Downton Abbey - Recap: Late Night Fight, Baby Plight, and Branson's Right

For example, tonight's big cliffhanger settles on the implication that Edith (Laura Carmichael) is going to run off to London with baby Marigold, since Mrs. Drewe can no longer tolerate having Edith around. How on Earth she hasn't figured out Edith's true relationship to the child is another matter entirely, as is the question of just how Edith expected this entire arrangement to play out. I can't imagine she really thought she'd be allowed to visit with the child forever, without Mrs. Drewe ever objecting. And yet, that's what the situation appears to be, as Edith initially tells Tim Drewe (Andrew Scarborough) that she won't allow them to leave, as if she has any sort of say in the matter. Yes, she's Marigold's mother, but not legally. So her refusal to go along with the compromise suggested by Lady Rosamund (Samantha Bond) and the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith), in which the child would be raised in a home in France that would likely allow Edith to visit, is both unsurprising and kind of damning. I understand the stigma attached to having a child out of wedlock, particularly when you're a high-born lady. Yet Edith comes across as a woman desperate to have it both ways: she doesn't want to suffer the shame and condemnation that goes along with having a child out of wedlock, but she also wants to be allowed to continue seeing and being a surrogate mother to this child she opted not to keep. I know it was an impossible choice for Edith to have to make, but there really was no way this was going to end well for her. It's a shame, since I kind of resent Julian Fellowes for making Edith the show's punching bag. But that doesn't mean I can objectively believe Edith is in the right here.

Credit: Nick Briggs/ITV

Similarly, I can't objectively believe that Branson (Allen Leech) is in the wrong for not sticking up more for Miss Bunting (Daisy Lewis). One of the most frustrating aspects of this episode, to me, was the notion that Branson is somehow the bad guy for not defending Miss Bunting to the Crawleys. Daisy (Sophie McShera), in particular, pleads with Branson on Miss Bunting's behalf, since the teacher has decided to leave town altogether as a result of her complete rejection by the Crawleys. Yet, when Branson goes to visit Miss Bunting, she doesn't seem to want to hear reason concerning the upper class: Branson explains that not only was the woman he loved one of them, but his daughter is one of them as well.

But Miss Bunting wants Branson to dislike the Crawleys as much as she does, to feel like an alien within their ranks so that he'll choose to leave and recommit to socialism. Everything about Miss Bunting is selfish. Hell, even when she confesses her love to Branson before leaving town, she frames it in terms of how much better she could have loved him had he only been free of the Crawleys. "I wish we had met before you knew them," she says, somehow earning a kiss from Branson in the process. It's played as a bittersweet moment, but I couldn't possibly have been happier to see her leave. Branson's right to break things off with her, no matter how much he found he liked her. Was he really supposed to raise his daughter around someone who secretly resented where she came from? Were the Crawleys really supposed to be okay with some random woman coming in and disrespecting their values at every turn? Yes, you can disagree with an ideology, but that doesn't mean you get to come into their house and question the manner in which they run it. Really, as upper class families go, the Crawleys are better than most. Rose (Lily James) volunteers at a tea kitchen, for crying out loud! Granted, there's still a bit of a benefit in it for her, as she meets a handsome gent named Atticus Aldritch, a Jewish man whose family left Russia from Odessa. But hey, maybe the Good Karma Train is circling back around for Rose.

Credit: Nick Briggs/ITV

Meanwhile, we continue in the downward slope of questionable romantic decisions: instead of just flat-out rejecting Simon Bricker (Richard E. Grant), and doing so in as firm and final a manner as possible, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) remains mostly coy and non-committal about all of Bricker's shameless flirting. She even agrees to let him come back to Downton, under his flimsy, art-related pretenses. It's clear that he's only there to see her, and maybe, at some level, Cora recognizes this. Maybe she enjoys being doted on, given how inattentive Robert (Hugh Bonneville) has become. Granted, this in no way means that Cora deserved to be ambushed in the middle of the night by a man who can't take no for an answer. In one of the more nervous scenes this season, Bricker comes into Cora's room at night and tries to proposition her, just as Robert is returning from a dinner with the committee. He walks in on the two, a fight breaks out, and...well, that's it. The two don't really get to brawl as much as they might have, since Edith interrupts things, prompting Cora to come up with a clumsy excuse for all the noise ("Your father and I were playing a silly game." Haha, what?). However, just because the fight isn't allowed to play out doesn't mean that its effects aren't instantly felt, as Robert grows even colder and more unresponsive to Cora, completely giving her the silent treatment at a gala the next day. And really, it's not Cora's fault, per se. Sure, she never outright rejected Bricker, but she didn't explicitly lead him on either, nor did she give him an indication that popping into her room in the middle of the night is something she would have wanted. And who's to say he would have taken a firm, final, complete, irrefutable, outright rejection for an answer anyway? He might have persisted regardless. The trouble this could cause for Robert and Cora's marriage is interesting enough on its own, but it's also compelling for how immediately everyone seems to notice the coldness between the couple, as Mary (Michelle Dockery) and Violet separately notice, and appear concerned. I'll be interested to see where this goes.

Credit: Nick Briggs/ITV

In other developments, Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden) holds a meeting between Mary and Mabel Lane Fox (Catherine Steadman) in which they attempt to come up with a solution to their Tony Gillingham problem. In short, Blake proposes helping Mabel win Tony back, since this gets everyone what they want: Mary will be liberated and Mabel will have her man back. But Mabel is offended by the meeting and storms off, leaving us right back at square one. This is a storyline that I imagine will be more interesting in theory than in execution, although I feel the opposite about Thomas (Rob James-Collier) and his mystery ailment. I'm not that invested right now in what's happening to him, but I get the hunch it might end up being a wonderful arc for Collier to play. At the very least, it has more potential than the story centering on Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and her late aunt's inheritance, which Carson (Jim Carter) thinks she should invest in W.P. Moss. I'm struggling to care about what's happening downstairs this season, but it's just not as compelling as what's going on upstairs. That said, the ongoing question of whether Bates (Brendan Coyle) and Anna (Joanna Froggatt) will come under fire for Green's death is an effective, engaging bridge between those two worlds, even if it seems like Sergeant Willis is coming back every week to ask the exact same questions. Hopefully, we get more from this storyline, and soon. This season badly needs a big explosion, the size of tonight's Robert/Cora drama, or last week's Mary/Tony blow-up. But I have faith in Fellowes and in Downton Abbey. Otherwise, I wouldn't have stuck with it for five series.