Perhaps you will agree that this was not the most tensely dramatic episode of Downton that we have seen.  If so, indulge me in a little digression into the world of P.G. Wodehouse, which intersected the world of Downton in this episode, and not for the first time.

This is the second occasion on which P.G. Wodehouse has paid a call on Downton Abbey.  The first time was back in the early days, Season One or Two.  Mr. Barrow was merely Thomas back then, a footman trying to climb to the next rung of the ladder.  Lord Grantham was known to be extraordinarily fond of Isis the dog.  Thomas had the idea that he could win Lord Grantham’s favor by hiding Isis in an abandoned cottage on the Abbey’s grounds and then, after Lord Grantham had reached a state of high anxiety, finding her the next day.  Unfortunately for Thomas, someone else found the dog.  However, that is not the point of recounting the tale.

The stratagem is straight out of what Wodehouse called his “Blandings Castle Saga”.  Wodehouse is best known for his Wooster and Jeeves stories.  Bertie Wooster was a cloth-headed man about town.  Jeeves was his gentleman’s gentleman, a man of refined taste and profound learning.  His agile brain is put to use in every episode to facilitate Bertie’s escape from the impossible situations in which he lands himself.

However, Wodehouse wrote another series, which he referred to as the Blandings Castle Saga.  Blandings is a large establishment in Shropshire in the west of England, out near the Welsh border.  The castle is the ancestral home of Clarence Threepwood, the ninth Earl of Emsworth.  His sole passion in life is winning the annual Shropshire Agricultural Show Fat Pigs contest.  His prize pig, the Empress of Blandings, is a perennial contender.  Unfortunately for Lord Emsworth, his peace is disturbed in novel after novel by the younger members of his family, an assortment of nieces and nephews who insist on falling in love with completely unsuitable members of the opposite sex.

Four of the novels[1], at least, have remarkably similar plots.  In all of them, the unsuitable suitor comes to Blandings in disguise.  Wodehouse said that Blandings has impostors the way other houses have mice.  And in all of these stories, someone, often the star-crossed lovers themselves, steals Empress of Blandings in order to win points with Lord Emsworth when she is found.  There are always a half dozen other twists and turns of the plot, but in the end everything comes out all right.

How easy it is to take those same plot elements and, with just the slightest adjustment, produce a heart-rending melodrama instead of a side-splitting comedy.  The Fat Pigs contest is log-rolled into Season Six, Episode Two by having Mr. Finch visit the Abbey to talk to the “Agent”.  He and Mary go through a few minutes of “Who’s on first?”  “That’s what I said” until we finally come to the point that there is to be a “Fat Livestock” show on short notice and we need all hands, or in this case all trotters, on deck.  In order to enlist Empress of Downton, Mary needs to pay a visit to Mr. Drew, the Abbey’s pig man (not to mention part-time fireman, full-time dispenser of wisdom, and sometime foster parent).  Mary is the only person in Yorkshire apart from Mr. Molesley who doesn’t know that Marigold is Edith’s daughter, so she naturally takes Marigold along with George to visit the farm, unaware that she is putting a lighted match to the dry kindling of Margie Drew’s emotions.

Poor Margie’s heart is nearly broken in two when she sees Marigold at the farm.  When she sees the child again the next day at the Agricultural Show, she puts a Wodehouse-style plan into action.  But instead of stealing a pig to help bring young hearts together, Margie has stolen a child to heal her own broken heart.  The child was never in any danger, but who knows what might happen next time.  Mr. Drew comes to the same conclusion that Robert had arrived at earlier.  The Drew tenancy, which pre-dates the Battle of Waterloo, must come to an end.

P.G. Wodehouse made sure that all of his characters were taken care of.  Everyone enjoys a soft landing and a happy ending.  Mr. Fellowes cannot afford to be quite so gentle with his characters.  After all the fun of the agricultural show and the excitement of finding the missing child, whose location was never a mystery to the audience, Mr. and Mrs. Drew, two minor characters who have served Mr. Fellowes loyally, are crushed, while Robert, Cora, and Edith must recognize that they have not lived up to their own standards.  A most unhappy end to a difficult chapter in the life of the Abbey.

Incidentally, the butler at Blandings is named Beach.  He and Mr. Carson could give each other a run for their money when it comes to maintaining the proprieties in all circumstances.  I thought Mr. Carson might have edged Beach by a nose when, walking arm in arm with his fiancée, having a private conversation about their wedding plans, he addressed her as “Mrs. Hughes”.  Evidently the wanton informality of first names will not be indulged until they have been pronounced husband and wife.

But where will that pronouncement be made?  Mrs. Hughes wants the service out of the Abbey, neither upstairs nor downstairs, but Mr. Carson cannot break the gravitational pull of the Abbey, particularly after Mary’s insistence that the betrothed couple accept the family’s hospitality.  Mrs. Hughes was prepared to concede Mr. Carson the thirty years that begin on the day after the wedding, but as things stand at the moment, she will not win even that one day.

Anna and Bates get in their statutory round of regret, self-recrimination, and adoration.  At this point, no episode is complete without that little dance.  If they can manage to put their emotional pas de deux on hold for long enough to conceive, Mary’s doctor may have a surgical solution that will allow Anna to carry the next little Bates to term.  I hope for their sake that it comes to pass, although I expect that Anna will then spend her days crying that she’s not a good enough mother to the child.

A few aspects of Thomas’s situation piqued my interest.  First of all, why is Mr. Carson suddenly so hostile to Thomas?  Thomas has been an annoyance for years, but Mr. Carson has put up with him.  Thomas has not been openly offensive to anyone this season, at least not yet, but Mr. Carson seems to have it in for him.  Then when Thomas interviews for a job as an assistant butler – which we learn is a long notch down from an under-butler – the fellow who interviews him is almost openly hostile.

The interviewer is, I assume, the butler at the less-than-stately home where Thomas is applying.  His manner of dress and his accent place him a few rungs below Mr. Carson on the servants’ social scale.  I was curious that he had Thomas’s sexual orientation figured so quickly.  He did not appear to be especially tolerant in that regard, but could there be enough gay servants wandering around rural Yorkshire to bring the question to the front of the officious butler’s mind?  Added to that, the job itself seems unappealing, including as it does the role of footman, valet, and part-time chauffer.  I don’t see Thomas choosing to settle in there, even if he is offered the job.

The theme of the advancement of women is in full bloom.  It’s a subject of long standing at the Abbey.  We remember Gwen from the very first season, the lowly housemaid who became a secretary, and she is not the only example.  Here in Season Six, Mary is now fully in charge as Downton’s agent and Edith is slowly but steadily taking her publishing business in hand.

Isobel is doing a masterful job of winning the argument to modernize the medical services available to the district.  It appears that she has encircled Violet and Dr. Clarkson and left them to stew over their upcoming defeat.  Robert cannot oppose his mother and so remains neutral.  Cora is a stout ally and so is Lord Merton.  Of course, Lord Merton would have sided with Isobel if she had proposed that they hop into a couple barrels and roll their way to London.

But the whole business with the hospital was done in such an undramatic fashion.  In the old days, we would have had an outbreak of scarlet fever and Dr. Clarkson would have stood before a window, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows as yet another body was rolled past him toward the mortuary, and confessed that he was overwhelmed and needed help.  In this lackluster season, will he and Violet do nothing more than sulk until Isobel’s victory is complete?  Perhaps the old guard still have a fight left in them.  We shall see.

Meanwhile, Daisy is becoming more deeply radicalized with every episode.  She wants Cora’s help to restore Mr. Mason’s lease, but she also holds Cora responsible for Mr. Mason’s dilemma.  Of course, she doesn’t hold Cora personally responsible, but Daisy sees Cora as part of the system that has taken away Mr. Mason’s farm.  This kind of proto-Marxist ideology must have been on the rise in 1925.  The next year, Britain experienced the famous “General Strike”.  It was unsuccessful, but was a clear sign that the workers were not satisfied with their lot in life.  Whether our story will reach into the next calendar year remains unknown (to me).

I was gratified to see that a few predictions I have offered – always reluctantly after the shocks of 2012 – are on the verge of coming true.  Cora has indicated that she has an idea in mind for Mr. Mason.  I would wager a small sum that she is going to arrange for him to take over the Drews’ farm, from where he will be able to assist Mary in keeping the pigs and advising on the agricultural affairs of the Abbey.  Also, looking at the previews of the coming week’s episode, I see that the fellow who showed an interest in Edith last season – the “agent” at the estate next door to the Sinderbeys – was talking to Edith.  Finally, the fellow who was shooting pheasants while Mary insulted him will also be making an appearance.  I don’t think it took any great insight to make any of these predictions, but having tasted the bitter dregs when I have been wrong, I look for any chance for vindication.

One last point.  This episode and the previous one opened in the usual way with a close-up shot of Isis’s tush.  The dog died last year.  Shouldn’t we have an updated opening?  The end of the show is in sight, so it’s understandable that the producers would hesitate before investing in a new opening segment, but surely budgets are not that tight.  If each of the upper class ladies gave up one extra gown, that would undoubtedly cover the cost and it would help me to avoid asking each time why we are seeing the hindquarters of a dog that died a year ago.

[1] Summer Lightning, Heavy Weather, Pigs Have Wings, and Full Moon.  The first two form a sequel and are comic novels of the very first order.  Possibly there is a barely noticeable recession of quality in the third novel.  The fourth, Full Moon, is a work of comic genius.  There are other Blandings novels and a collection of short stories as well.