The Wild Blog in the West

I was going to call this "Gone to the Pigs" or something of the like, but that was too silly.  Besides, while the pigs subplot was memorable, it was not the meat of the episode.  Pun intended. Plot Synopsis First, Downton Abbey is in a tizzy because Lord Grantham received a telegram from Cora's family in America, stating that they want him there right now .  For some reason, they think that having him testify before a Senate committee is a good idea, him being an upstanding English earl and all.  However, Bates does not want to leave Anna and begs for Thomas to take his place.  This simple request unleashes so much turmoil that one would think the nation had declared war again.  Before everything settles, Mary knows that Anna was violated, but not that Lord Gillingham's valet was responsible.  Anna refuses to disclose any more details to her. Before Lord Grantham leaves, Violet comes to wish him off.  If it's not clear by the way she coughs every other wor

Most of this episode was fairly quiet, like the last one.  However, this one had several good moments, and that's before the "secret" was revealed at the end. Plot Synopsis First, I'll get the never-ending love quadrangle out of the way.  Thankfully, this is the end and now Daisy can get a good plot line.  She begins this episode thrilled that Alfred is staying at Downton, only for her happiness to be dashed when Alfred receives a letter informing him that one of the accepted candidates dropped out, so he gets to fill the position.  When it's time for him to leave, he tells Daisy that he's sorry he hurt her, and that she will make a man very happy, just not him.  His honesty is refreshing, but couldn't he have said that a few months earlier?  How many months -- no, years  -- has this plot line dragged on?  Daisy manages to wish him luck, and they end on a good note. Later, Jimmy tries to take advantage of Ivy after they see a Valentino movie,

Sometime after writing my review for Serial Experiments Lain , I visited an IMDB message board.  One of the threads was "Which anime series are like Lain?", and one suggestion was Monster .  I will sometimes watch the opening episode of an anime series out of curiosity.  But Monster  was the first time I did it and was hooked. That is saying something, considering that getting hooked meant committing to a 74-episode series, far longer than any other anime I had watched.  But one episode led to another, which led to another, and before I knew it, I had finished the entire series in less than a week. The anime is closely based on Naoki Urasawa's manga series of the same name, which ran between 1994 and 2001 in 18 volumes.  The anime series aired in Japan in 2004 and 2005, then in the United States in 2009 and 2010 on the SyFy Channel. Plot Synopsis Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a Japanese man living in Dusseldorf, West Germany in 1986, at a time when Germany still exists in

That "some stuff happened" is all I can recall.  Various things happened to the different characters, but it's all a bit of a blur, with only a few distinct moments.  Alfred on Top Chef .  Bates threatening Mrs. Hughes.  The guy who brought Pamuk to Downton making a second appearance.  I would end the recap right there, but that wouldn't be fair, would it? Plot Synopsis Oh let's see... Edith may be pregnant, given that she claims that she is going to London to see to Gregson's affairs but instead goes to the doctor's office.  No one else in the family cares, and when Edith claims she knows how it feels to be an outcast in the house, Mary snarks at her.  Will those two ever have a real relationship? Some boring shit happens with Violet and Isobel -- I don't remember.  Something about Violet's new gardener watering in Violet's house and a letter on her desk going missing.  Whatever was the problem, it appears that everything is a-okay in

I remember reading comments to this effect, and I'm inclined to agree: I'm just not feeling Series Four so far.  I'm sure if I poured through last year's reviews, I would come across similar comments.  Sybil's horrific death didn't happen until Episode 4, and the other excitement happened more toward the end of Series Three.  Yet even in Episode 3, we had Branson escaping Ireland by the skin of his teeth , leaving Sybil behind to face the "pigs."  Here we have... a polite black jazz singer dancing briefly with Rose.  And Mary getting another marriage proposal.  And Edith competing for the title of Unluckiest Woman in the Western Hemisphere. Plot Synopsis The house party lasts a day or two longer after That Scene, which means that Anna must share a dinner table with the repulsive Green, who smirks delightedly while Mrs. Hughes gives him a thousand-watt stare.  Unfortunately, because no one knows what Green did to Anna, that leaves the other housem

No sooner has Series Four gotten started than it gives us its first darkly disturbing episode.  As if Sybil's torturous, horrible death wasn't enough to make us shiver, now this?  I had read about this episode and storyline on Internet message boards, so I knew it was pretty hot and controversial. Yet unlike the Sybil episode, which seemed to deliver a thunderclap of doom from its opening moments, this one is actually fairly lighthearted until That Scene, where everything changes.   Plot Synopsis The Crawleys are throwing a house party for 16 people and several notables are invited, including Lord Gillingham, an attractive young viscount whom Cora invited to tempt Mary out of her seclusion.  He arrives with his valet, the flirtatious Mr. Green.  Another guest to the party is Edith's beau, Michael Gregson, who tries to ingratiate himself with Lord Grantham, only to get the cold shoulder.   There to entertain the guests will be Australian opera singer, Nelli

Last time on  Downton : Matthew died horribly in a car crash in the last seconds of an otherwise dull Christmas Special because Dan Stevens did not want to make a cameo in Series Four.  Fans roared and swore that they were through with the show.  And then they gave Series Four, Episode One the largest audience  Downton Abbey  has received yet -- at least in the United States. So what has been happening with our clan since we last saw them?  I'll confess that I didn't wait for PBS to start airing the episodes before I filled myself up with spoilers, but I'll be kind enough to keep them to myself.  The PBS first episode was two hours, containing the first two episodes that aired in the UK.  The first half was better than the second half, though both were decent. Plot Synopsis Six months after Matthew's untimely demise, it is clear that Julian Fellowes still does not know how to write prominent characters off of the show.  For it opens with the news that O'Bri