Downton Abbey Season 3 episode 3

So, because I'm busy watching The Bachelor on Monday nights and tending to crying children on Sundays, I'm not caught up to Downton Abbey proper. I don't have the big reveal. All I have is the previous episode.

The third episode of season three continues in the fine vein set forth in the second episode. We focus on the lighter things in life like good looking footman that send me IMDB'ing them to figure out they they seem so familiar. In this case, nothing. It turns out that what was familiar about the new footman was that he was good looking, and I have seen many other good looking individuals on television. And, consequently, this made me consider the dearth of supremely good looking individuals, particularly amongst the downstairs staff. It made me wonder if part of the appeal of Downton Abbey is the lack of glitz and glamour. It is certainly rare to have a television show, perhaps because it's British, where the people are just people. In America, if you are unattractive it is often grossly so, or it's because you're a nerd, or secretly good looking beneath the glasses. It is rare that a group of normal looking people that you'd see on the street are thrown together to make a television show. It goes against the very nature of television, which appeals to the hegemony of our visual natures to have a cast of characters who could seemingly be plucked off the street.

The show's strength also lies in the democracy of ages and ideas that reign downstairs. You have lifetime servants like, Carson, who have internalized their job, and up and comers like Thomas or the handsome new footman who desires to be more. And though we're sort of lead to believe, intentionally I think, that the change has something to do with the shift in society. It also has a great deal to do with our shifting desires as we move through the sea of life. It is the young, who often have less to lose that are about seeking change, and so I think it is interesting to have the young and the old placed in such close proximity downstairs at Downton, where their two very different sets of ideas and dreams can comingle.

The show begins with poor Edith thinking about writing a letter to the newspaper about women getting the right to vote. This is during the era when Virginia Woolf was setting the world ablaze with her new modernist style, and so it's nice to see the writers developing something in Edith. I submit that I was rather happy that she didn't stay married. I've read enough Jane Austen to know that nothing happens after all the daughters are married off. And so, though I was happy, I was also concerned with what they would do with her. I just hope they are not in a rush as they've been so many other times. I fear that she'll be completing her own version of Mrs. Dalloway an episode from now and having lunch with James Joyce, who she'll then marry and divorce by season's end.

The other thing that constantly impresses me during any episode of Downton is the finally quaffed hair of Matthew Crawley. I submit that I spend at least half the time that he's on the screen wondering if I like his or Don Draper's is the most iconic hair on television, but I digress. The strange scenario involving Bates' time in jail remains mysterious and unexplained. I've made it clear that I find Bates and Anna pining for one another episode after episode a bit tiresome, but I think the writer's feel that they are on to something in keeping them apart, holding suspense etc. The interesting thing is that I begin to care less about the two characters as time passes. They start to become caricatures of two people in love as opposed to actual people as they were in the house, trying to navigate through the stormy water. Anyhow, it is clearly my prejudice, but I prefer to see Bates combating Thomas over a pair of cuff links as opposed to a criminal gang in prison. (I do appreciate the dearth of sexual innuendo that's been associated with the prison scenes thus far, post Shawshank it seems like it might be impossible).

The other story line that is starting to be established is that of a difference in management styles between the Earl of Grantham and Matthew Crawley. I'm intrigued by the possibilities inherent in this new arrangement, encouraged because it doesn't involve spinal bruising or mummy looking fellows but the simple stuff of human nature. I'm intrigued to watch the writers develop the relationship between Matthew and Lord Grantham.

The last item of interest is the return of Branston and Sibyl to English soil with the police hot on their heels. I've never been particularly excited about Branson, and am still upset that we weren't given the Sibyl vs. Mary for Matthew's hand that could have divided the hearts of people across the nation. Oh well. It would be nice to see Branson either begin to round into some recognizable form of human being or go get himself shot like the fire brand he's been made out to be. That would free up a second daughter, and in the fine tradition of Gilligan's island we'd be close to getting back to where we started.

In general, despite the general obtuseness of the Bates plot line, the third episode held a lot of the promise of the second, intrigue on the top and the bottom floor that didn't involve insanity, Americans, but it did include the difference between a soup spoon and a bouillon spoon. That's why I'll keep coming back.