I was having a gay ol’ time at a Super Bowl party last night, especially the part where Madonna returned from the sea with her sex slaves and all that pirated gold, but around 8:30 I heard one of my friends whisper, “Heather seems really anxious; I didn’t know she was this into football.” And I realized I was kind of rocking back and forth in my chair, chewing on my fingers and shouting, “LADY MARY CRAWLEY” every time people got excited about the game. By 8:45, I was pulling fistfuls of my hair from my head. Finally, I had to abandon the party altogether and come home for my beloved Downton Abbey. I heard the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl was the stuff of legend, but did Eli Manning discover he had a magic penis? No, he did not. Did Tom Brady lose his memory, his native accent, and half his human head? No, he did not. Did any one of the zillion people playing in or watching that football game have a face that looks like Michelle Dockery’s face? No, they did not. And so my choice to abandon America for England was obviously correct.
We will start, as usual, with the non-Mary things so we can conclude, as usual, with the Mary things, including engaging in one half-hour of reflection on her beauty and fury, and one half-hour of thankful prayers to our God for her existence on this earth. Followed by tea, of course. And then an hour of worship songs in her eyebrows’ honor.
Upstairs, this week, Lady Edith is in a pickle. Remember in the pilot episode when Patrick Crawley floated away on an iceberg with a flock of penguins after the Titanic sank? Well, that iceberg eventually docked in Canada, and Patrick disembarked to start a new life as a leather hide and beaver pelt tradesman. Never you mind that his previous work experience included letting someone else dress and undress him, and also, presumably, writing letters and frolicking through the English countryside in various tweed vests. Well, he lost his accent for one thing. And his face, for another. Also his voice sounds remarkably like Darth Vader without the emphysema, and he’s the rightful heir of Downton, etc.
At least that’s the yarn he weaves for Edith. At first she’s like, “In terms of bulls–t, that’s a pretty spectacular story.” And Darth Patrick goes, “You’re so pretty.” And Edith, immediately: “OMG, COUSIN!” She champions his cause, presents it to Lord Grantham, and promises to make out with his mutilated face as soon as he is restored to his rightful position as heir of the Grantham fortune.
On a normal day, the Dowager Countess would march into the infirmary, strip the bandages from Darth Patrick’s face, administer a single dose of Veritaserum, and uncover the truth. Three minutes, it would take her. Tops. But she’s got her hands full with Cousin Isobel, the martyr’s martyr. Isobel wants to leave Downton open after the war. The services they could provide in such a castle! Mental health counseling. Physical therapy. More true love concerts performed by Mary and Matthew. Ping-pong tournaments. As lovely as the proposition sounds, Cora and Violet are ready to get back to the good old days, when the only hiccups in their lives were occasional diplomats dying mid-pelvic thrust in the Ladies’ bedrooms in the middle of the night.
Oh, the scaffolds the Dowager Countess uses to entice Isobel: Malaria in Africa, post-Revolutionary starvation in the Caribbean, sunburn in the Grecian isles, refugees all across Europe. Won’t Cousin Isobel bring peace and prosperity to the whole world in the wake of the Great War? Of course she will! While impotency is the cause nearest her heart, she knows a few more protective outbursts from Mary and an impromptu nip-slip or two over pudding will be just the thing to get Matthew’s crawler to stand at attention once more. So, off she goes to the mainland to build homes with her bare hands and produce food from thin air.
The Dowager Countess and Lady Grantham do a high-five as they watch her drive away.
Speaking of driving, did you know automobiles in the early 1900s required engine rebuilding every single day? Branson is doing just that to the Grantham’s Model T when Sybil arrives in the garage for her daily schooling and scolding in the ways of Socialism and weddings. Last week Branson made the case for their marriage thus: “The Bolsheviks slaughtered Tsar Nicholas and his family over there in Russia. Sometimes you have to do uncomfortable things to change the world. Like marrying me. The analogy I am trying to make, Sybil, is that slaughter is to innocent children as I am to you. Won’t you be my wife?” It’s an alluring proposition obviously, but she still needs some time to think about it.
Downstairs, Anna and Bates are either married or they are not married. I can never tell. For three weeks now, I keep thinking they’ve been wed offscreen, but then it turns out the wedding didn’t happen after all due to Mrs. Bates villainary. Let’s see, first she kidnapped Bates, then he escaped to that pub, then she was going to sell the Pamuk story, then she got bested by an even better villain named Sir Richard, then she told someone that Bates paid her for a divorce, and then Bates was like, “I wish Vera was dead!” And then he showed up the next day with a busted face and Vera was dead.
Mrs. O’Brien, of course, has been skulking around in the shadows with a notepad and a malevolant grin. Probably she killed Mrs. Bates to keep things interesting now the Great War’s over.
Oh, right: The Great War is over!
And World War II is on the horizon. I’m not talking about The Guilt Clause in the Treaty of Versailles; I’m talking about Edith’s new boy toy, Darth Patrick. She is convinced he is really Patrick and not some socioparth named Peter Gordon pretending to be Patrick. Unfortunately, she was also once convinced it was a good idea to drop pamphlets from an airplane over the whole of the Anatolian peninsula calling her sister a whore. Her judgment isn’t exactly sound, is what I am saying. Lord Grantham says as much when he calls a family meeting to break the news about Darth Patrick. He’s civil about it, at least. Mary, on the other hand, explodes in a white-hot rage supernova. She is incandescent, calling down the fire of heaven on anyone who dares stand between Matthew and his inheritance. She slaps Edith in the jaw for even entertaining the idea of giving away the family fortune to a mutant (her words, not mine).
Mary has been nursing Matthew back to health for a long while now, see, taking him for walks around the grounds and reading with him and preparing his favorite foods and sneaky peeking at his pecker to see if her presence is causing any kind of stir. Sir Richard cannot help but notice the way she doesn’t remember his name, so he strategizes a three-pronged attack: 1) Get Lavina’s virginal self back in the picture immediately. 2) Get Carson the Butler to agree to come with him and Mary to their new castle when they get married. 3) Press Mary up against a wall and growl at her never to cross him unless she wants to end up at the bottom of the Thames. A promise he seals with an oily kiss. Mary’s mouth goes, “Sure thing, guy.” But her eyebrows are all, “Oh, you just wait until Matthew gets an erection!”
And he does get an erection. A boner, Reader! He considers asking Bates if it’s possible. He knows a thing or two about being crippled in war, remember. But then he thinks better of it and posts a letter to Mary instead: “Will you do me the honor of attending my trouser party at your earliest convenience?”
Even Darth Patrick senses that something virile is afoot. He gathers his things and goes, leaving a note for Edith that simply says, “Psyche. xo, P. Gordon.”
Next week: The influenza pandemic. I know whose life I want it to claim and his name rhymes with Sranson.
