DOWNTON ABBEY Recapped (Mostly) Entirely From Memory: Season 5
Is this the season when Cora almost has an affair with Richard E. Grant? Let's say it is!
Well, treasured subscribers, I warned you that my memory of these later seasons is…dim. After posting the Season 4 recap and realizing I had the timeline of Edith’s newspaper boyfriend’s disappearance thoroughly discombobulated, I went back and checked some episode summaries. Here’s how it all actually went down: There was a fully different card shark (sharp?) thing early in the season and I guess that was when Editor Boyfriend saved the day, not in the Xmas special. The rest pretty much happened the way I remembered (see Season 4 recap), so by the end of the season Editor Boyfriend is disappeared, Edith went to Switzerland to have her baby, but decided to give it to this farmer who lives near Downton.
Other things I forgot: Mary has this other potential love interest Mr. Blake who she at first thinks is just some lowly government inspector. But then she learns that he’s the heir to something or other, so then she’s into him kinda. Hahah! Never change, Mary! Branson, who we have to call “Tom” now that he’s not a chauffeur, is also kinda into someone: it’s this insufferable redheaded Socialist who is constantly like, “Shouldn’t you be murdering your dead wife’s whole family due to Socialism?” Alfred leaves the show to go be a chef, and none of the Andy and Denker stuff happens until this season’s Christmas special.
Oh, and Anna hasn’t been arrested yet. Mr. Green, the rapist, is dead and everybody was starting to suspect Bates because he JUST HAPPENED to be in London on the day Green was killed, and also the show is suddenly writing him as total creep!
Honestly, I have even less of an idea what happened in Season 5, so…this should be fun! And hopefully brief!
We may as well start with poor dear sad old Edith—actually, I think that’s literally where the season starts: with her gazing longingly at the illegitimate daughter that she gave away to this pig farmer who lives next door to Downton Abbey. See, the whole idea was that she wanted to be able to see Marigold (terrible name) all the time, but actually it has been complete torture. Also, it’s driving the pig farmer’s wife insane. Like, literally! First, she thinks the pig farmer is having an affair with Edith. And then, when he and Edith finally tell her the truth and Edith takes Marigold away to be her “ward,” the wife has a literal psychotic break due to grief and tries to kidnap Marigold! So, the pig farmer has to give up his pig farm (which I think was somehow the only thing keeping Downton going at this point with Mary and Tom in charge?) and probably institutionalize his wife. So, Edith, a rich white woman, has ruined this entire family’s lives. (Also, I guess everyone at Downton is just going to pretend to ignore the fact that Marigold is CLEARLY Edith’s bastard daughter.)
Also, before this, Edith finally gets definitive proof that her Editor Boyfriend is fully dead and is so sad she tries to burn down Downton. But Thomas saves her and everyone puts out the fire before it spreads.
This is good for Thomas too, because he was in trouble with Lady Grantham for all the blackmailing he’s been doing to poor wan drab old Baxter. But now that he’s saved Edith’s life, Lady Grantham is grateful and forgives him for his most recent pointless scheming.
During that same fire, Jimmy gets caught in bed having straight sex with this rich lady who was visiting and so he gets fired. And with his only friend handsome Jimmy gone, Thomas starts to realize how lonely he is and how he suddenly wants people to like him now. But instead of stopping his scheming and being generally nicer to his colleagues, he decides to… start injecting himself with anti-gay drugs. LOLOLOL! This makes him very sick, and despite his previous blackmailing, Baxter takes him to the doctor and so they become friends kinda.
Tom/Branson is still kinda seeing that redheaded socialist. But she’s literally a world class buzzkill and everybody hates her and so they break-up. I think he also decides to move to America and takes baby Sibby with him, which makes all the upstairs people sad because now they all love him conveniently.
Umm…Mary gets a new haircut… Which actually is good because for the last couple seasons you would just be looking at her and you could see the powdery old great-aunt she would become in, like, 30 years with her Chanel suits and sensible stubby low heels and, like, brooches. So, yeah, now she has a stylish bob, and also she’s pretty much over the guy from Weekend. But she’s also over Mr. Blake too. So…like, what was the point of any of that?
What else…? This is the season when Mrs. Hugh thinks she has cancer, right? But she doesn’t and everything’s fine. And then out of nowhere Mr. Carson asks her to marry him. Which, like, cool? Servant mommy and daddy belong together, I guess? (Because they can’t just have a collegial professional relationship.)
Isabel starts seeing this Lord or whatever, who has these super shit-heel kids who disapprove of her on account of she’s just some lady and not a LADY-lady, so that’s a whole thing. And the Dowager discovers this Russian refugee who used to be a prince and also her lover! So, she like, decides to help him find his wife who is…lost somewhere? Also, her new lady’s maid Denker develops a hilariously pointless rivalry with her ridiculous butler, Spratt.
Is this the season when Cora almost has an affair with Richard E. Grant? I think it is? Let’s say it is on the evidence of this photo:
Ugh: Anna and Bates. So…I think everyone somehow proves that Bates didn’t do the murdering again this time—there’s a train ticket involved and the logic is torturous. But then also, the cops are like, “Actually, it was a lady who killed Mr. Green!” So, then they arrest Anna. Long stupid story short, the real killer confesses and Anna is set free. AND WE ARE NEVER DOING ANOTHER MURDER GAOL STORY AGAIN FOR REAL THIS TIME.
Meanwhile, Lady Rose meets this nice handsome lord and they fall in love and decide to get married. So everyone goes to London for the wedding, which you would think happens in an Xmas Special, but no! (This is where all the Denker and Andy stuff happens. See Season 4 recap.) It turns out the handsome lord’s family is Jewish, which everyone is super polite about, but you’re like, Is this gonna be a PROBLEM??? But ironically, it’s the Lord’s super conservative Jewish father who has a problem with Rose’s parents, because remember how they hate each other? Well, they are divorced now, and Lord Sinderby (I had to look up his name, sorry) has a problem with that. No idea how all this gets resolved, but it does, and Rose and Atticus get married.
In this season’s Christmas Special, everyone heads off to some castle that the Sinderbys have rented for huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ or whatever. There’s some nonsense shenanigans where everyone hates Lord Sinderby’s butler so Mary enlists Thomas to try to get him in trouble. (I really feel like this show never utilized this pairing enough. Thomas and Mary are both mean and calculating and seem like they should be natural allies/co-conspirators. Like, if I wrote fan fiction, I would write about the two of them 40 years later, still at Downton, having alienated pretty much everyone else in their lives, smoking and sniping at each other, kinda like Vicious by way of Sunset Blvd. or something? Ooh, actually Frances de la Tour and Derek Jacobi would be excellent in this reboot/sequel…) Anyway, then everyone also hates Lord Sinderby, who is a total dick, and so I think…Thomas somehow…invites Lord Sinderby’s mistress and illegitimate child over to hang out? Hahahaha! How???
Also, there are these other two houseguests who are both handsome men, so both Mary and Edith have new love interests now. And Mary’s is Matthew-fucking-Goode, the dreamiest of dreamy British men! (Unfortunately, he will go on to clearly regret ever getting involved with this show.)
So…I’m sure some other inconsequential stuff happens that I can’t remember, but then everyone goes back to Downton for ACTUAL CHRISTMAS!!! In the Christmas Special, no less! The cast does some super awkward singing and Lord Grantham gets drunk and toasts Tom because he’s moving to America. And…I think that’s it?
Next week: The sixth and final season!