I am late to the Downton Abbey bandwagon. It was on PBS so I never saw commercials for it, once people started talking about it, it was too late for me to join the party, or so I thought.
My sister has netflix and we were just hanging out so we decided to check it out, with some encouraging from my friends, and spent an entire day watching Season One.
A couple of weeks later I bought the second season on Amazon and spent a night watching Season Two. Man, Downton packs a lot of punch in their short seasons. While in the US a normal tv season is 22-24 episodes, in England a normal season is 8 to 10 eps. Cable television has been prepping us because they have adapted the short season schedule but at least they break it up so we get 2 seasons in one year. By the time I start to miss a show, it's back. I love cable!
I totally planned on watching season 3 live but my friend sent me the third season and I was weak. I watched them all in 2 days, along with the Christmas special. Did I mention how weak I was? Because I devoured the eps, I haven't been blogging about them since I know what happened during the season but this ep I have to talk about.
I'm a total spoiler slut so even before I watched this ep I knew what was going to happen but even knowing doesn't prepare for the actuality of it. It might even make it more poignant knowing what is going to happen.
Lady Sybil has always been the heart and soul of her family and Downton Abbey. There are some people who are just so good that you don't trust them, people just aren't that good. Then there are people like Lady Sybil, who are so inherently good and kind that it makes people like Thomas cry when she dies. She touched everyone's life with her kindness.
When Sybil passed I had the sore throat kind of crying going on. Not just a tear or two but the pain of holding it in type of tears. To watch her family react and beg her to breath, beg her to live, beg her to not leave them, beg the doctor to do something. It was heart breaking. I was so moved I had to watch it again afterwards. I know, a little masochistic of me, but the scene was so emotional and moving, and the acting was so awesome that I had to put myself thru it again. Just talking about it makes me want to watch the episode again.
Have you recovered from Sunday's episode yet? What did you think?
BTW, I read somewhere it was a surprise that the cast won the SAG award for best ensemble, as soon as heard the nominees I knew Downton would win. Their shock at winning was fun. Yes, that's the housekeeper who is accepting the award! Who knew she was so beautiful?
