Downton Abbey Season 2 Arrives at Its Worst Episodes
I don't dislike him. I just don't like him. Which is quite different.
The war is finally drawing to a close on Downton Abbey, which is the one spot of good news in an hour that is otherwise full of a truly intolerable amount of generally pointless melodrama. From a literal burned amnesiac claiming to be the lost Crawley heir and some mildly abusive blackmail to a shocking death and some truly epic meddling from Lady Grantham, pretty much every plot beat of this episode is so far beyond ridiculous it’s gone round the bend.
The hour has its moments. Lord Grantham’s insistence on marking the exact moment of the armistice is quite moving, as is Carson’s waffling about whether to leave Downton to help Mary run her new home once she’s married. The Dowager Countess’ scheme to divert an increasingly activist Isobel with her heart set on keeping the big house as a hospital — oh no, the poor refugees! — is both brilliant and genuinely hilarious.
Yet, it’s not an exaggeration to say this is far and away the worst episode of the season, and possibly of the series, save for the fact that the one where Pamuk dies exists. Say what you want about how insane that storyline was, but to Downton’s credit, that subplot has had an outrageously long-tail impact. These? Not so much.
