'Downton Abbey' Season 2 Episode 6 Recap

Last week’s episode opened with rats chilling in a burned-out hellscape, letting us know that we were in for a depressing ride. This week “Downton Abbey” opens with a sight much more welcome for fans: Mary pushing Matthew’s wheelchair while the two of them banter. This week “Downton Abbey” moves away from the sad, depressing realities of war to go all out soap-opera. It’s only fitting that as the war ends, the show transforms itself from an unflinching look at how World War 1 affected all classes of people to “All My Long-Lost Crawleys”.

“It’s the dawn of a new age,” Lord Grantham declares as they take a moment of silence for the end of the war. He’s not kidding either. This week’s episode might be my favorite of the second season so far, packing in so much story that I was fairly sure about 20 minutes in that I had been watching the episode for at least two hours. Among this week’s soapy, amazing plot twists we have the deaths of two people we hate (Vera and Sergeant Molester-Face), a possibly fake long-lost relative, Sir Richard turning into a mustache-twirling super villain, the combined super-friends forces of Violet and Cora and, perhaps most shocking of all, a possible defection by Carson. I can’t wait until someone gets an evil twin. I really hope it’s Edith, she’s been far too nice this season.

Upstairs

Cora and Violet have joined forces together this week, forming a Justice League of snappy retorts and gigantic hats, to rid themselves of Cousin Isobel. Speaking of giant hats, Cora’s hat is slammin’ this week. It looks like a more refined version of Aretha Franklin’s much-meme’d inauguration bow hat. I’m beginning to think Cora’s hats are the source of her powers.

But it’s the Dowager Countess who’s responsible for figuring out how to stop Isobel from keeping Downton Abbey open as a recovery home for all time. She just runs through a laundry list of things Cousin Isobel might be interested in doing instead until she finally hits on refugees. Fairly pleased with herself, the Dowager Countess just spends the rest of the episode high-fiving Cora, looking bored with long-lost dead relatives like it’s a thing that happens to her all the time and trying to get Molesley fired. So like a normal day for Violet.

The big soap opera twist in the episode is the reappearance of Patrick. “Who is Patrick?” you might be asking yourself. It was Patrick’s death that set everything in motion in the beginning of the series, forcing Matthew and his dreamy blue eyes to assume inheritance of Downton. Patrick supposedly died on the Titanic, probably because he tried to climb on that giant piece of debris with Kate Winslet and she kicked him in the face or something. Now a badly burnt officer is claiming to be Patrick, saying he survived the downed Titanic, lost his memory and ended up in the war in Canada where he got his face blown off.

Most of the Crawleys are like “screw this noise” and immediately disbelieve the story. Everyone, really, except Edith. Another small, easily forgotten detail from the first season is that Edith was in love with Patrick, Mary’s former fiancée.  Edith spends time with Maybe Patrick and begins to believe his story, especially when he talks about their childhood. Mary points out that if she was faking she would guess almost exactly the same things Maybe Patrick talked about. Poor Edith wants to believe his story so badly though, that she’s willing to overlook the completely sketchy nature of this whole mess. Between this and the gap-tooted farmer, I’m really starting to worry about Edith’s taste in men this season. At least even pouty, stalker Branson can wear the hell out of an open collared shirt while telling Sybil he will stalk her forever.

When the family finds out that Patrick once had a friend named Peter Gordon, they all immediately decide that the most likely scenario is that Peter decided to use his knowledge from his friendship with Patrick to cash in. Edith still can’t believe it, even though there’s literally a scene that goes like this:

P. Gordon:  “I can’t believe everyone thinks I’m this Peter fellow.”
Edith: “I know! My family is so stupid!”

P.Gordon: “Hey, what if I was really some dude named Peter? I mean like hypothetically what if Peter also went to Canada and joined the same force that I did and got his face burnt off just like I did. I mean, clearly I’m still Patrick but let’s just say all that other stuff is also true.  Would you be cool with that?”

Edith: “Oh Patrick! Stop being so silly!”

P.Gordon: “Oh Edith, I find your stupidity beautiful and endearing, like a lovely deer in the headlights of a car.”

Edith: “Plus my family is totally looking for Peter Gordon right now and they’re rich and powerful and my grandmother is probably a spy or a magician or something so they’ll totally track Peter down. And then your story will be vindicated!”

P.Gordon: “Oh. Peace out Edith!”

Poor Edith.

Downstairs

Downstairs things are just as dramatic. Daisy has gone from moping about pretending to marry William to moping about how she doesn’t want to accept her widow benefits. Mrs. Patmore just sort of rolls her eyes and goes about suggesting to Thomas that he become a black market kingpin so she can continue making cakes. This week, it’s O’Brien’s turn to tell Thomas “hey dude, I think you’re about to do something stupid.” But much like last week when O’Brien brought the wrath of Vera down on the house for no apparent reason other than she was bored and resentful of Anna for having better hair then her, Thomas doesn’t listen. You can see the evil cogs turning in his evil head.

Speaking of Vera, it looks like maybe we won’t have to be speaking of her anymore. Vera once again messes up the divorce and Mr. Bates says some vaguely threatening things before heading out to London to talk to her. Shortly after he returns, with a scratch on his face no less, a telegram arrives declaring Vera murdered. Maybe it’s because I just spent an entire day watching Lifetime Original movies but Mr. Bates is not looking in a good position here. “I’m untouchable, bitch!” Mr. Bates sadly does not say to anyone.

Most shocking of all is the idea of Carson leaving Downton Abbey. Sir Richard is trying to poach Carson for their new home Haxby, a grand but abandoned house close to Downton. Sir Richard routinely threatens people and says creepy stuff, yet I’ve never seen the family more disgusted than when Sir Richard talked about outfitting the new house with central heating and buying art. Imagine! Buying things with money you earned! My god, the humanity.

Mrs. Hughes seems especially sad that Carson might be going to set up shop for his favorite Mary, even though he blew up her spot giving food to Ethel. Poor Ethel just can’t seem to catch a break. Cora, professionally awesome all the time now, had just agreed to bring Major Molester Face to Downton and try to shame him into taking responsibility for his baby. Which is of course when he got killed in the war, leaving Ethel with no hope for help in the future.

The Mary and Matthew of it All

Mary and Matthew start out the episode walking along, talking about Mary’s new place. Mary tells Matthew that she doesn’t have to marry Sir Richard, which seems like a huge admission from Mary that she still loves him. Unfortunately, Matthew is still in full-on mope mode and makes some weird comments about being a cat that walks by himself. It’s very strange. Apparently Matthew’s in a bad place where his metaphors make no sense. I mean even Garfield was able to be with his true love lasagna.

Meanwhile, Sir Richard goes from kind-of-creepy to pushing Mary against walls and threatening her. He also puts the idea in Cora’s head to invite Lavinia back. So now another obstacle has popped up in the way of Mary and Matthew’s happiness. After Lavinia tells Matthew that she’s not planning on letting him kick her out again, Matthew feels something. Something in the pants region. He gets this special “feeling” as Mr. Bates pushes him behind Lavinia, so I guess now we know Matthew is of the Sir Mix-a-lot persuasion.

Best Maggie Smith Lines

Watch even a few seconds of “Downton Abbey”, and it’s pretty clear that Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess gets all the best lines. Here are her best gems from episode six:

“I don’t dislike him; I just don’t like him, which is quite different.” – Violet about Sir Richard.

“Then we must tempt her with a more enticing scaffold.” –Violet about getting rid of Cousin Isobel, who Cora says loves to be a martyr.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Loosing hope that Mary and Matthew will ever reunite? Sound off in the comments!