked about but seldom seen, must feel a little bitter). But now when Ivy has left - and will maybe be replaced by a Background Servant - might there be room for a housemaid to come to the forefront again?
Thomas and Miss O'Brien are reconciled and once again become the perfect double act: ALAS, NO. Oh, how I miss Miss O'Brien! Even when she was plotting against rather than with Thomas, she was a darned sight easier to have around than the duds who've followed her. I do see why Siobhan Finneran left - she got a plum part in another series - but her parting is much regretted, leastways by me.
It's true that by this time, Thomas has enough savoir faire to go it alone as a villain. He was hampered in this series, however, and not just by O'Brien's disappearance. Having had a strong, redemptive storyline at the end of series three, it was hard to get him back into bad guy mode convincingly. He can never be allowed to become as black a sheep as he was in series one: on the other hand, Downton needs a baddie, so like it or not he has to step up to the mark. His position is not made easier by the fact that he has fulfilled his goals in life, at least where his career's concerned. As an under-butler, he cannot rise higher in the Downton household (at least not until Carson retires): he's even placed a bit higher than Bates. What's there for him to plot about now?
As a result of these circumstances, Thomas did a great deal of water-treading in this series. His ousting of Nanny West was marvellous, and I also hugely enjoyed the Truth Game scene with the spiteful Edna. But otherwise, he's stuck in a long-drawn-out storyline - still not resolved - where he tries to get O'Brien's and Edna's replacement, Miss Baxter, to spy for him (to find out what exactly?). Miss Baxter had all the hallmarks of a defecting baddie sidekick from the word go. In spite of Thomas getting her the job, after she has been out in the cold for quite a while, she shows precious little sense of gratitude and addresses him in tones of barely-suppressed loathing. We're supposed to wonder whether she will spill the beans regarding what she's heard and guessed about the Bateses' situation to Thomas, but it is pretty clear that she never will.
Maybe in this case this is just as well for Thomas: there are some things it is better for an under-butler not to know and be tempted to rat about. Nevertheless, I'm not a great admirer of defecting baddie sidekicks - say Micawber or, even worse, Newman Noggs and I shudder - and in the role of potential Thomas ally I even preferred Edna to Miss Baxter. She may not have liked him, but at least she was prepared to keep her part of a deal. Baxter plainly isn't, and the "Tell me what you know - No, shan't" scenes between her and Thomas are getting wearying. (But I have to admit the Baxter-Molesley romance is sweet.) Another unrewarding plot-line for Thomas was his suddenly flaring resentment towards Branson - where did that come from? It's not unbelievable in itself that he should resent Branson, but if that were the case, surely we would have seen more of it before?
Not that there's not some mileage to be got even from weak Thomas plot-lines. His self-deprecating mud-slinging scenes are great, even when we don't really know why he's mud-slinging in the first place. He may do a lot of smirking in the background while more substantial drama goes on around him, but he does it very prettily. I do hope there's something better storywise lined up for him in series five, though.
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