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Sunday 2 November 2014

Downton Abbey Series 5 Episode 7 Review

                                              
As the Dowager (Maggie Smith) and Rosamund (Samantha Bond) talk of Edith (Laura Carmichael) leaving so abruptly and how they didn't find out until they got back from the races, she was gone, the Dowager thinks they should tell Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) before someone else does and she finds out they kept it a secret from them.  Rosamund asks if they should also tell Robert (Hugh Bonneville) but the Dowager replies that he's a man and he doesn't have rights.  That's what I said last ep, that they should have told Cora before.  The others talk about how Rose (Lily James) invited Atticus (Max Barber) and his family for dinner, with Charles (Julian Ovenden) Mabel (Catherine Steadman) and Gillingham (Tom Cullen) already there too and Charles suggests they should leave the family alone to talk about their 'secret' crisis.  With the Dowager saying she would like to go for a walk too with Cora and she can show her around the flowers.  Alas too late, as Thomas (Robert James-Collier) tells Cora she has a visitor, Mrs Drew.  The look Rosamund and the Dowager give each other is one to remember.  It was bound to happen, no sooner had she said it, that someone else would get in first.

Robert tells the Dowager he'll take her for a walk, but she responds, "why would I want to take a walk?"  Mary (Michelle Dockery) being tactless as usual and so uncaring about her sister again. "Why the song and dance, Edith has gone away, so what?"  Charles tells Gillingham he should just call it quits with Mary, but he feels she doesn't want that and he can't do that to her for obvious reasons.  Charles replying he knows what Gillingham means and he should just marry Mabel cos that's all that she wants.

Cora is angry at Rosamund and the Dowager as they tell her the whole story about Edith and the baby and how she wanted to get rid of it but decided to keep it and that's why the trip to Switzerland.  The Dowager thought she'd give it up but didn't, also that finding out about Michael's death must have triggered her to take Marigold.  Cora doesn't feel she can trust the Dowager again and later tells her this.

Baxter (Raquel Cassidy) overhears Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan) ask Mary about the train ticket she gave her which could prove Bates's (Brendan Coyle) innocence.  Showing he didn't go to London and feels bad about having to talk to the police about them.  But Anna (Joanne Froggatt)and Bates didn't like her doing that even after she apologizes for doing it, but she can't bring herself to tell them the real reason, which Thomas tells her she should do and also Molesley (Kevin Doyle) says the same. Yet she feels shame about it and couldn't open up to them too.

At the dinner Isabel (Penelope Wilton) makes her announcement about her engagement to Merton and everyone is pleased except for the Dowager, of course but she tells Mary she's worried about Edith, though Mary can't understand why she would be.  Lord Sinderby (James Faulkner) is very much not happy with Rose and Atticus and asks Cora how she is able to carry on with their own religion and bring up children too.  Cora also says they kept their name unlike him.  But his wife, Lady Sinderby (Pennie Downie) is more open to Rose and Atticus being together.  Which it appears Robert is too as he tells her Shrimpie would be open to the marriage if they got together, but her mother wouldn't.  Atticus also suggests that someone needs to ring the publishing company as that's probably where Edith is, of course no one else thought about that.

Cora is determined to go to London and Rosamund agrees to go with her. The receptionist insists that Edith isn't here and they close at six so Cora says they'll stay here until then.  Edith walks in the door not knowing what's happening but doesn't want to talk about it, thinking that Rosamund broke her confidence, but it was actually Mrs Drew.  She takes them to a teashop and doesn't want to come home.  She's decided on going to America but would rather Marigold be raised here and Cora wants her back at Downton, but she doesn't want to deal with Robert or Mary looking down on her, yeah Mary can talk with everything she's been up to lately, well from the outset.  Cora says Robert should be told and in time he will accept her.  But she doesn't want to, so Cora goes back to Edith's original idea about taking her in as the Drew's can no longer look after her.

Mary heads for London as Charles has an idea on how she can get rid of Gillingham once and for all, at a cinema, which he calls, kinema.  Anna and Bates resolve to see the condition of the house his mother left him and then maybe rent it out again.  He believes her about Mary's stuff and they think the business with Green is over.  Anna adding that maybe some people are meant to wait longer before having children.

Robert is worried about Isis and takes her to the vet on Friday, bringing back news she has cancer. This about the time that they arrive back from London, only Mary and Anna are at the station.  So Drew (Andrew Scarborough) can't take Marigold from them and bring her to the house later.  He helps with the suitcase under the guise of getting onto the train and has to go onto the next station.  Anna of course notices him with the child, cos he couldn't sit on the other side and later she tells Mrs Hughes what she saw and how Drew travelled in a first class carriage.  As if it had anything to do with her or with Mrs Hughes, suppose she'll see Marigold and then make a connection.  Or as I just thought maybe she might want her for herself if she finds out that Marigold is just someone who's been abandoned, well if she couldn't have children.  Then again that'd just be a rehash of the Mrs Drew storyline.

The Dowager is sad as she's losing a companion in Isabel when she marries Merton (Douglas Reith) and Mary tells her that she has them.  But they have their own lives.  Spratt (Jeremy Swift) also declares he's resigning over Denker.  Daisy (Sophie McShera) decides she's disillusioned with the Labour government not making enough inroads for people like her and wants to give up studying, which Molesley says she should carry on with.  That was kind of true to life, you know Labour government disillusionment, well any political party disillusionment more like! Ha.  He thinks Mr Mason (Paul Copley) might have a different response to her decision and writes to him.  He invites them over and Molesley thinks Baxter should go too.

At the dinner with Merton, Larry (Charlie Anson) makes a complete ass of himself again, being very rude and vocal about how Isabel is just a commoner and won't fit in with being a leader of the county. To the point where Branson (Allen Leech) loses his temper and tells the 'bastard' to shut up.  Merton asks him to leave but his other son, Tim (Ed Cooper Clarke) wasn't any better, telling Isabel that's why she won't fit in.  They've been spoilt by their mother.  It's any wonder that Branson wanted to get out of the dinner and look after Isis. Robert agrees with Branson though he wouldn't have used that language.  Downstairs, Molesley has fun spreading the gossip around, until Carson (Jim Carter) breaks it up.

Atticus proposes to Rose, but there'll be trouble ahead with his father.  Isabel has doubts about the marriage and can't talk to Merton about it now.  Robert agrees to Marigold staying, but leaves it to Cora to decide.  Branson also tells Robert he's thinking of leaving for Boston where he may do well and Robert hopes it's not cos of them he's leaving.  When he speaks with Sibbie, it's clear she wouldn't like to leave here either.  It takes Gillingham to see Mary and Charles kissing before he gets the message Mary really doesn't want him.  Though Charles is being packed off to Poland for almost a year, so she won't see him, do we smell shades of World War II soon, perhaps?  You know all this talk of the Labour government being a failure and Daisy thinking they won't last a year.

Just waiting for the reveal on Edith's Marigold for the series finale, but guess they may save it for next series of there is one.  It appears Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nichol) seems to have Carson wrapped round her finger when it came to asking time off for Molesley and Daisy, as does Mrs Hughes, and she tells Anna about their plans to buy a house together for rental purposes.

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