chocolatepot | Downton Abbey (Reply)

- I don't dislike Sarah Bunting, but I just can't get into shipping her with Tom. I think it's just not interesting as a storyline to me. Tom/Sybil was such a difficult yet rewarding relationship that introducing another class-troubling one feels like a pale imitation - Tom needs something different. (It's kind of like how Robin Hood replaced the clashing Robin/Marian with the clashing Robin/Kate, and it could have worked all right on its own, but with Robin/Marian being awesome I couldn't care about Kate.) Poor honorable baby. Hopefully they won't actually get together.

- I ship Mary/nobody-after-Matthew, sorry. Mary/Evelyn at a stretch. She just doesn't seem that interested in any of the suitors, and so it's just embarrassing to watch them compete in front of her. You boys are idiots.

- I do ship Daisy/American valet, gosh darn it. They are adorable. He is adorable and she is adorable, so together they are adorable squared. I'm so happy she's finally getting her due as a cook, plus some more adorable romance. Too bad it appears to be a one-off. :(

- I like Isobel's take on the value of aristocratic social traditions, and the understanding that you can be "smug and intolerant" about them, because the standard narrative goes the other way around, but ... it's just not balanced. It always goes one way on this show, when it comes to story arcs (because there are often moments going the other way, they just don't last the way Tom and Matthew and Isobel's transformations have).

- "You always take everything as a compliment." "I advise you to do the same, it saves many an awkward moment." EXCELLENT.

- The costuming was much better in this episode than in the whole earlier season, imo. I think maybe it's that they've never really been into the fussiness accurate to the very early '20s, and now they're coming to the point where the "just a little fussy" nature of DA costumes actually becomes accurate to the level of fussy in RL.

- BERYL. Didn't you learn anything? Don't push Daisy into romance! (She's sounding and looking pretty old, I wonder if they're gearing up to kill her off?)

- Bates's crime syndicate! I love it. I haven't cared about Bates in a while; making him a capable and savvy guy makes him much more interesting than the whole "poor Bates" schtick.

- I don't adore cross-gen pairings, but I can't help but ship Levinson/Madeleine. Probably because they're so different from any other ship on the show, with his bluntness about money and marriage and what her father's doing. Plus she's the more active party, and he's the one gradually caring about her. (Though standing in the middle of the dance floor shifting uncomfortably is bad behavior.)

- Am I face-blind or did Sampson and the Prince look exactly the same?

- Baxter/Molesley is another pairing I'd much rather watch unfold than Mary/Anybody. OTOH, with more attention Fellowes might make it more bad. Also Edith/Tom, I know it will never happen, but it would get Tom away from trying to bring a working-class woman into the world that he's only borderline integrated into himself because it's so AWKWARD.

- Edith and her baby plotline >>>>>>>> all the romantic plots on this show, why is it not all about her?

- Step off Daisy's man, Ivy!

Oh, and Death Comes to Pemberley.

- I had costuming issues. It just felt very ... costumey, plus like they just rifled through a closet dated 1795-1820 and pulled out bits, even if they didn't go together or weren't quite right. And the hair was SO Downton Abbey, not Regency at all. Those gathered-front dresses need to have the straps well on the shoulder, and Elizabeth wore this green dress with no discernible closure.

- But Lydia got to wear her own regimental coat, yay! (The scene where she and Mrs. Bennet tell the magistrate about how Denny was in love with her is my favorite out of both episodes so far.)

- Not sure if I would have thought of it if

silvestria hadn't suggested it, but Anna Maxwell Martin seemed miscast. But on the other hand, James may have written Elizabeth OOC (I'm assuming this is a faithful adaptation for convenience), so, there you are. And Colonel Fitzwilliam was HILARIOUSLY OOC, how on earth did nobody involved in the book's publication ever point thatout?

- It reminded me of that Emma Tennant book where Lizzy and Darcy inexplicably have to relive their lessons over again. Only that was just a year after the end of P&P, so it was somewhat understandable. Ten years and they're suddenly having problems? Stretched my credulity.

- I did very much like Matthew Rhys's Darcy and Jenna Louise Coleman's Lydia. Both were very very good, and felt very true to the original characters to me.

- And I thought it was great to see Darcy and Wickham's relationship through something more than just retold stories of their youth. That's not something I expected it to concentrate on at all.