Episode Six..Politics Arise

As this episode opens, it begins to focus on Sybil, Mary's younger sister. Interested in politics she attends rallys in town to learn more about the candidates for voting. At this time it was okay for women to vote, but it was strongly discouraged, for a reason. A fight breaks out by them in the rally and her chauffeur (Branson) immediately races her out of there and takes her home. When her father Lord Grantham later finds this out, he is furious that she put herself in such danger, and forbids her to ever go back to the rallys. Which means of course, because it was forbidden, she would have to go back the next week. Well, by weeks end she has her father convinced that she's going to a meeting in town that she must be at, so he agrees to let her go. When they arrive in town she tells Branson to take her to the political meeting instead and he reluctantly agrees but tells her he's not going to leave her side (Branson actually has feelings for Sybil). They pull up to the meeting and she gets out of the car, but there isn't room to park right in front so Branson must take the car around to park it, he tells her to just come with him and then they can go in but she races in instead of waiting. After she got in she began listening for a minute or so and then on the outside Matthew just happens to be walking by and saw a bunch of men carrying rocks into the meeting area so he goes in after them and finds Sybil, and later joined by Branson. A fight breaks out leaving Sybil hurt and on the ground, Matthew defending her punches the man who did that to her than grabs her and carries her out to the car. They get her back to Downton and begin cleaning up her head wound. Because Matthew was there all the women began to thank him and give him a lot of attention because they were impressed with his saving Sybil. Even Sybil you could tell was very thankful.
Through this entire episode i kept thinking about how we are as children of God. We want to obey, but our childish wordly curiosity usually wins out over obedience. Sybil went against he fathers best wishes  and then she ended up getting hurt pretty bad because of her bad choice to not obey her father who knew best. I see this everywhere in our world. How we as Christians, honestly, we know what God wants, or at least we know what we aren't supposed to do, it's all laid out for us in Exodus, the Ten Commandments ring any bells? But we defy them anyways because our worldly desires thinking "oh i couldn't possibly get hurt" or "what if God doesn't know best?" And than we take the road that wasn't intended for us. So, just as Sybil knew what her father didn't want her to do, we know what God doesn't want us to do, are we going to be disobedient and get hurt by our own choices, or are we gonna do as God says because ultimately he does know best?

Episode Numero 5

Okay, so this is probably one of my favorite episode in season one.
The episode opens up with everyone super excited for the upcoming flower show. A flower show Cousin Violet usually always wins, and Isobel thinks that Violet wins every year because the judges are afraid to choose someone else. So with those two there is some tension throughout the whole episode and in the end Violet gets to announce the winner, and she looks at the paper and it's her name, but she has felt so badgered about winning every year and she also knew that it wasn't a fair win, so she announced that the other man, whose flowers were clearly better, had one.
Also through this episode Mary and Matthew seem to be getting closer but she doesn't want to admit that to anyone and her mom brings in another suitor who is a little bit older, and in Mary's opinion, boring. However Edith takes a liking to him and they start talking and getting to know one another. Well, now that Edith (who Mary is in constant competition with) is going for someone Mary thinks that it's a contest and tries to take this man's interest off of Edith and turn it back to her. Matthew notices this as Mary brushes him off to try and get this other guy away from Edith. That's the worst part. She doesn't even want him but Edith can't have him. Because of this Matthew backs off a bit and doesn't really talk to Mary the rest of the episode.
Through this episode, we see multiple competitions. Between Isobel and Violet, Mary and Edith, and even Mary's suitor and Matthew (a competition Matthew isn't willing to be a part of). Through this episode you see the different ways people win. Isobel by being clever and wanting what is true (a fair flower show) she wins. Mary, though she wins this competition she did it by being conniving and just completely cruel to her sister, and i think she sometimes is mean to Edith just because she wants to be. And last, between Mary's suitor and Matthew, Matthew drew out, so by default her suitor won.
 I realized that throughout life, we have these competitions with people whether we mean to or not and we have a choice to be fair, to do anything we can do to win (cruelty), or we can choose that we don't want to have any part of it. Basically throughout this episode what kept going through my head is "choose your battles." There was no real reason for Mary to have to go after someone Edith truly liked when she didn't like him herself. However with Isobel and Violet, Isobel fought her so hard on it because she knew it wasn't fair that she won every year and the person with the better flowers didn't win. So people what i want to leave you with is: Choose your battles.

Episode 4

In this episode, i was pleased to learn a little more about Ms Hughes, the head maid. The episode opens with all the help talking excitedly about the fair, and there desperate need to go. Ms Hughes tell Carson that she has some business to tend to in town, so Carson tells her that they can manage without her. After Ms hughes is assured that everything will be alright at Downton, she decides to head into town. Later we realize that she has met up with a man from her past. As her day goes by, you get to know that this is an old boyfriend who got married, and is now a widower and came back to Ms Hughes to see if she would be interested in marrying him and moving on from her time at Downton. Back at Downton you see that some things got a little chaotic in the absence of Ms Hughes. When she gets back she realizes that Downton would burn to the ground if she left, so she makes up her mind and has to go tell this man that she loves that she can't marry him because she can't leave her job. This episode was kind of sad to me. Ms Hughes is like the mom of all the help. She's stern and leads them well, and keeps them in line. To see her in this vulnerable situation sucked for me. The fact that she turned down a happy marriage with this man to stay and make sure that everyone would be taken care of is so selfless. As i go through this show i start realizing how much the people of Downton care about each other. They would do anything to make sure everyone will be alright. Those people that care the most make the whole show.

Episode Three.. The drama begins.

In this episode all the drama starts to happen.
When Cora, tries to set up Mary with a young man (Napier) coming to visit, it somewhat backfires. Mary becomes interested in Mr Pamuk, Mr Napier's acquaintance who comes along. Well long story short he was interested too. And get this, when the footman Thomas goes into Pamuk's room to help him get ready for bed, Pamuk allows Thomas to hit on him and then refuse him and then blackmails him into letting him into Mary's room that night. Another long story short, Mr Pamuk and Mary end up sleeping together, which at this point in time would be a scandal because they weren't married and had no intention of being married. Not only that! But Mr Pamuk dies of a heart attack in her bed. Scared to death Mary wakes up Anna her ladies maid to come and help her. Not being able to figure out how to get him back to his own room all the way across the house, they wake up Cora to come and help them carry Mr Pamuk's body back to his room. They get all the way there and back fine, except. Yup, you guessed it, someone saw them. And who else but one of the lowly kitchen maids Daisy. Quiet and sweet Daisy doesn't know what to think of this so she doesn't say anything. Mary goes through this whole episode grieving. One she went to bed with a man who was not her husband, and two he died. Cora becomes scared that this will become a scandal and through the rest of the episode all live in secrecy and fear that the story of Mary and Mr Pamuk will leak out and Mary will be ruined. What a crazy episode, however one of my favorites. Though it leaves this feeling of dread in Mary's heart, that she can never tell anyone about, something had to happen to show that no one is perfect. Mary knew what she had done was wrong. And i love her strength to accept that it happened, but move past it.