Downton Abbey: Season 3

Well, the show was back after a wretched wait period. And nothing was like I expected.
When we left last season, Mary (Michelle Dockery) and Matthew (Dan Stevens) had literally just gotten engaged, so this season picks up a few months later with wedding preparations in full swing. But problems arise, mainly in the form of a bad (actually horrendous) investment on Robert's (aka Lord Grantham's).  part. Now the family is in terrible and real danger of losing Downton. This I had a problem with. I don't really care about the family going broke, I just find it quite out of character that Robert (Hugh Bonneville) would invest all of his wife's money in only one stoke. No one can believe that he would do something so foolish (and that includes the many characters in the show, namely his wife and eldest daughter, Mary). The fact that they might lose Downton is more than he can bear, and he breaks down. The only other time he did that was in season one after his wife suffered a tragic miscarriage.
Now, back to the wedding. Matthew, the heir to Downton, receives word from the late-father of his fiance who died. He is set to inherit a vast sum, certainly enough to save Downton. But, despite Mary's pleas, he doesn't want to lose the money to save Downton. He feels that he should not inherit the sum because he did not truly love Lavinia (Zoe Boyle) but perhaps even drove her to her own death. This nearly causes Mary to call off the wedding just hours before it was to occur.
But luckily, Tom Branson (Allen Leech) is able to save the day. Tom is an interesting character, as he was the former chauffeur of the Crawley's and an Irish republican. Now, however, he is Sybil's (Jessica Brown Findlay's) husband. (For those who don't know, Sybil is the youngest Crawley daughter, but the first to get married.) Though Tom is only a commoner, he and Matthew must stick together because of their choice of wives. Tom convinces him to go through with it because Matthew will never be happy with anyone else.
So the wedding happens, covered in sap, as all weddings are, even in real life. I did have a slight problem with the show jumping from Mary arriving in the church to them coming back from their honeymoon in the south of France. I know that is where one show stopped and another started, but I really would have liked to see the rest of the wedding, though I know what would have happened. But last season, they showed two weddings, and they were both the weddings of servants. Not that the servants are any less interesting, in fact they are equally as interesting as their upstairs counterparts.
Now to the second half of the premiere. Edith (Laura Carmichael) is the only Crawley sister left without a suitable husband, and she is working desperately to change that, but the man that she has her sights on is over twenty years older than her and was injured in the war, so now he cannot use his right arm for much of anything. The attraction is reciprocal, but he feels he cannot drag her on any longer and Robert agrees, only to Edith's heartbreak, so needless to say, by the end of the episode, they are engaged.
Now to other news. The housekeeper, Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan) has discovered a lump in her breast, which is most likely cancer. Though this plot line is tragically sad, it is also, perhaps, the most realistic. She is also trying to keep it hidden from the remainder of the staff and household, which only allows her more sympathy.
In the meantime, Mary and her grandmother, Violet (Maggie Smith, always great) are trying to save Downton and decide to ask her American grandmama (Shirley Maclaine) for more money, but she cannot do that, with more than enough good reasons, as she (technically her late husband) has already given the family more than enough, which is quite true. Thus, the future of Downton is looking mighty bleak, as is the future of Bates, the former valet of Robert (Brendan Coyle). He was accused and found guilty of murdering his wretched wife and now is in prison, with a dreaded roommate. His life is completely miserable, but his wife Anna, a servant of the house (Joanne Froggatt), is doing everything she can to help him get out, but he probably even further condemned himself when he threatened his roommate that he should never again forget that he is saving the room with a murderer.
Though this show is still crazy, with Sarah O'Brien (Siobhan  Finneran), Cora's (Elizabeth McGovern's) maid and Thomas (Rob James-Collier) as Robert's valet, stirring more than enough trouble downstairs, it still lacks the punch of season one and parts of two had. But life does move on, and some of the characters (as opposed to none, as was pretty much the case in the first two seasons) are happy. Sybil is content with living humbly in Dublin and being known as Mrs. Branson and Edith will be quite happy with her fiance, despite his shortcomings. But I worry about Mary and Matthew, their marriage has not gotten off to a good start and I feel that if Downton is lost, Mary will never be able to forgive him. How much more baggage does their marriage need? Still, the show often had me on the edge of my seat and groaning in discomfort, and struggling not to yell at the characters to come to their senses, but I cannot wait for next week, though it comes head to head with the Golden Globes, always a problem this time of year. Grade: B+