Things get a wee bit supernatural on this week’s episode when both Mary and Daisy get the oogie boogies at the same time Matthew and William are being wounded. Daisy felt like “someone walked over me grave,” while Mary “suddenly felt very cold” and dropped her tea cup. I suddenly felt like, “Huh?” You don’t expect Downton Abbey to go all In Search Of… on you.
Matthew comes back to DA on a stretcher and Mary tells him the injured spine news. He then tells Lavinia to go away and forget him for they cannot be properly married due to his paralysis. Like properly. If you know what I mean! Lavinia says she doesn’t care but Matthew insists, taking a play from John Bates’ Handbook for Infuriating Nobility.
William, meanwhile, is worse off than Matthew. His internal injuries are untreatable and he isn’t allowed to be admitted into the village hospital because it is for officers only. Oh no you didn’t, says the Dowager Countess. She goes to Leeds and has him returned to DA to live out his last days. She even bullies the vicar into marrying William and Daisy on his deathbed. All of this and she battled a telephone: “Is this an instrument of communication or torture?” I have already said this to my iPhone.
Speaking of Daisy, I’m not her biggest fan but I felt bad for her this episode. She was trying to be truthful and not lead William on but everyone else was like, “You are going to marry him, right? He’s dying, you know. No need to kill him.” She finally gave in and married him while Maggie Smith looked on and cried, due to her “cold”.
Ugh! EVIL Mrs. Bates is back. O’Brien let it slip that her husband was back at DA. Even Thomas was throwing shade on O’B for that. Anna tells Mary that EVIL Mrs. Bates is going to go public with the Pamuk scandal even though Bates gave her all his money and he thought that would do it but we all knew better, didn’t we? Mary goes to the Game Of Thrones Guy and tells her the sordid details so that he can stop EVIL Mrs. Bates. He will still marry her, more so now that they are more equal (RED FLAG!). GoT Guy buys the exclusive rights to the scandal from EVIL Mrs. Bates. When she realizes that she was duped and the scandal wasn’t run, she swears she will get back at Bates. We knew it was only a short lived victory, didn’t we?
What else did I learn from Part Four? Sybil and Branson almost kiss. Hughes is sneaking food to Ethel and the Major baby while the Major denies their existence. Edith continues to be sweet caregiver this season and is also a very capable sidekick to the Dowager Countess. William is dead and Daisy is now his war widow. Speaking of war widow, there’s a new maid who has a child and that’s about all we know so far. And finally, the Best Non-Maggie Exchange: Thomas says he wants to shake William’s hand and O’Brien says he wants to “so he doesn’t haunt you.” If Daisy’s and Mary’s shiver moments are any indication, Julian Fellowes would not be above Phantom William floating down the halls…
