Preview Downton Abbey Season 5, Episode 5 with video and photo sneak peeks. Downton Abbey airs on PBS Masterpiece on Sundays at 9:00pm ET|PT.
Last week’s episode of Downton Abbey (Season 5, Episode Four) featured escalation of all sorts as our favorite characters faced serious relationship issues.
The episode began with Thomas (Rob James-Collier) returning from “visiting his ailing father. However, in the course of the episode, Mrs. Baxter (Raquel Cassidy) started to suspect that wasn’t the true intention of Thomas’ trip. In fact, Thomas seemed to be a bit ill himself and taking some sort of drugs/medication. Any speculations about what that might be?
Meanwhile, Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) visited Prince Kuragin (Rade Serbedzija) at the shelter and promised to help him locate the missing Princess. Yet, it sounded as if Kuragin was much more interested in spending private time with Dowager than finding where his wife was. It became quite clear that there was more to the time they spent together in Russia than Dowager let on.
Speaking of private time, Lord Merton (Douglas Reith) paid Isobel (Penelope Wilton) a pretty significant visit, which ended with his marriage proposal. She didn’t agree right away; however Merton was able to convinced Isobel to take time to consider the proposal. I really like Lord Merton and it seems that Isobel likes spending time with him as well. Besides their ages, it’s not very clear to me why Isobel is so hesitant. Thoughts?
Elsewhere, Mary (Michelle Dockery) met Tony Gillingham (Tom Cullen) in London to break things off, but he was not about to let her walk away that easily. As far as Tony was concerned, the next step after their lovers’ weekend was to start planning the wedding. And to be honest, Mary didn’t do a very good job of articulating why she’d changed her mind. Perhaps Mary’s next strategy should be to try and hook Tony back up with Mabel Lane Fox (Catherine Steadman).
*sidenote* Mary and Mabel’s meeting at the fashion show was brief, but so full of shade! But I can’t even be mad at Mabel. If the man I was engaged to broke it off with me to go pursue another lady, I wouldn’t be super friendly either. And, in my opinion, Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden) enjoyed Mary/Mabel’s confrontation a bit too much.
Back at Downton, Mr. Bricker (Richard E. Grant) returned under the guise of seeing some new art pieces, but was quick to declare his ardent admiration (perhaps even love) for Cora (Elizabeth McGovern)…until Lord Robert (Hugh Bonneville) walked in before Bricker could finish. Edith (Laura Carmichael) also got a letter from the family lawyers saying that definitive news about Mr. Gregson would be forthcoming—we did learn that Gregson was attacked by a German gang (likely Nazi predecessors).
But the most bizarre and unfortunate event happened when Sarah Bunting (Daisy Lewis), who was visiting for dinner, challenged Lord Robert about whether he’s actually concerned about those downstairs, outside of their service. There was yelling, cursing, lots of rage, and Lord Grantham did eventually storm out of the room. Now, I’m all about women expressing themselves fully, even if what they have to say is unpalatable. But from the beginning, Miss Bunting has been critical, unkind, and unnecessarily antagonistic to the Crawleys. She needs to stop coming to dinner.
In tonight’s “Episode Five”:
Rose makes a handsome new acquaintance. Something is wrong with Thomas. Edith’s link to Marigold draws attention. Bricker and Robert lose control. (via PBS)
You can watch a sneak peek from Episode Five HERE (scroll to the bottom of the page)—in the clip, Edith brings her Aunt, Lady Rosamund (Samantha Bond), to meet Marigold at the Drewes. If you’ll recall, it was Rosamund who took Edith to Switzerland to have the baby and give her up for adoption. And Rosamund was not very happy about Edith’s idea to bring Marigold to Downton.
Take a look at these images from tonight’s show, and make sure to join me over on twitter to live tweet as we watch the new episode at 9:00pm ET|PT on PBS Masterpiece!
