#s6e06

btvs season 6 watch continues:

Life Serial

I seriously don’t know what to think of The Trio as villains? They’re kind of too absurd? But at least I appreciate the comedy potential. Also, Buffy getting sloshed together with Spike is kind of amazing in all the wrong yet so right ways.

All the Way

Probably my least favorite episode of s6 which feels wrong because it was a Halloween episode and that should be a home run for series like btvs. I felt really uncomfortable with the way Anya was treated following the engagement announcement. The way her ‘friends’ react to Anya’s excitement is just shameful, like all these uncomfortable looks as if they’re laughing about ‘stupid, awkward Anya’. And Xander instead of talking with his fiancée, dares to immediately look like he’s having second thoughts, even worse he’s kind of already trying to bitch to his friends about it. Seriously, Anya is so unappreciated it makes me angry.

The death of the creepy old toymaker was definitely a subversion of expectations that hasn’t really been there in btvs this way, and it’s making me a little worried.

I love Tara and Willow as a couple, but I have to be critical of Tara, I genuinely don’t understand what’s her problem with using magic. Do you seriously think you’ve been given this gift to like… not use it? Should you really just wait for life and death situations to use it only then? Isn’t it just like any skill that you want to practice and get better at? Honestly, she goes after Willow way too hard. Let a talented witch stretch her wings and fulfil her potential, stop holding Willow back, it only makes her resentful and makes her go about it in a worse way.

Late to the party, I’m afraid! Well, my overall impression of this episode was - well, hilarity. Whatever their intentions for this last series, the show is definitely taking on comedy quality. I know that at some point every show becomes self-aware and occasionally a parody of itself, but I felt this particularly tonight. Cora, Mary and Edith looking at the audience like a trio of airheads who know nothing about architecture or culture was perhaps a bit over the top, but heck, we had a blood bath last week, so huh. Anyways: 

Death’s Wingman: Oh dear, oh dear. I knew it was wrong to get my hopes and expectations up, but that was a let down, to say the least. Seriously, I would have rather they let Evelyn stay in Paris enjoying his life there with another girl, than to have him there for what felt like ten seconds and see him get his heart very thoroughly trampled on by an oblivious. Whatever Mary thinks is going on in his head, she’s wrong. Either she really enjoys ‘playing’ with him a little as she does, or she is truly oblivious to how much it must have hurt to see her shuffle off with Henry. I said it before, this guy deserves closure. He’s not just a random suitor, but also a good  friend, so I did expect Mary to have at least one moment with him alone in which she tells him it’s not going to happen - you know release the poor thing from his cage of false hopes and self-delusion. I gather that he was literally only there for the blink of an eye and we won’t see him again, but that was truly sad. Poor Evelyn. I feel like writing to Lord Fellowes after the CS just to ask if that character got a happy ending on the whole. 

Thomas: Moving right over to our next train wreck. Could Mrs. Patmore and Daisy please be removed from the premises? I won’t even get into Daisy, she’s been obnoxious since S5 but since when is Cook so uptight about Thomas? And if she is, why not confront him first before she sics Carson on him? Thomas’ is imo one of the best things Fellowes invented, drama-wise, because he can honestly make you weep crocodile tears for this lonely, desperate man, and more so than for some of the more conventionally ‘likable’ characters. I know I’m not the only one who thought that Mary and Thomas make a great team (in 21st century he’d likely be her gay bf) and she seems to have more sympathy with him than any of the upstairs lot (or downstairs for that matter, with the exception of Baxter and Anna). Someone on here suggested that Thomas will become the new nanny (until Carson retires) and I could get so behind that. There were some hints as to that early on already: Thomas getting Nanny West sacked, the fact that he genuinely loves the children, he can’t have any of his own for various reasons. It would be awesome. 

Chelsie: Again, this has turned into pure comedy on the show. I can’t wait for Hughes to blow a gasket and give him what for (she’ll give you sharp corners, me lad, just you wait). One of the moments that had me burst out laughing though was between Carson and Robert, and the scandalised look of Papa Carson when Papa Robert suggests they offer up ‘Lady Mary in the bath.’ to the paying visitors. You can totally tell which one is the over-protective Dad and which is the chill one. 

Banna: Thanks for the fright, Lord Fellowes. Every time Anna winces, we’re all like ‘Nope!’ I love how Mary and Bates constantly team up to keep Anna and Baby Bates safe and sound.  And oh my, a brilliant side-reference of Tom gently reproaching Mary for insisting she’ll pay for Anna because Bates has his pride (and we have a flashback to the two of them standing in the room of an inn, facing each other and Mary offers to give him money for the room and he pulls himself up and tells milady with great dignity that he can pay his own way). Tom still has his pride, too. 

The Hospital Odyssey: You go Glen Cora!! Of all people who deserve to be given far more credit, I’m so glad it’s her. Always taken for granted, always underestimated. I find it hilarious that Isobel of all people would second the notion that Cora become President and take on so much duty, after the convasclescent home drama in S2 when she basically said that Cora was only good for organising soirees and high teas. Well, Violet is stubborn, but going with the theme of change in this last series, I think we can look to an awesome scene when the old queen bee will graciously pass on the cepter to the new one. They have come  a long way, too, starting out as ‘allies’ in S1 and they do share a lot of common ground: their love for Robert and the children and grandchildren for one. 

Henry: Oh I do enjoy Matthew Goode on screen, I really do. But my beef isn’t even with his character. He is lovely and do you know whom I would actually have paired him off with? If Rose was still there, I could have shipped the hell out of her getting off with a race car driver, peeing her mother off because he was a) older than her and b) had neither money nor title and Rose being her fabulous self at all his races. But anyways, The Kiss was...nice. Idk. I almost suspect that I could get into it all were I not so primed to imagine Mary with either Matthew, Tom or Evelyn. It’s like forcing yourself to feel more deeply for a guy who likes you just because he is lovely and available, when really your heart is not in it. If Henry had been there much earlier, if he’d been what Tom is for Mary in S4 and S5, if they could have had a proper friendship, that would have been fantastic. I just need a slow burn, anything else feels half-hearted to me. But there are still three episodes, who knows, there might be a moment with Mary/Henry that gives me a thrill after all, because after last night, I think we must accept that Evelyn won’t be back (not in the next two eps anyways) and I strongly suspect that Tom’s future will be Edith’s editor. So it’s Henry or Downton? Mary’s last words last night were kind of ominous there: would they just disappear from Downton?

Tom: He seems to ship Mary and Henry about as hard as Robert shipped her with Gillingham. Even Mary wondered why he’s so obessessed. If Brary was still in the cards, I’d call it a defense mechanism, but I don’t think JF is that clever. Actually Tom, if you want to play match-maker, it would make sense to leave the two lovebirds alone for ten minutes. Why would want to walk with them, if you wish them to get off together? I had imagined that it would be Evelyn who would try to cockblock them, but nope. Evelyn’s reaction to all this was also quite interesting, when he’s like “You better be sure.” to Tom and you wonder if he ever thought of this guy Mary spends her life with now. Another thing was hinted at that I hope will come to pass. Mary finding out that Tom knew about Marigold could actually lead to the first big fight they ever had. And that I do want to see. There are two things that Fellowes has so far avoided (and I used to think was for a good reason) and that’s to show Mary and Tom either dancing together or fighting with each other. At least one of those scenarios I really want to see before the jig is up. 

Hm, I’m thinking of maybe writing a longer post on the Singleton Dinner because there was a lot of interesting stuff going on. Other than that Miss Cruikshank seems a rather a nasty piece (she’s Larry Grey’s fiancee, guess  that speaks for itself) and I can’t wait for Violet to gobble her up.