‘Downton Abbey’ Season 3’s Second Wedding Is a Downer

In case you were worried that wedding fever would abate after Matthew and Mary finally tied the knot, don’t worry — Downton Abbey features yet another splashy nuptial to-do this week, only the whole affair is much more tragic than its predecessor. A decade after its original airing, it’s easy to forget how much of the show’s earlier seasons revolved around middle Crawley sister Edith being either a complete pill or a suffering loser. But we’re fully in the throes of that time now, and it’s just as much of a downer as it was the first time around.

For most of its run, Downton never really knew quite what to do with Edith. This problem is particularly evident in its second and third seasons, which primarily revolve around Mary and Sybil’s love lives. Edith is generally treated as an afterthought, meaning that her stories tend to run the gamut from developing an inappropriate relationship with a married tenant farmer to... developing an inappropriate relationship with an injured soldier that claims to be her dead cousin. Edith’s judgment is... not great.

To her credit, she generally means well (except for that part where she purposefully tried to ruin her sister's reputation) and most of her worst actions can be explained away by the fact that she’s desperate for someone — anyone — to like her best or choose her first. It’s not either of her parents, who openly prefer her siblings, or her sisters, who don’t seem to like her all that much (even Sybil, who’s probably the kindest person on this show’s canvas). It’s the kind of emotional hole that was always going to leave this poor girl fixated on finding a man, any man, who might offer her a chance to build a different kind of life.