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I wasn't sure if her objection was to a baby in her presence,
Or a screaming wailing baby in her presence.
Remember she's very old school. The baby was cared for by the nanny with scheduled visits. Babies didn't come in the drawing room. Nor did small children without nanny. She has that ingrained in her. Just like Tom is a now sort of fish out of water in their circle, because he wasn't born to it, Violet is becoming one because the society she grew up in has slowly been fading away.
I really don't see any 'spark' in Tom and Miss Bunting. She's interested, but I think he's just lonely. But its quite clear how much he's changed. He is still family and values that.
I'm not sure Miss Bunting is there to actually have a romance with Tom. She seems to be more a representation of the kind of woman he would have ended up with had he NOT Had a relationship with Sybil and was still a chauffeur. she's just there to provide the contrast with the life he now has so we have a point of reference for his inner conflict.
If he ends up with her, it will be representative of his choice about his place in life, rather than being about the romance. She's just a plot device, poor girl.
I thought the bit with Barrow seemed contrived. Sure, he'd have animosity towards Tom, but the direct anger really isn't his style. People who are sneaky and underhanded are often not even aware just how angry they are.
Does anyone think that Thomas had a reduced presence on the show this season? All they gave him were scenes where he was torturing the maid for information and scaring her, plus making trouble for Tom. He is really one of the most interesting characters on the show and I think of him as a scene stealer. His character is so very complicated and very sympathetic at times. He is really a good guy underneath that shifty and plotting exterior. I hope he has a expanded role to play next year with a good storyline. I think he was wasted this season.
He gave such a powerful performance through the war...remember when he got those goods on the black market and it fell through? He was devastated and it was a devastating scene. This season, by comparision, is a real come down.
He gave such a powerful performance through the war...remember when he got those goods on the black market and it fell through? He was devastated and it was a devastating scene. This season, by comparision, is a real come down.
Thomas is the kind of character where you want them to find their happiness at last. He tries to better himself, although not through good means sometimes, but he tries so hard and when he fails you have to feel sorry for the guy. I remember the black market storyline and he was really almost destroyed by it. The saddest scene with Thomas was when he was in the rain, jobless, and crying - he had nowhere to go. I hope next season, they will devote more storyline time to Thomas but this season he was completely wasted.
Thomas is the kind of character where you want them to find their happiness at last. He tries to better himself, although not through good means sometimes, but he tries so hard and when he fails you have to feel sorry for the guy. I remember the black market storyline and he was really almost destroyed by it. The saddest scene with Thomas was when he was in the rain, jobless, and crying - he had nowhere to go. I hope next season, they will devote more storyline time to Thomas but this season he was completely wasted.
You have got to be kidding me! Barrow is a sleaze bag. But you are entitled to your opinion.
You have got to be kidding me! Barrow is a sleaze bag. But you are entitled to your opinion.
I don't think he's a sleaze bag. I think he's ambitious, and a back-stabber, and wants to take shortcuts all the time. But I think he back-stabs and takes shortcuts, because from his perspective, he's not going to move forward otherwise. His perspective is that he's a gay servant who's good-looking but not very likeable. That's who he is. And no matter how hard he works, he's still going to be gay and unlikeable. He doesn't have a good personality. He's not able to really connect with people. And I don't think he knows why he doesn't connect with people, he just knows that he never makes those connections. So, if he can't make those connections, then he has to find other ways to move forward with his life.
I think that's why we saw how he behaved with Tom this season. He sees Tom as someone who was his equal, but Tom connects with people, and Tom especially connected with the right person, with Sybil, and he's now in a position that Barrows would revel in. But Tom isn't reveling in it, Tom is tortured by it, a man who's lost his sense of place in the world. And that stirs Barrows' contempt and anger.
Barrows is really a tragic figure. He is so deeply flawed, he is conscious of the flaws, but unable to do anything about them. And all he wants is to be rich enough, or powerful enough, that they won't matter. But he'll never get to that point. His flaws will always matter. He will always be trapped, struggling, fighting, and failing.
I think Moseley is the kind of character whom you want to see get a break. (And he is, with his job and winning Baxter's affection.) Barrow's lurking in the shadows, plotting and scheming and twirling his imaginary mustache, and you have to think in a real manor house he'd have been fired ages ago.
Why doesn't Tom have a valet? I'm sure he doesn't want one but then neither did Matthew (although Matthew had to have one since he was the "owner" of Downton).
Still, it seems to me that since Tom is Sybil's widower he should have a valet (both before and after Sybil's death). Does anyone remember if Sybil had a lady's maid? Did/does Edith have one?
Does anyone know the "rules" about this?
Valets and lady’s maids were “personal servants” paid by an individual, whereas the other servants were paid by the household. Tom would have to pay a valet of his own income, which, even though he’s manager of the estate, probably isn’t that much. The sub-plot with Matthew’s reluctance to have a valet was a dramatic device—to show that he was a “middle class” outsider.
In general, people received maids and valets after they married (promoting Anna when Mary married Matthew is historically accurate). Sybil didn’t have a maid partly because she didn’t want one but also because Tom couldn’t afford it. Edith and Rose are unmarried so they don’t have maids.
One exception would be the “heir.” His position/status would require a servant at a younger age.
Edith wants to tell the family. Apparently the father was set upon in Munich by early Nazi's and hasn't been heard of since and now she feels the need, should she inherit, to properly share with her daughter. I think the thing she'd love most of all would be to be able to go to the nursery and play with her daughter as she grows up with her cousins. She knows it can't be done, not in her society, but having nursed her child the bond is there and she'll have her near enough she can watch her grow.
I like that she is going to start working on the magazine, since maybe that will give her something of her own and she might grow her own identity.
Now that Mary knows that one of her suitors had left out his family's status, she's suddenly much more interested... Grrrrr but it's Mary.
Am I the only one who thinks Edith should NOT go back to Switzerland for her baby? That poor Swiss couple have had time to bond with her and now she changed her mind and is going to take it back. AND she's not even going to take her to raise the baby herself. She is taking from the Swiss couple to give her to the farmer. Just more convenient for her.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but to me, once you give a baby up for adoption, you can't change your mind. It's cruel.
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Thomas
