Spoiler Alert! My review/recap of Downton Abbey, Season 1, in 70 seconds or less

That's ten seconds for each episode. Go.

Oooh, England! Train! Titanic!

Wow, Elizabeth McGovern hasn’t aged a day! Oh, that’s her daughter. 

Three words: gay butler intrigue. Ok, so he’s a footman, but footman are expected to pick up some slack at fancy dinner parties and travels to London and such, so…

Ok, so there’s an entail? And they need a male heir? And being a doctor and/or lawyer is a bad thing?

Flower show!

Lord Grantham is a good, right man, and a bit like Victor Garber on Alias. British Spy Daddy.

So there’s a Turk, and he seduces one of the daughters! And then he dies! There’s a cover up and a letter and an embittered middle sister.

Professor McGonagall has great one-liners.

Ooh, they find an heir! And he’s like the son they never had! And he’s so dashing and moral and learns to love getting his clothes put on by strangers, but Mary hates him. And then she loves him, and he loves her! And then they fight, and… Why? Why would Mary not say yes? That last sentence is a direct quote from the husband.

Garden party!

And then the war!

And now you know everything I know about Season 1 of Downton Abbey, give or take a valet and an Irish socialist chauffeur and several broken hearts, and something got stolen and there was a set-up and a mean lady named O’Brien with crazy bangs kills. a. baby., and did I mention I have to watch this all with closed-captioning on because the accents are brilliant but my understanding of them not-so-great. Except for McGovern, as she is sporting a fine Madonna-now-lives-in-London-not-Detroit accent.

Oh my, get thee to Netflix and watch Season 1. And then buy Season 2 on Amazon or wherever and watch it, and then loan it to me because I haven’t seen it yet, and I just watched Season 1 over two days (4 hours/night) and suffering from severe Grantham withdrawal.

[this post brought to you buy the letter C for COFFEE and the numbers 4 and 30 because that’s when I woke up this morning – yesterday to you - to catch my flight. 4:30 AM.]

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It’s summer! What are you watching/catching up on/doing outside because it’s too beautiful to be inside watching tv?