'Downton Abbey' Recap, Season 6, Episode 3: Wedding Bell Blues
Poor Mrs. Hughes. Just when it looked like she’d won her Hundred Years War not to have her wedding overshadowed by the Crawley family, she got upstaged anyhow.
To be fair, her wedding to Mr. Carson Sunday night on Episode 3 of the final Downton Abbey season was in its own way as much of a feel-good fairytale moment as the wedding between Mary and Matthew back in Season 3.
Writer Julian Fellowes does weddings well, because he understands the ceremony itself is incidental. The good stuff comes before and after. The only wedding ceremony on which Downton ever lingered was Edith’s, which ended with the groom walking out and Edith racing up to her room to cry for a month.
Now that was good television.
The spotlight moment for Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson Sunday came after the ceremony, when Carson delivered brief and marvelously eloquent praise of his bride. Mrs. Hughes’s campaign to make the wedding about them, not the house in which they work, seemed to have been a complete success as Mr. Carson commanded the floor and a schoolhouse full of Crawleys listened.
His words were still echoing off the walls when the familiar voice of an unseen figure called out, “To the bride and groom!”
OMG, Branson (Allen Leech, left) is back.
Earlier Sunday night, Mary had gotten an emotional letter from Branson in Boston, saying he found himself dreaming of Downton.
And then not 45 minutes later here he was, stepping out of the shadows to lift a glass to Mr. and Mrs. Carson.
Since pretty much everyone has come to love Branson – okay, except Evil Thomas – his repatriation was the best unexpected grand entrance at Downton since, well, since Bates came home for Christmas three episodes ago.
“I had to go all the way to Boston to figure out that Downton was my home,” Branson explained. Of course, this is the same guy who three or four seasons ago could easily have said, “I had to come all the way to Downton to figure out that Ireland was my home.”
Let’s face it, he’s a rover. it’s not inconceivable that another couple of years down the line, Branson would go missing and Mary would get another letter saying, ”I had to go all the way to Downton to realize Leningrad is my home.”
Still, at a time when housemaids are quitting to take better jobs in local shops, the Crawleys were so delighted that someone actually wanted to come to Downtown that they did everything but kill a fatted calf. Lord Grantham even forgot the times Branson brought Miss Bunting to dinner.
The only thing was, gosh darn it, Branson’s entrance sucked up every ounce of oxygen in the room. We half expected Mr. Carson to look at Mrs. Hughes and say, “So, Elsie, did you bring a pack of cards?”
And all this after Mrs. Hughes endured more tension with Lady Mary and a most uncomfortable showdown with Cora in the process of simply trying to hold the wedding her way.
First she had to explain to the assembled Crawleys that much as she appreciated their generous offer to host the wedding at Downton, “This day is about us,” not the fine folks who own the big house.
Cora understood. Mary, not so much.
After Mrs. Hughes left, Mary curtly asked,“Why did we have to listen to that?”
A bit later, however, those roles reversed.When Mary got the word that Mrs. Hughes’s wedding dress had turned out disappointingly plain, she said she was sure Mama wouldn’t mind lending her a nice over-frock to brighten things up.
Mrs. Hughes was hesitant, but acting on Mary’s assurance, she and her downstairs posse went to Cora’s room to try it on.
Naturally Cora walked in. Naturally Cora had not been told of Mary’s offer. Naturally Cora had had a really bad day. She scolded Mrs. Hughes in a way that suggested Mrs. Hughes should not expect a significant Christmas bonus this year.
Mary, informed of this turn of events, asked Cora why she was rude to Mrs. Hughes. Cora said she walked into her room to find servants trying her clothes on, which was just plain wrong.
Mrs. Hughes got that message. She later lamented to Mrs. Patmore that she felt like “a naughty child” in need of a spanking.
Happily, Cora woke up the next morning on the better side of the bed. She apologized to Mrs. Hughes and insisted she keep the coat, even after Mrs. Hughes observed she might never have another occasion to wear it.
Mary also apologized to Carson for trying to bigfoot the wedding, to which Mrs. Hughes remarked, “M’Lady, Mr. Carson would forgive you if you hit him with a brick.”
True that.
Taken together, the wedding and the return of Branson gave second billing to what could ultimately be the most startling story of all. It looks like Edith might have finally found a fellow, one who is neither too old nor too married.
He’s Herbert Pelham, whom we all know better as Bertie, the seventh marquess of Hexham. Last season he showed interest in Edith at Lord Sinderby’s shooting party, and Sunday night he bumped into her on a London street.
Small world, London. Like a subdivision of match.com. That’s where Cousin Rose bumped into Atticus last year, and before you knew it, they were married and off to a glamorous life in New York.
So Bertie asked Edith (Laura Carmichael, left) out for a drink, on which she had to bail when her annoying editor quit, leaving her only nine hours to put out her magazine herself.
Bertie offered to forego the drink and help Edith assemble the magazine instead. You gotta love a marquess who can multitask. The two of them and a loyal secretary worked all night and got everything to the printer by 4 a.m.
Nothing forges bonds like meeting a deadline together.
Edith was doubly happy because this crisis proved she could assemble the magazine without her sexist slob of an editor. She was proud enough to bring copies of the proofs back to Downton, where Lord Grantham beamed and offered copious praise. Mary sat nearby wearing a look that said this situation would be tolerable only if Edith had spelled Virginia Woolf’s name with one “o.”
Anna may also have happy news, because she’s pregnant for the fourth time and thanks to some help from Mary’s doctor, this time she may not lose it. Mary was much happier about this than about Edith’s deadline prowess.
Daisy was happy, too, maybe a little too happy, blithely assuming that Mr. Mason will get the farm tenancy the unfortunate Drewes have to give up. Daisy might want to remember there are still six episodes to go.
The news was simply annoying for Evil Thomas,who went out on another job interview at a local estate.
When he got there, the place seemed curiously bare. The owner said everything was being restored to its former glory, but under further questioning, he admitted he had virtually no staff working on it.
In fact, all his talk about the glory days turned out to be the delusion of a disconnected madman. Thomas wished him luck.
Larger point there: Since the old estates are all in trouble, perhaps going mad is one option for dealing with it.
Two other subplots Sunday just kept getting weirder: the throw down between Violet and Isobel (Dame Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton, left) over the fate of the local hospital, and the stealth war between Violet’s staffers, lady’s maid Denker and butler Spratt.
In the hospital drama, Isobel seemed to be gaining the upper hand, which could mean the local hospital would become part of a larger regional hospital.
Violet thinks this would cost the community its voice, putting it at the mercy of “a faceless committee in York.” Isobel argued that the regional hospital could offer more resources.
Isobel had the support of Cora and Lord Merton, and Sunday it seemed that Dr. Clarkson, who previously had sided with Violet, might have switched to “undecided.”
Still, this whole subplot has already gone on longer than its inherent interest level might suggest, raising the question of whether it is leading to some larger point or it’s primary a vehicle forgetting Violet and Isobel into an argument again after they had become so chummy.
As for Denker and Spratt, that barbed dance feels almost surreal, as if Fellowes can’t resist giving these two oddball characters a plot to play with.
They sort of got one Sunday when it turned out Spratt was hiding his ne’er-do-well nephew, a prison escapee, from the local police.
Denker figured that out, giving her the upperhand for the moment. But even though harboring a fugitive sounds serious, and it would be if Bates were doing it, in this case it’s hard to imagine anything dire will result.
Truth is, Denker and Spratt are mounting a late challenge to Mr. Molesley as the show’s favorite comic relief.