People seemed to like my tags on my other post about Downton Abbey: The Motion Picture so I thought I'd make an actual Post about my thoughts on Thomas and Richard for emphasis.
Let's sidebar for a second: full disclosure, the first time I watched it I didn't really Get Thomas/Richard, it felt... lazy to me, and fairly out of the blue when Richard kisses Thomas in their final scene. Like, Richard has just gotten Thomas de-arrested for gross indecency, told Thomas he has to be more circumspect (whilst admittedly flirtily disclosing that he, too, is gay), but then they have the whole Just Ordinary Blokes chat, and Thomas seems quite pleased that he's finally found another gay man he can be normal friends with, not have to hide anything about himself from, and not have the expectation of sex being an intrinsic part of it. (Because I thoroughly read Thomas' line "I've never just talked with a man like me" to mean that pretty much every gay man he's interacted with has been, one way or the other, for sex, in the end.
So the way I read their final scene the first time I watched it was, wow, Richard, he's just told you he's happy to have a friend and now you're kissing him and giving him a charm to remember you by? Isn't that overstepping quite a lot??
On rewatch (as part of my overall 'paying close attention to Thomas' Downton rewatch) I noticed THIS
(With great thanks to @madeline-kahn for letting me borrow her GIFS)
The morning after the Royal Visit and Thomas & Richard's trip to York, they come down the stairs to breakfast *together*. Look at Thomas' face, here, as he nods Richard in to breakfast. He's suppressing a grin, sharing an inside joke...
Then they sit DOWN to breakfast
They are the LAST ones to breakfast, they are LATE. So late that everyone else has already been served and have eating for at least a little while.
Also the way they look at each other? Still sharing that little inside joke, that secret no-one else knows (that made them late to breakfast??). You *could* say that this might just be that they both know the other is gay, and Thomas' arrest at Turton's, BUT
If you then pair that with how their final scene goes, and what Richard says and does.
Thomas, a little hopeful but a little sad, says he hopes they can keep in touch, and that he's finally found a friend.
Richard asks if that's what he's found? A friend? Then kisses him. And gives him his charm.
What *I* think has happened here is that Thomas 'never *just* talked with a man like me' Barrow has not *just* talked with Richard after we see them last. I think they've hooked up. I think Thomas, still a bit drunk and running on adrenaline (and having been royally cockblocked from his chance with Chris Webster, because let's be real here, if the police hadn't arrived he would have gotten laid 100%), has most likely invited Richard into his room when they get back to Downton, and they have slept together. HENCE the arriving late for breakfast together and pretending not to be giggling like schoolgirls.
But I also think that that is all Thomas has expected (or let himself believe) it to be. A one night stand.
So when Richard lays it on thick, suggests that there is a possibility of something more than just one-and-its-done friends with benefits deal, and offers him actual Romance with a capital R, that's why Thomas is taken aback (and very made up).
I have a lot of issues with how Thomas is written in the first film, how his character has been somewhat eviscerated of his talent, cunning, pride and competence (and not to mention his general contempt), however, if you take Richard and Thomas' last scene in the context of They Have Just Hooked Up and Thomas wasn't expecting anything beyond that, it suddenly makes sense and clicks for me.
Thank you for coming to my tedtalk!
janainaart
theartofmadeline
jacobvanloon
titsay
germansingergirl
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