Downton Abbey: Episode 3.1

Downton Abbey: Episode 3.1
ITV
6 January 2013
Historical Drama
DVD
B+

A good season-opener is boosted to great by the addition of the perfectly cast Shirley MacLaine as Cora's forthright American mother, Martha Levinson.  (Is the first name a nod to The Children's Hour, or just a coincidence?)  Her scenes with Maggie Smith are everything they should be.

It's the Spring of 1920 and Matthew and Mary are finally getting married.  There are some financial bumps* along the way but his brother-in-law-to-be, Branson, now known as "Tom" (not to be confused with Thomas the scheming footman), reconciles them, Matthew having befriended him and even made him best man.  Sybil, by the way, is as beautiful as ever, now approximately six months pregnant and wearing a longish bob.  Edith is starting to blossom a bit, helped by her hopes about Sir Anthony.

Downstairs, O'Brien pushes her nephew, Alfred Nugent, as the new footman.  (It presumably works out, since Matt Milne would be in sixteen more episodes.)  Anna plays detective to try to prove her husband's innocence.  And Daisy goes on an unsuccessful strike, egged on by Thomas, as Mrs. Patmore guesses.

Wedding Guest Julie Eagleton would make seven other uncredited cameos as various characters.  Lucille Sharp would play lady's maid Reed on the following episode as well, while Mark Penfold would reprise his role as Mr. Charkham in the episode after that.  Michael Culkin, as the Archbishop of York, surprisingly skips until Episode 3.4.  Jason Furnival is Craig in this and the five subsequent episodes.  We'd see much more of Douglas Reith as Lord Merton in the later seasons, but Charlie Anson as his son, the obnoxious Larry Grey, would be in only two more episodes.


*Well, more than bumps, as one is another potential inheritance for Matthew that he's trying to be too noble to take, while the other is that the earl's major investment has crashed and this wedding may be the last hurrah for the Crawleys.  (Unlikely though, considering how many seasons are still left, but the characters don't know that.)