Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Downton Abbey Episode 4

- Oh GOODY, we may get "Bates Goes to Jail Part II: The Quickening." YAY! 
When he threatened Mrs. Hughes that he’d walk out and leave Downton Abbey before Anna even got home, why didn’t she just say “Really? You’d up and leave Anna, never to see her again? Because you can’t wait a little while until she cracks and tells you? Fine, go eat a bag of dicks. What the fuck do I care, see ya – don’t let the door hit you in your old crippled bloated ass.”

Can’t Anna just say “It was so and so and if you do anything that will jeopardize this marriage then no, I will not spend the rest of my days trying to get you out of jail; I will divorce your crippled old bloated ass and fuck young Jimmy ‘til my uterus falls out from the pounding”? 

At first I thought the "a stranger came from outta nowhere”story was good until I realized wait a minute, they live in a tiny village. If Bates can think he'll find out who did it just by wandering about town for a bit, can't we assume he'd think that Anna would recognize whoever it was that assaulted herOH PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST MAKE THIS PLOT LINE GO AWAY ALREADY!!!
- Lord Grantham saying the dead tenant's forebears had been there "since the reign of George III" sounds impressive until you remember that George III died in 1820. Yes, 102 years is a long time but if you're gonna make some dramatic statement like there the shit better go back at least 500 years. It's like some shop bragging "Open since 2011" today.

- Can we get MORE "times are changing!" quotes? Wtf - these are the most self-aware people in the history of the world. It's like they're just standing around waiting for the personal computer to be invented. There's no more modern moment than the one you're in; people riding horses didn't think "gee I can't wait for the car to be invented", they sat around thinking "can you believe we have these big animals that carry us around anywhere we want?!?!!? We're never gonna top that!" It's just like we thought about TecmoBowl back in 1992: "Science has peaked."

- What's with the overconfidence from everybody in Alfred just popping into London and being whisked away to become the next Chef Boyardee?  What has he done to deserve this? "Well, he's tall and mopey and can carry a tray of food cooked by someone else to a table up a flight of stairs without puking in it...my god, that's the perfect recipe for being a hotshot chef in London!"

- I refuse to comment on the Edith situation. These writers just hate her. 

- For being such a stick in the mud, Mary always seems to know when to announce that the house needs cheering up - this time using her father's birthday as an excuse.  I'd love to see Julian Fellowes' copy/paste clipboard; this is definitely on it.

- I'm pissed about the Dowager/Isobel situation. So far this season, it seemed as if they'd decided to get along in their old age and grief. But from out of nowhere, in this episode the Dowager throws snark after snark at her. Wtf? 

- Why does the chef keep staring down Alfred as he asks questions to the class? Does he resent Alfred, having somehow heard of him as some hotshot cook who's never actually, you know, cooked? this is like in Footloose when Kevin Bacon hit...wherever that podunk town was. Lighten the fuck up, chef. I'd worry less about Alfred and more about your ears inventing transcontinental flight.

- I'm fine right now thinking Thomas' new buddy Baxter is using all the inside info she can get to simply be better at her job and not to become another O'BrienOMG OF COURSE SHE'S GOING TO BE ANOTHER O'BRIEN BECAUSE THIS IS DOWNTON FUCKING ABBEY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!

- Can anyone even think of her name without thinking of Will Ferrell's dog in Anchorman?

- I don't like Carson fucking with Molesly when he dickheadishly let him know the job was no longer available. Carson freaks out if an under-butler is forced to replace the corncobs in the shitter because a singer is in the house; he of all people should sympathize with Molesly's hesitation.

-  Can we drop the fucking Branson "I don't belong here" bullshit already? You've been there 10 years, at least five as the husband of the Earl's daughter and father of the family's first grandchild...but no, we hafta go through this every ten minutes:
"I don't belong here, I'm leaving!"
"Don't go."
"Okay."
I guess nothing really changes, like when he "ran off" with Sybil:
Branson and Sybil too.  "I'm leaving! You can't stop me! Unless you politely present a list of rational reasons for me to stay! Oh, you did! Well, those are fine reasons! Then I'm back! Until next time I run away and you once again politely present a very rational list of reasons for me to stay!"
- The Dowager suspecting that new gardener stole a letter opener is ridiculous - did you see that kid? Does this look like someone who can read at all, much less somebody thinking "I've been receiving so much written correspondence lately I really need to get my mitts on something, anything, that will crack these letters open faster"?

- And then there's Mary deciding it's a good thing that her dad floated the tenant the money to stay aboard even though his family hadn't paid rent in ages and, again, he needed a loan to pay the arrears. Yes, because of course any financial decision Lord Grantham makes is the right one except the fucking 20 times he's almost given away the entire estate because he's a fucking idiot. This is like asking "You know why I know Charlie Brown's gonna kick the football? Because Lucy's holding it."

- Can't Anna kill two birds with one stone and tell Bates that Thomas did it? 

2 comments:

The Gnat said...

Not as good as your live blogging the Royal Wedding.

Xmastime said...

zing!