An assortment of comings of goings marked Sunday’s “Downton Abbey.”
First of all, Lord Grantham was summoned to help his brother-in-law out of an unspecified jam in America; Bates didn’t want to leave Anna, and so Thomas got the call to accompany him.
To arrange the switch, Mrs. Hughes had to tell Mary the secret of Anna’s attack to convince her of the need for Bates to stay by her side; she in turn convinced her papa.
Thomas questioned his good fortune; he assigned Baxter to find out why. Molesley overhears this request and wonders why she should do Thomas’ bidding; we also wonder.
The pigs have arrived to the farm, and Mary goes out to see them with Charles Blake, one of the men who has been around to study the future of English estate and to also provide a whole lot of sociological commentary for those seeking to write papers about the series.
His sparring with Mary means there’s a spark between them. It’s sealed when the two rescue the pigs who are severely dehydrated.They have to carry water, get muddy, have a mud fight, and end up in the servants kitchen for a late meal — so late that Ivy is already waking up to get things started on the new day.
It was Blake’s companion Mr. Napier who had been most interested in Mary, though whenever he brings this up to her, she just looks at him cross-eyed. She never had much interest in him.
Also sick was the Dowager Countess, whose cough during Lord Grantham’s departure turned to a feverish road to pneumonia before Mrs. Crawley stepped in to nurse her bedside for two days and nights, despite the old woman’s delirious comments.
Edith was off to London for matters her parents think are related to her missing beau, Gregson. Actually, it’s the fact that she’s pregnant and going to her sympathetic Aunt Rosamund whom she tells of her real intent: an abortion.
They go to the grim, illegal doctor but Edith changes her mind. She’ll have to tell her parents next.
Rose begs to accompany Edith to London so she can see her jazz playing love interest Mr. Ross, introduced in last week’s episode. They are seen paddling a canoe together though he tells her he can’t see what the future would be for them. She says they should live for the moment and that he should kiss her. He does.
So here’s an interracial scene and and a near abortion in the same London trip.
Rose is mad when they abruptly have to go home the next day.
Alfred is back in town after only leaving service last week to attend French cooking school. But his presence seems to create such a stir with Ivy and Daisy that Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore convince Mr. Carson to keep him away from the estate. Carson concocts a story about the flu going around and puts Alfred up at the local inn instead. The plan doesn’t work as Alfred pops in to say hello briefly the next day anyway.
But by some measure the most dramatic visit comes at the end, when Anthony Foyle, also known as Lord Gillingam, makes a return call.
This happens as Mary has just been up all night in the mud with Clark, but she is glad to see him. Turns out Clark and Lord Anthony are old army buddies. And now there is a line for Mary’s affections now numbering three.
His visit also means he’s brought his awful valet, Mr. Green, who cracks jokes downstairs and freezes Anna’s blood when she sees him: She’s the only one who knows that he’s the one who raped her on their last visit.
Well, one other person also knows, and Mrs. Hughes is at her most fierce when she confronts him saying, “I know who you are and I know what you’ve done.” She tells him in no uncertain terms to lay low “if you value your life.”
Green begins to say they were both drunk that night and were both to blame, but Mrs. Hughes is having none of it.
At the servants table Green goes on about the opera singer’s screeching the last time he was at Downton and someone asks what he did to get away from the noise. He casually says he went downstairs, where he would have been one of the only servants around except for Anna.
And the episode ends with Bates’ slow burn, realizing the perpetrator of the pain in his house is right before him.
Well, that’s an awful lot of action for one episode, and it seems “Downton” gets its energy by including not just an A, B and C plot, but also a D and E, and then cutting between them quickly to keep you interested, like flipping through a Victorian novel helter skelter.
And there’s one other thing that happened: Branson goes to a local political meeting where a liberal member of Parliament is speaking at the behest of Mrs. Crawley (who ends up not going because she’s caring for the dowager). There, he has a pleasant exchange with a woman who may be enough to keep him from his plans to go to America. With any luck she’ll be back.
And no, they never cut over to America to see how Lord Grantham is doing. Maybe they didn’t have time.