Dear Downton: Let's Not Bust Out The "Free Bates" Shirts Again
This season of Downton Abbey is full of social landmines: Thomas’s gay conversion therapy, premarital sex, refugee Russians, yet another Bates-involved murder and even (gasp!) a Jew.
There’s a lot of juicy potential there, so I’m going to be pretty miffed if some of the better plotlines end up playing second fiddle to this Bates-Green Murder thread. Not to say that hasn’t been one of the show’s most touching and well-acted storylines. Joanne Froggatt winning the Golden Globe for her portrayal of Anna Bates as she struggles with the aftermath of being raped by a houseguest’s valet is well-deserved proof of that.
Now, however, Downton is on the verge of making a mistake unworthy of its quality: using a recycled plotline. I’m sure there are some fangirls and boys out there who would love another chance to dust off the old “Free Bates!” shirts, but I’m not one of them. That plot has been done before, and at length – we all remember that agonizing season watching Mr. Bates trying to survive in jail for the mysterious murder of his ex-wife while Anna and the Granthams try to save him. It was delightfully nail-biting. But we’ve seen it before. Please, let’s not see it again.
More interesting was last week’s revelation that Thomas went away for a week not to take care of his ailing father, but to procure a magazine-hocked curative treatment for homosexuality. Thomas has always been one of my favorite characters on the show, because while he started off as the easy-to-hate-villain, some of his subsequent actions have revealed him to be a deeply feeling and not entirely unkind person. We’ve seen him comfort Daisy and relentlessly back up Jimmy even after he cruelly spurned his advances. And this season he didn’t give a second thought running through rising flames to rescue Lady Edith.
Watching how Thomas navigates this treatment, which may very well kill him, is a plot that is likely to produce some excellent performances. So let’s hope it isn’t buried by another “Bates Goes To Prison” plot.
Also enticing this season: Lady Mary’s weekend tryst with Lord Gillingham seems to have backfired, as he is now threatening to ruin her good name if she doesn’t marry him; and the appearance of the Dowager Countess’s former flame in a royal Russian refugee.
While Lady Edith’s struggle to keep her daughter in her life after she gave her up to a local farmer is compelling, it seems to me it might be getting a wee bit too much air time. We’ve had several episodes in a row now watching the farmer’s wife turn Edith away at her doorstep – now is the time for some alternate action. I have a feeling that might occur tonight, judging by the Countess’s and Rosamund’s scheming last week.
Other promising subplots: the rift forming between Lady and Lord Grantham as they contend with the aftermath of an unwanted suitor attempting to weasel his way into their marriage bed; plus Rose’s crush on a hot young Jewish dude, who probably stands less chance of offending the Granthams than the black man she tried to marry last season to piss off her mom.