I know - that was so ridiculous! Not only did she hire a prostitute (did she look in the Yellow Pages under 'P'?), but she actually paid her with a cheque, and she made a note of it in the chequebook!

So Tony and Mabel are engaged (finally!). I hope Mary doesn't start having second thoughts and try to sabotage their wedding. They should have taken Ted Mosby's advice: Never invite an ex to your wedding.

Oh she did, indeed (she almost always looks spectacular). I was just wondering what it was supposed to be. I hope Tom and Lorenzo's review discusses it.

The storyline wasn't written in keeping the viewers at all - it was obviously concocted because Fellowes couldn't think of anything else. It is literally a beat-for-beat repetition of the 'Did Bates kill his ex-wife?' story from seasons 2 and 3. I just rewatched the end of season 2, and the scene with Bates getting…

Rose's outfits in this episode were to die for. Her wedding gown is amazingly pretty (even without the veil). Only the dress she wore at the civil ceremony seemed a bit dowdy.

I'm gobsmacked at how calmly Robert took the news that Marigold is Edith's lovechild. In fact, I'm even more gobsmacked that he figured anything out at all. For a moment, when he said that Marigold reminded him of Gregson, I thought he was going to follow it up with 'But how would some tenant farmers on our estate…

Good comparison! Lord Sinderby's concerns for his heritage were very similar to Tywin Lannister's speeches about the honour of his House. Let's hope Lord S. doesn't have the Crawleys murdered during dinner in the Christmas Special.

And she wasn't on the phone when talking to Sheldon either - she just had the phone in her hand for a few seconds.

People's accents don't change drastically as adults - not unless they consciously try to change them.

But that would require Cora to think about Edith for more than 3 minutes at a stretch. You know she's never gonna do that.

I just discovered Dorothy Sayers a few weeks ago - I read the first Peter Wimsey novel 'Whose Body'. The mystery wasn't all that great, but I did enjoy the descriptions of upper class English life in the 1920s. The American man who called Lord Peter 'Lord Wimsey' (the horror!) and didn't know how to address a duchess…

Hmm, I wouldn't say that Bertie is poorly educated - in fact, he's probably had the best education that money could buy in early 20th century England. But idiot … ok, no argument there.

Yup, that sounds like Lady Sybil Vimes (nee Ramkin).

Lol, I know. It's the phrase Anna and the Crawleys themselves used, that's why I put it in quotes. Who knows, maybe Anna was performing more services than just doing their hair and buttoning their dresses. ;)

Agreed. I tried watching Jeeves and Wooster, but it just wasn't as funny as the books - Bertie Wooster's narration with all the crazy similes and wacky mixture of highly literary language and slang is what's so great about the Jeeves books.

I have read all of PG Wodehouse's Jeeves books. While it's true that no one would bat an eye at a twenty-something man nicknamed 'Shrimpy' - not among all those 'Kippers', 'Stiltons' and 'Pongos' - a middle-aged man still going by his childhood nickname is definitely unusual at the very least.

Yup. Though Wodehouse's stories aren't exactly realistic, his knowledge of British upper-class customs in the early-to-mid-20th century is spot on.

It was the gong to indicate that the family should dress for dinner. Dinner in an upper-class household in this period was a formal affair, and everyone was expected to dress up.

Presumably, the first question anyone asks when meeting Shrimpy is "What kind of name is Shrimpy?", so the poor guy just has the detailed explanation ready whenever meeting someone new.

True, but at least Mary has never been thrown out of a house for her rudeness … that we know of.