Upvoted for "Bates having long-since expired of Bad Leg". Lol!

It's been what, at least a year since she shagged Tony? So he's probably due to keel over any minute now.

Oh yes, that's true enough - Robert has certainly got off his high horse in the past few seasons. Still, it's hard to forget that his blind devotion to titles resulted in the death of his daughter.

The scene with Cora yelling at the servants felt almost like it came from another show - a better one. DA sanitizes the relationship between the aristocrats and their servants so thoroughly that sometimes it's hard to remember that the latter are the former's employees, not friends, and that they have practically no…

Well, if Robert is killed by incompetent doctors, it will be payback for what he did to poor Sybil.

Nitpick alert: Ronald Pickup's character should not be called 'Sir Reresby', but 'Sir Michael'. A knight/baronet is referred to by his title 'Sir' and his first name, not last name.

They were the flower girls, I think. Presumably they're relatives or acquaintances of Carson and/or Mrs. Hughes.

The kid playing Sybbie is just adorable. Little George is cute too - I'm kind of surprised how much the kid looks like he could really be Dan Stevens's kid.

Lol, yes, it was almost a beat-by-beat repetition of that Gilmore Girls plot. Oh well, Fellowes could do worse than rip off GG.

How can one have a story involving criminal activity and prison without Bates being involved in it somehow?

The sons almost certainly did die in the war. That was part of the tragedy those times (post WW-I): so many of the young men died in the war. The aristocracy was pretty badly hit (compared to later wars, that is), because their sons made up a large portion of the officer class, rather than career solders.

True enough. But it's not like DA would ever show us the ins-and-outs of Edith's work life. She could be shown in London every now and then just to establish that she actually lives there. But the bulk of her scenes could be whenever she visits Downton for some family party or something - which they have every other…

Why would she need to be chopped out at all? The show regularly moves between Downton and London. Most episodes have at least one London-based scene in them. Sybil remained a regular character even after she moved to Ireland - why couldn't Edith remain one after moving to London?

Exactly. The editor's dislike of Edith may be primarily due to misogyny, but no doubt the fact that Edith probably expected him to bow to her (literally or figuratively) because she's a Lady didn't help matters any.

Downton Abbey has never realistically portrayed the number of servants a house this size would have. Granted, there are a few servants who are spoken of but never seen (such as the invisible maid Madge or Mr. Stark, the current chauffeur), but on the whole, there don't seem to be more than a dozen or so servants at…

The British government passes a new law that simply being related to Mr. Bates is a capital crime.

Eh, it's not like she had much good name left to protect. After all, she fucked a guy to death back in season 1. After that, the mere fact that the guy she fucked this time is still alive and well is cause for celebration.

Uh … in what way is Sherry a bitch? She did absolutely nothing wrong! She even went out of her way to be friendly to Lorelai, whom she had no obligations towards, and tried to include Rory, Sherry's future daughter's half-sister, in her life.

Then read the comments on the reviews of last season's finale. If you can't remember it, that doesn't mean the confusion doesn't exist.

Sure, there's the lifetime of abuse. But why would Tyrion choose to risk his freedom by going after his father at that particular moment? He could have easily been caught and sent back to his cell, or even killed right then and there. In the books, he took that risk because he was filled with rage and no longer cared…