Downton Abbey Episode 1 Recap

Spoiler alert! I'm reviewing the first episode of Downton Abbey, so if you haven't started season three yet, it might be time to have reading. Downton Abbey jumped the shark midway through season two as most viewers already know, spinal bruising, characters posing as heirs with burns on their face, Bates off to prison.  By the time your average viewer finally got the proposal that they'd been longing for they had to suffer damn near as much as Mathew Crawley himself. That said, watching a valet get his comeuppance from a mere footman never goes out of style.

Would Downton Abbey be one of the best miniseries ever if it had the decency to end after ten or twelve episodes with a proper engagement as it should have? You see, this is the problem with shows that don't have arcs. Too much is happening too fast, which quickly turns a drama into a soap opera. There are only so many things that can happen in a person's life over a short period of time. Are we really to believe that a decade or two doesn't go by without much incident? Well, at Downton, perhaps because it didn't end when it should have, we won't have a year pass by so uneventfully.

We Americans love this silly English class distinction because we don't share it. Well, not entirely. We certainly have class distinctions in America, but they have a tendency to be much less amusing than they seem to be in England. For one, all of the characters on the show have the decency to be the same color. I don't think the show would be half as amusing if it were in America and about the distinction between blacks and whites, or American Indians and whites, or pretty much anyone and whites. Therefore, we're allowed to laugh a bit at Lady Grantham's snobbish ways in a way that would be uncomfortable if it was a landed white gentleman of the south, though it's likely Quentin Tarantion would make a provocative film about it that I'll never watch.

The first episode begins in 1920. And, the producers and writers, apparently feeling their proximity to 1950 begin by having the male leads, Matthew and Lord Grantham lose, or come into large sums of money while keeping it from their women. To their credit the leads eventually divulge their opposite problems. And yet, the interim is a bit uncomfortable as Matthew sits Don Draper style in a chair wondering over his possible millions while his wife knows not a thing. The side bar show from downstairs includes Mr. Bates being reassured by Anna that she is loving him every minute of every day while he tells he to go on with her life.

These are mere sexist trifles that are eventually resolved by Anna's unstinting love, Cora's undying love, and Mary's honesty. While Anna and Cora dote on their men, it is Mary, that annoying child from Season 1 that is the voice of reason, actually calling into question her husband to be's decision to not spend the money because of his great virtue in not taking that which didn't rightfully belong to him, which seems nice when applied to a dollar found on a bus, but not a million inherited properly. It is just these sort of virtuous stands or silly catches that simultaneously keep the show turning while slowly ripping it apart. The characters should surprise us more than the events, but it seems that Fellowes is now content to put the Abbeyiers on a raft and cast them through a rapid number of events.

Of course, watching Thomas battle with young Alfred over who gets to be a valet, or Mosely desperately wanting to be needed never ceases to be interesting. It is these small gestures, the petty things that remind me at least of the real world, jobs, lunches, etc. It appears that what the writers think is deeply humanizing is the acquisition of money and property, while I'm starting to conclude that it's a properly ironed shirt.

Most of the first episode is forgivable, even entertaining. However, it is when Fellowes introduces someone that is not English, minus Cora, when things always fall apart. Cora's mother arrives for the wedding and spends the next hour or so reminding everyone that she is an American and that they don't stand for ceremony. By about the fifth time she's delivered a line about the stodgy English you start hoping that Thomas is going to sneak up behind her with some chloroform. No such luck as she winds up being the centerpiece of Downton having to adapt on the fly when the food is spoiled at a party. It is her crafty American ways that teach them to adapt quickly. The whole point winds up being so heavy handed that I found myself wondering if we'd spend the next hour being taught how to cut properly with scissors and color within the lines. However, if the alternative is another hour of Anna smiling at her prison bound husband and telling him how great he looks behind bars then I'll take it.

Of course, all of the above is much too harsh. The majority of the characters, Lord Grantham, Mary, Edith and of course the dowager countess remain imminently pleasurable to watch bandying witticisms about in excellent hats, the highlight of which is the countess claiming to have mistaken Robert for a waiter because he is wearing only his black tie attire. The question as to whether the show has lost its way or whether it'll bumble its way towards something great, Lost? remains to be seen. I'd be lying if I said I won't be watching.