DOWNTON ABBEY Recapped Entirely From Memory: Season 3
The one where everyone [wants out of their fucking contract] DIES UNEXPECTEDLY!
Hello, treasured subscribers! The Agony of “Gay” “Cinema” will be back next week, kicking off Pride Month a week late with Jeffrey. For now: More Downton Abbey!
Season 3!
The one where everyone wants out of their fucking contract DIES UNEXPECTEDLY!
Things get off to a bit of a rocky start for Mary and Matthew. They’re supposed to be getting married, but then she gets mad that he won’t accept the fortune that his dead fiancé Miss Squire’s now-dead father left to him for some reason. But wait, you’re thinking, why do these rich people need more money? Oh, because Lord Grantham is, as noted previously, a moron who just lost all the family’s money investing in trains.
Meanwhile, Lady Grantham’s rich mother Shirley MacLaine is visiting from America. But she’s not about to give Lord Grantham any more money!
But then somehow Mary learns that…on her deathbed, Miss Squire…told Daisy…something that…somehow makes it fine for Matthew to accept the money? All I remember is that the plot mechanics here are torturous and absurd. But whatever. They are rich again! So, cousins Matthew and Mary get wedded finally.
Except now that all of Matthew’s money belongs to Downton Abbey, he wants to get all involved in the estate and make changes and, like, modernize things. And no one is super thrilled about that. But ultimately, it’s fine and everyone stays rich and not much changes.
Meanwhile, Edith reconnects with Old Lord Cuck and they decide to get married. But no one is happy about that either! And I think the Dowager convinces Lord Cuck to LITERALLY LEAVE EDITH AT THE ALTER! So, she’s all sad and jilted. But also she finally gets a hairdo that works for her, and starts writing letters to newspapers and becomes a JOURNALIST! So, silver lining. Also, her dress was so much better than Mary’s.
Then one night Branson shows up at Downton because he’s wanted for burning down a mansion in Ireland. And pregnant Sybil shows up soon after and they manage to work everything out so that Branson doesn’t go to gaol, but has to stay at Downton forever. Then, Sybil has her baby and DIES. It’s very sad and tragic, and it also causes a rift in Lord and Lady Grantham’s marriage because she thinks that he didn’t believe the doctor who said Sybil was going to die and so they like missed the opportunity to save her. That turns out to be not true though, Sybil was going to die no mater what because Jessica Brown Findlay wanted out, so Lord and Lady Grantham kiss and make up.
And actually, there’s a ginger maid 2.0 semi-involved here… I guess she was introduced in Season 2 and got fired for sleeping with soldiers? But then she had a baby and gave it to the now-dead father’s rich parents, and then became a prostitute. But Isobel saves her from that and gives her a job as a cook. And one time Lord Grantham got mad that she cooked for all his women folk. Ultimately, I think she got a job as her own baby’s nanny or something?
Meanwhile, Anna is busy trying to prove that Bates didn’t poison his ex-wife to death. And she succeeds! Because actually, the ex-wife…poisoned herself…to get revenge on Bates? Which…sure. So, Bates comes home to Downton and we never have to live through a terrible boring gaol story ever again. (Spoiler: we do.)
Also downstairs, there’s this hot new footman named Jimmy who everyone has the hots for, especially Thomas. And O’Brien, who hates Thomas now for some reason, manipulates him into hitting on Jimmy, who freaks out and demands that Thomas get kicked out and stoned to death. But then everyone is inexplicably on Thomas’s side even though he has been nothing but hateful and evil pretty much the entire time they’ve known him. And somehow Bates finds out about O’Brien causing Lady Grantham’s miscarriage, and in a mind-bendingly nonsensical twist, he blackmails her into leaving Thomas alone. Thomas Thomas, the guy who spent all of Season 1 trying to destroy him! And Lord Grantham convinces Jimmy to chill the fuck out with his gay panic. So that all works out too.
Then we get the late-season addition of young cousin Lady Rose, who comes to visit and is secretly a wild fun Jazz Age party girl. She gets Edith to take her to London to visit Rosamund and is constantly sneaking out to go to night clubs. But Edith and Matthew find out and give her a talking-to. And then the Dowager Maggie Smith finds out too and sends her home to her parents’ castle or whatever.
Meanwhile, Mary and Matthew are having trouble getting Mary pregnant. But then she does get pregnant. Haha. Problem solved!
Cut to: CHRISTMAS SPECIAL II. Which has nothing to do with Christmas actually. It’s just everyone goes to visit Lady Rose’s parents’ castle in Scottland. There, we find out that Rose has mellowed quite a bit and is way less insufferable. Which is good, because she’s going to be a series regular now due to the fact that her parents hate each other, and everyone thinks it’s better for her to go and live at Downton next season. Cool cool cool.
Back at Downton, there’s a new maid who has the hots for Branson. But everyone thinks that’s super untoward, because now that Branson isn’t a servant but also isn’t really part of the family he’s not allowed to have a life. So he puts the kibosh on that and the new maid quits her job.
Also, all the servants go to a fair where Jimmy gets wasted and almost mugged. But Thomas saves him! So, now they are friends.
Mary, who is still pregnant, has to come home from Scotland early to have her baby. Matthew joins her and she has a son, so the succession is all solved. And Matthew is so super stoked that he drives off in his fancy autocar and is immediately killed in a heinous wreck! Quite a flex on the part of Julian Fellowes to force Dan Stevens to film these shots looking like a discarded porcelain doll! THE END!
Next: SEASON 4!