DOWNTON ABBEY: THE GRAND FINALE (2025)
Directed by: Simon Curtis Screenplay by: Julian Fellowes
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DOWNTON ABBEY: THE GRAND FINALE (2025)
Directed by: Simon Curtis Screenplay by: Julian Fellowes
Downton Abbey Season 2 Christmas Special
Sybbie, George and Marigold with Grandma and Grandpa
1.04 Sybil’s new frock: the shock, the horror
I have a really hard time believing Cora -"I carried a corpse for my daughter" and "I stood up to Violet and Rosamund and orchestrated a recovery mission for Edith / I'm bringing my granddaughter Marigold home" - Crawley actually missed Sybil's wedding.
Cora and her son, the future Lord Grantham
Excuse me??? I just watched the second Downton movie and this scene at the end where Cora is with George (I'm not sure if it's him, do you know?) and immediately I couldn't help but think of Cora with her youngest son, the baby she lost but who would have been born to become a boy if O'Brien hadn't been a * (I believe the network guidelines don't allow me to expose everything I think about that stupid woman here)
Anyway, Cora deserved that baby, her baby, so much. I watched that horrible scene almost ten years ago now and to this day I've never gotten over it.
Oh, and it’s supremely ironic that Thomas told Molesley that O’Brien was leaving, making her look bad to Lady Grantham - and O’Brien hated that so much she launched a revenge campaign against Thomas (also over him being snotty about Alfred, her nephew, but her motivation was definitely sparked by his lying about her leaving and it getting to Lady Grantham).
And later she leaves without a word to anyone anyway!
We Watched the Whole Thing Like Some Creeper
Observations, Speculations, Questions
The first five minutes of this show is literally a trolley problem. Come on. And they fridged Soledad. Her eyeball is all over the promos.
How is the White Walker Vampire and his zombies able to scrape Soledad's eyeball off the train to express mail to Lady Grantham? Lady Grantham is excited by this package and not at all pausing to care about any of her agents' lives here. Which her assistant notes.
White Walker Vampire -- aka Jasper is just really into clickers. He just seems like a demon old man with a glorified Life Alert necklace. If he falls and can't get up.
There's no way this dude aced his interview -- associates at big law are supposed to bill tons of hours. How do you that? You become a rainmaker. How do you get to be a rainmaker -- you wine and dine people. Saying "oh I'll just be grinding my ass in office going through boxes and checking citations" is a way to just be stuck doing that. Also, I'd bet this law firm is using ChatGPT to replace first year associates and paralegals.
Meet our hero, Guy Anatole, aka Dude Tadpole, Mop Top Mulder, Sookie JD. He did not prepare for this interview.
So Mop Top Mulder experiences psychic power mind reading power as an annoying radio that isn't quite tuned in and he doesn't quite have control of it. He'd find my brain in the middle of a musical earworm dj set so annoying. Or maybe he'd groove to it, but I don't think Mop Top Mulder dances. He doesn't even have earplugs or headphones if he's so sensitive to this stuff, as a focus puller away from all the brain chatter. They have him clapping hands over his ears in a flashback. Even if sound mufflers do nothing for random thoughts being able to tune out actual background noise would help with overall amount of auditory annoyance?
He's popping pills like pez. Anti psychic pills? Is it adrenaline?
Of course this guy has had a full ride everywhere except for New York city rent for his spacious loft with giant dirty windows. Which he's late on.
Man is credulous. B/c anyone who is supposedly a mind reader and went to law school would ask why the money is so good at the Talamasca. Even if he's about to kicked out of his apartment for nonpayment.
Of course this man is offered this mysterious job right after the black person who got killed. Does he know this? Does he know what being bait is? This isn't a promotion, Tadpole. You are not being headhunted.
"You checked several boxes: Disjointed home life, isolated, smart, secretive, an intense desire to belong." This doesn't sound like a bunch of skills, but list of "easy to manipulate and control." And somehow he escaped joining a fraternity. Or a cult.
"I didn't earn any of it!" "You earned all of it." Imposter Syndrome meet the Talamasca's G&T program (white privilege untrained clairvoyant division) Helen's not tapping Tadpole to lead the Talamasca Supernatural Big Law Liaison equivalent of the Roget & Sons firm to fight Christine Clair, which would make sense. This is about the inborn (inherited?) thing he has little to no control over.
Would it be less cute and make more sense if Mommy Spy said, "By the way, you owe us 1.5 million dollars on your education with a balloon rate that's going up to 8% in a month that we write off if you take this mystery job.
Why is Tadpole going to Google? Where are the sites to look up corporations and trace shell ones? Where's the incognito window, crack researcher who lives in the library? The law library?
Mop Top Mulder obviously is not a native of Florida and spent no time there, and neither is his foster mom. It's not cold enough in November to wear pants on the beach in Sarasota. It barely stops being humid in October and every year it gets later and later. He and his foster mother are from Detroit. Just no fucking way. Not at 65 degrees Farhenheit. People from Minnesota, Toronto, Detroit are jumping in the water, not wearing eight sweaters.
-For the head of a super secret spy agency, Lady Grantham/Mommy Spy is super careless with her purse when she's walking around New York City and on the subway. I don't believe this woman even really lives in a city. Magnet clasp, keeps it behind her. Wonderful for pickpockets.
Burton is really very old or vampires don't have circadian rhythms because he's awake for quite a while before sunset. I'm going to be angry if everyone is sun immune and just goes with nocturnal rhythms for vibes.
"I merely offered you a suggestion you were open to. " Is Burton's demonstration is just vampire powers or does Mop Top Mulder have suicidal ideation which will and should come up later, show? It's almost as if Mop Top Mulder was in a trance and whoops was on a ledge. Suicidal crises aren't usually very long in duration and the whole thing fits into moments nobody else in the penthouse notices.
Burton was this close to reciting Sex and Candy or some other candy song at Mop Top Mulder when he started going in on mind reading as taking candy. -- Which if you pay attention to the date anchors (ahem Molloy's book reading) -- is on Halloween.
Burton tells Mop Top Mulder that he is bait. Tasty bait.
Burton spinning in the chair is cool -- but really couldn't he have just stuck a book mark there, and called it a night?
I smell sex and candy here/Who's that lounging in my chair?/Who's that casting devious stares/In my direction?/Mama, this surely is a dream
Why in the world would the Talamasca have placed Daniel reading off a list of twenty names on a page instead of a footnote, if they wanted to shoehorn that stuff in? I'd be angry you made the middle of my book dull.
Mulder should really get a flashlight -- or actually all of these guys should have them. You're not a cat, bro.
Daniel Molloy using his book to get dinner at the bookstore by asking passive aggressive questions "Can I say sweetheart in a bookstore these days?" to seem mellow and harmless. If someone cheerfully responded, "Sure thing, sugar tits!," how would he react? Would he sign the book "sugar tits?" I did that once, when I was young and answering phones and I totally nonplussed the old man who did that. The older woman in earshot just laughed.
Nothing says you are committed to joining a spy agency than parking yourself in front of an office in a Unabomber fit and staring up forlornly in the rain.
Nothin' lasts forever/And we both know hearts can change/And it's hard to hold a candle In the cold November rain
Episode Meet Cutes:
Mop Top Mulder and Mommy Spy aka Lady Grantham- Lady Grantham is either hiring Mop Top Mulder b/c she's need a new boy toy or b/c he's her baby.
Mop Top Mulder and Burton Lounge Lizard Leto- Twee AF. Gets the best lines.
Mop Top Mulder and Grandpa Not Blade.- Fan service. But also Grandpa Not Blade has his cell phone queued up to the picture showing Wet Look Mulder's mommy is alive (no mention of AI or photo trickery), so it's almost as if he was waiting for Mop Top Mulder to show up. It's probably definitely all arranged. He also states the obvious, "They are using you kid."