In season 1, Mary abruptly starts flirting with Anthony Strallan once he starts showing interest in Edith. In season 2, she kisses Matthew when he's engaged to Lavinia.

Let the Sharona vs. Natalie debate begin!

I don't know what Cora's parenting method was, but it is stated that Violet was a distant mother. Cora might have been a little more hands-on, but that's probably only because of her American upbringing. But she still would have been pretty distant by 21st century standards.

Yes, but Tom is not an aristocrat by birth. He was presumably raised in a family with hands-on parents.

Great write up!

Eh, when has TV ever depicted someone with OCD correctly? Sheldon Cooper is even more inconsistent than Monk ever was. As a germaphobic myself, I physically shudder through some of Sheldon-Clean-Freak-Cooper's scenes.

And what makes you an expert on what my life experience is like?

Please tell me this post is meant to be sarcastic, because I can't even imagine how anyone could call poor Mrs. Drewe 'loathsome'. What right does she have to Edith's child? The fact that she's raising her - i.e. the right of every adoptive mother. She took in Marigold with no questions asked, and is raising her as…

Why? One is always called Thomas, the other is always called Tom.

The two Toms and the flower names are realistic enough. Flowery names were popular for girls at the time. And there was a very tiny pool of popular first names for men. If anything, it's surprising that with such a large cast, there aren't more Johns and Williams.

Yup, exactly. Fraternal chemistry.

Sadly, Mary's attitude is fairly realistic for her time and station. Many aristocratic women of her time didn't spend much time with or take any real interest in their kids. They were pawned off to the nurses and governesses, and brought out only on special occasions, mainly to be shown off to guests.

The bastards in question, however, were those of aristocratic men and (relatively) unimportant women. Aristocratic women, if they were unlucky enough to have bastards, did not keep them around at any point before the mid/late 20th century.

Will she really take off her hat? Will she then put on another
hat? Is the hat really a symbol for something more salacious?
All these and more questions will be answered!

No, no killing Anna! Let her meet some nice guy and go away with him if she wears out her welcome in Downton. But no killing her off, please.

The problem, as Rosamund and Violet understand it, is that Edith might give the game away by getting too attached to the child. By sending her away, they think they're solving that problem. But they don't even take into consideration that the Drewes might have any say in the matter, or any feelings to be hurt.

Frankly, I don't think any of the Crawleys would notice if there was an extra child living in the nursery. Cora might wonder at some point "Hey, did I have two grandkids or three? Must have lost count at some point. I never did have a head for figures" and then forget about it. Robert wouldn't notice the children -…

I think the reference to Mary is more to do with the possibility that Mary might scoop him up for herself. Lady Mary is not exactly known for keeping her hands off other women's men.

I'm just surprised he didn't write a note saying "Help, John Bates is killing me, he's pushing me under a bus this very moment, help!"

You missed the 'Gaol Adventures of John Bates, Hardened Criminal' from Season 3? Lucky you.