Fellowes carries this ideal into “The Gilded Age” while also creating an aspirational couple, George and Bertha Russell, who came from nothing to conquer old Manhattan society with their wealth and a marriage connection to British nobility.

“A Woman of Substance,” based on Barbara Taylor Bradford’s 1979 bestseller, is being sold to an American audience as a “Downton Abbey” replacement. That’s not quite accurate. Think of it more as an inversion, with a bottom-up view of its heroine Emma Harte’s life viewed through parallel timelines.

One finds Emma, played by Brenda Blethyn, in the 1970s when she’s one of the richest women in the world, sitting atop a New York retail empire. As she’s being driven to her office, she’s blindsided by the news that her medical records have been leaked, revealing she is in ill health and sending company shares tumbling. A stunned Emma wonders who could have betrayed her so intimately, and why. After all, she surrounds herself with loyal, protective employees, including her own granddaughter (Mara Huf).

For answers, the story reels us back to 1911, when young Emma (Jessica Reynolds) scrubbed floors and toilets for the Fairleys, a family of British nobles. The Fairleys aren’t simply unkind, they’re cruel and cannibalistic. Adam Fairley (Emmett J. Scanlan), head of Fairley Hall, is a self-serving fop whose wife, Adele (Leanne Best), hasn’t left her room in ages and drinks from sunrise to sunset.

Adele’s plainer sister, Olivia (Lydia Leonard), is a spinster with a head for business who strokes Adam’s ego. Meanwhile, their older son, Gerald (Harry Cadby), is an elitist sex pest who abuses the help.

Emma should know better than to put her faith in her employers’ ability to recognize her intelligence and gumption. Still, she’s not immune to desire and, against her better judgment, falls for Edwin Fairley (Ewan Horrocks), Adam’s youngest son.

Rags-to-riches stories tend to be as fabulistic as tales designed to sell the upper class as fair and solicitous to the needs of working people, or amenable to Cinderella fantasies. “Downton Abbey” welcomed Tom Branson, a working-class Irishman, into their home and family when the youngest Crawley daughter, Sybil, eloped with him. It’s a nice story, but what happens to Emma is more common.

Both Emma and Edwin convince themselves that he isn’t at all like the rest of their family. They even exchange rings in secret. When Emma becomes pregnant, Edwin’s refusal to marry her is an ice-water splash to the face, waking her up and kickstarting her climb.

(Courtesy of BritBox) Jessica Reynolds in “A Woman of Substance.”

Emma is not simply heartbroken but angry at herself for allowing romance to distract her. Before we see her secret affair, we meet her dying mother in the cramped cottage she shares with her family. And as Ma gasps her final breaths, she makes her smart little girl promise to never lose sight of her ultimate goal.

Edwin’s slight, then, gives her an additional mission. She decides that her family, including the child she raises alone, will want for nothing. And she will grind the Fairleys into the dust to ensure that happens.

Despite the vast trove of limited series available these days, over-the-top ‘80s-style melodramas like this, sagas laced with delectable malice, simply do not exist today. “A Woman of Substance” reminds me of how much I’ve missed them, and it also makes me wonder if we might be ready for more of its kind.

Notably, the show didn’t hook viewers with sex or other salacious material but, rather, plausible portrayals of greed and motivating vindictiveness. The Fairleys’ callousness toward each other mirrors the messy family dynamics of the Murdochs, the Trumps, the Musks and other astronomically wealthy families. We want nothing to do with them, yet they’ve made life worse for us, much like the Fairleys’ inattention to Emma’s dying mother and their role in her father’s death make her vengeance quest impossible to abandon.

(Courtesy of BritBox) Brenda Blethyn in “A Woman of Substance.”

There’s a price Emma pays for her mission, because there always is. Both younger and older Emma are fiercely admired but close themselves off to love. The most recent episode of “A Woman of Substance” closes with Emma proposing marriage to the man who owns the building housing her successful dressmaking business and curtly dumping a suitor who actually cares about her. Yet for some reason, he and the first good man to propose to her, Mac (Niall Wright), stick around to make sure Emma has strong hands to fall back on.

But that refusal to risk vulnerability comes back to bite her when the daughter she turned herself inside out to spoil pulls a move reminiscent of Veda in “Mildred Pierce,” betraying Emma for vapid reasons.

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James M. Cain’s 1941 novel and Bradford’s have that in common, along with a lot of other observations about the price of a woman’s ambition and what she trades to widen the moat between her and privation. Both Mildred Pierce and Emma Harte build their wealth by remaining clear-eyed as to what men can do for them financially as opposed to romantically.

Each story also emerged before decades of wealth expansion, with the movie version of “Mildred Pierce” coming out in 1945, right before the post-war boom. Bradford’s potboiler hit in time to meet the “greed is good” ’80s, a decade when the wealth divide increased sharply and economic survival felt only slightly less Darwinian than it does today.

The get-rich ethos that defines our time may be only rivaled by our perilously tantalizing obsession with vengeance. Mind you, it’s an expensive pursuit most of us can’t afford. That’s why that adage about living well being the best revenge tends to be offered to the party on the losing end of a betrayal. There is plenty of wisdom in that, but more satisfaction, I think, in Emma Harte’s demonstrated rebuttal. She’s determined to prove that brute-force payback is the best revenge, and dining on the carcass of your fallen enemy is the spoils of a life well-lived. It takes endless work and sacrifice, but this show makes her claws-out climb worth our attention.

“A Woman of Substance” is currently streaming on Britbox.

The post “A Woman of Substance” is a fiercely old-fashioned revenge saga appeared first on Salon.com.

In Britain, Dame is a title equivalent to a knighthood, “properly a name of respect or a title equivalent to lady” in status, instructs Brittanica.com.

Dame Maggie Smith fits that descriptor since, to the average American, she is Professor Minerva McGonagall from the “Harry Potter” movies or Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham on “Downton Abbey.” By the time those films and hit series came around, Smith had worn her Dame Commander of the British Empire title for many years, having been appointed in 1990.

In the days since Smith’s death was announced on Friday, Sept. 27 at the age of 89, appreciation for her wide contributions to the dramatic arts, theater and cinema has flowed freely.

So too have the reminders by way of interviews conducted over the years that Smith was more dedicated to her craft than the explosion of attention she received after “Downton” became a worldwide hit, with her as its breakout star.

Smith was an “intensely private person,” according to her family’s statement in announcing her passing, and you only need to watch her 2013 “60 Minutes” interview with Steve Kroft to know that was true. Kroft’s conversational style hinged on approaching the more sensitive side of lighter topics with a big open smile as if to disarm.

Throughout that interview Smith fixed her gaze on a point to the right of the American’s confident grin, not to display a lack of confidence but, instead, a feeling of being done with projecting anything she didn’t wish to.

Kroft’s interview was part of a promotional tour for “Quartet,” the 2012 feature directed by Dustin Hoffman, and eventually gets to a piece of trivia that made my ears perk up – the film represents the first time in some 50 films that Smith used the F-word onscreen.

That wasn’t notable by itself. No, it was Hoffman’s response to being asked about it. He heartily laughs and says, “Well, Maggie, you’ve certainly said it in life! It’s one of her favorite words in life. It’s one of the main reasons I love her. She’s a sailor!”

Ergo, the UK’s beloved Dame was also our kind of dame. Perhaps that goes some way to explain her mass appeal later in life, expanded in no small way by “Downton” creator Julian Fellowes’ dead-on writing for the show.

Fellowes had a test run for “Downton” and Dame Maggie Smith’s abilities in 2001 via “Gosford Park,” directed by Robert Altman. That script cast her as Constance, Dowager Countess of Trentham, whose sense of humor sparkled beside other diamonds. “Smith, in particular, is wonderful here; she gets laughs with her light, squirrelly touch — you sometimes forget what a terrific comic actress she is,” wrote Salon’s former movie critic Stephanie Zacharek at the time.

In “Downton” Fellowes wrote all the best set-ups and punchlines for Violet, inspired by Smith’s near-flawless track record with crusting each phrase with the perfect sear. A pause, a huff, a wide-eyed look of shock at some utterance indicated a forced push into the unknown, including the famous query to the estate’s heir upon hearing his intent to take – horrors! – a job: “What is a ‘week-end’?”

This is also a woman who chided her granddaughter that “vulgarity is no substitute for wit,” while proudly and without apology wielding her class-conscious vulgarity over her family and the servants.

An unspoken truth of adulthood is that we never stop finding new ways to define the person we want to be. That may be truer for women, who are forced to evolve their image of themselves as they mature in ways that men aren’t made to feel as acutely.

Thus the differentiation in relationship the filmgoer may see in the lower-case dame portion of Smith’s career and image, and her aristocracy era. Smith’s Jean Brodie is a woman of high expectations pressing her dark desires into impressionable young women; she likes danger in the way of someone who has flirted with it but has never been harmed.

The actor’s later roles in “Quartet,” 2011’s “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and others reflect a shedding of vanity and hang-ups that Violet couldn’t quite release, all honest reflections of aging. But so is Violet’s abandonment of her inner editor. If only we could all be so fast on the draw and clever in that time of our lives!

Smith is one of many grand Dames in film, of course. She joked in a British Film Institute conversation that Dame Judi Dench often snagged the plumiest roles before they came to her and other actors of her caliber.

But as her “Harry Potter” co-star Miriam Margolyes told the BBC, she had her own talent unlike anybody else’s: “a ferocity, a glint of mischief, delight, and tenderness, a remarkable all-round wizard. . .  she was the wizard of ‘Harry Potter.’” A Dame, and a dame.

Between “Downton” and Professor McGonagall an adoring public saw in Smith an endlessly entertaining, tippling grandmother and that endearing teacher who balanced strictness with caring. If Violet Crawley seasoned her ripostes with a sense of knowing that comes from having broken a few rules herself – confirmed in the second “Downton” movie, by the way – that explained her charm.

To comprehend the breadth of Smith’s talent, along with the reasons she was, in life, referred to as caring, intimidating, imperious and gracious, all the things you’d expect of a Dame with a capital D, rewind to “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” the 1969 movie for which Smith’s performance earned her the first of her two Academy Awards.

Smith’s Miss Brodie fits the rebellious teacher script so popular in cinema, but in the worst sense. She presents herself as a role model to her pupils and succeeds for the wrong reasons, including manipulating a young girl into bed with a fellow teacher.

She veers off the prescribed material to inject a sense of rosy fantasy into her lessons, including romanticizing Spain’s fascist leader Francisco Franco along with Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini. Bragging that she’d mingled with Il Duce’s fascist forces, she tells her rapt students that on the occasion, “I wore my silk dress with red poppies, which is right for my coloring.”

But it’s her dreamy delivery of Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” that stops time, wraps it in gauze and conveys the full tragedy of a heroine yearning to be known and, yet, hidden away. In the moment of her undoing she says, melodramatically to one of her favorites, “Sandy, I believe I am past my prime. I reckoned on my prime lasting until I was at least 50. Are you listening, Sandy?”

The “Miss Brodie” version of Smith, in character, can be best described as tailored, and that refers to more than simple costuming. Smith understood how her features cut into and through a role – wide eyes amply lidded, trenchant cheekbones, features that one might associate with snobbery.

Smith was not like that in life, although she was described as “spiky” according to those who worked with her, she admitted to being nervous before each take, which explains her devotion to precise delivery.  (She also famously never watched “Downton Abbey,” for which she won three of her four Emmys and one of her three Golden Globes.)

There’s a reason she and Michael Caine sold their shaky marriage for appearances believably enough to win Smith her second Oscar for 1978’s “California Suite,” in which she memorably replied to her queer husband’s assurance of discretion with, “Discreet? You did everything but lick his artichoke!”

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But there’s a special knowing in Violet’s famous exchange with her daughter-in-law Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) when she says, unprovoked, “I’m so looking forward to seeing your mother again. When I’m with her, I’m reminded of the virtues of the English.”

But Cora’s mother is an American, says cousin Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens). “Exactly,” she replies, brightly and tightly.

Among the losses Smith frequently cited once her profile skyrocketed post- “Harry Potter” and exponentially more so with “Downton” was the disappearance of anonymity. She expressed woe at no longer being able to tour the stores or shop for groceries, which is both utterly normal and difficult to picture given her close association with the Dowager Countess.

“That’s television for you,” she quipped to the highly beloved TV host Graham Norton on his show, to which he replied knowingly, “It’s common.”

Not as much as Americans, who Smith jovially admitted to taking pains to avoid in her walkabouts. “I don’t go anywhere really where they can get at me,” she told Norton. “It’s usually in museums and art galleries . . . so that limits things. I keep away from them. And Harrods I don’t go near.”

This too may be characteristic of a Dame, although pairing that with her unstuffy humor and refreshingly proletarian quick wit engendered in us a familiarity.

Asked to confirm her relationship with the top curse word by Kroft, Smith doesn’t deny it.  “I don’t have any difficulty saying it,” she said. “It’s a word that’s frequently sprung to mind.”

Spoken like a Lady, and a dame . . . a rare kind of person of which there is now one fewer in the world.

The post The prime of Dame Maggie Smith left us a portrait of what it means to be a lady, upper and lowercase appeared first on Salon.com.

But who has the time or the energy to polish silverware, transfer mains and sides into nice dishes, and lay a table? Follow-up question: Who has the room in their home for a dedicated dining table?

As it turns out, I do have a modest space for that express purpose that has seen its share of fancy dinners … long ago. While I still experiment with la grande cuisine, as Julia Child invited us to do every now and then, on those rare weekend occasions I cook for two or three, not 10 or more. My dining table is cluttered with mail, yet-to-be-shipped jars of homemade jam and, more often than not, an enormous, slumbering pile of Maine Coon. So we sink into the couch, plates on laps, clothed in pants with elastic waistbands.

Thanks to TV, we can live vicariously through period dramas where people had staff to prepare their dinner and wash the dishes afterward, a perk of being born into high society. On “Downton Abbey,” downstairs living doesn’t even look like the worst fate in the world.

Six seasons of TV and three feature films depict servitude as a benevolent state, sometimes verging on jolly. It’s easy for the help to know their place when the lords and ladies treat them as something akin to family — the kind of almost-relatives who fix their morning eggs or button their flies for them.

Early in September, I made myself presentable to catch a screening of “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” mainly to evaluate whether the spread lives up to the title’s promise. Happily, it does, in all the usual ways. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is caught up in scandal, again. Lord Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) is fussy and reluctant to let go of the reins. Lady Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) is soothing; Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) is starched to the verge of hurting himself; Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt) is pregnant; and Molesley (Kevin Doyle) is an idiot.

The gang’s all here, but times have changed. It’s 1930, and like everybody else, the Earl of Grantham is having problems with his cash flow.

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But the food is still fabulous. Most people watch “Downton” for the tart, gently comedic exchanges and adorably antiquated decorum. I keep my eyes peeled to decipher what’s on the plates and the butcher block. “The Grand Finale” presents the usual British culinary mainstays, like Yorkshire puddings, shortbreads, roasts and vegetables. I also noticed a tray of golden madeleines with their telltale bumps on the counter, and lusciously swirled pavlovas bejeweled with dark berries capping off a meal.

But a couple of special items caught my eye at the prepping station — specifically, rows of elegantly fluted scallop shells. See, while the nobles are fretting over what to do about Mary’s divorce-induced social leprosy, a retiring Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) taps Daisy (Sophie McShera) to put together a do-or-die feast to win the Crawleys’ snobby neighbors back to their side.

(Rory Mulvey) im Carter stars as Mr. Carson and Phyllis Logan as Mrs. Hughes in “DOWNTON ABBEY: The Grand Finale,” a Focus Features release.

News of a special dinner guest, superstar playwright Noël Coward, transforms Daisy into an Iron Chef: “Well, tonight he’s getting Coquilles Saint-Jacques and Gressingham Duck, and he better like it.”

Talk about two old school dishes that are doable, theoretically, for home chefs desiring to replicate the former dining experience in their more modest castles. Coquilles Saint-Jacques is essentially a frou-frou description for scallops au gratin, more often prepared as a casserole than in those magical shells which are harder to find these days.

But it’s even easier to score a whole duck, if not a Gressingham, in American grocery stores. Pekin duck is the most widely available variety in the United States, and smaller than the bird Daisy was working with. However, that choice underscores the regal reputation of the meat, along with bolstering theories as to why Americans don’t eat it more often.

Meanwhile, at the Arconia …

Funny enough, duck shows up as a wealth indicator on another recent pop culture hit, albeit one set nearly a century after the events of “The Grand Finale.”  Still, the fifth season of “Only Murders in the Building” holds a few thematic commonalities with what the Crawleys are going through. Like our lords and ladies, Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) are reckoning with massive changes hitting the Arconia and New York more broadly. Both are under siege by billionaires.

The podcast trio, though, is only concerned with three who may be linked to the murder of their building’s beloved doorman, Lester (Teddy Coluca). So they invite the most suspicious-looking one, Jay Pflug (played by Logan Lerman), to dinner, and are surprised when the other two, Camila White and Bash Steed (portrayed by Renée Zellweger and Christoph Waltz), crash the gathering.

Luckily, Charles has planned for the occasion. “If you invite someone over at seven, you have to serve them dinner. It’s a rule of society,” he says, waving around his great grandmother’s recipe for duck à l’orange and adding, “It’s a billionaire’s delight!”

To this, Oliver sarcastically replies, “No one needs your 17th-century old lady food and outdated social rules.”

Oliver’s skepticism is both on brand and justified. Duck à l’orange has a reputation as an archaic 1970s atrocity owing to American cooks bastardizing what should be a glistening garnish into a sickly-sweet goop.

Except in this instance, Charles is right. The billionaires absolutely expect to be fed — or say they do, but cut out before dinner is done. What happens instead is better. Mabel, Charles and Oliver gather at a table to enjoy their good friend’s efforts with a side of green beans. Even Oliver, a man who long subsisted on dips, has nothing bad to say.

Society has changed extremely over the past century, but this much is sacrosanct: Important people expect courses. Indeed, the most important people, friends and family, are worth that bother.

Duck à l’orange is simpler to make than you might think

Much as there is for its fans to mourn about the alleged closure of the “Downton Abbey” franchise, I won’t miss the increasingly tone-deaf genuflection before the glamour of British privilege. But I will yearn for more scenes of sublime, ridiculous formal dining experiences.

Every night, the gentlemen suit up and the ladies don their finery, although nothing is as fancy as when the family hosts balls or extremely fancy dinners for special guests. “Who does that anymore?” I often ask myself, sometimes while fishing a grain of cooked rice out of my stretched-out sports bra.

Then I think, maybe I should every once in a while. Duck would be a fine option. It’s simpler to prepare than one might assume, whether a chef goes Daisy’s route and simply roasts it or, like Charles, adds his great grandmother’s zesty sauce.

I like to rub mine with around four tablespoons of five spice powder, ¼ cup of brown sugar, one tablespoon each of ginger, garlic, and kosher salt, and enough olive oil to make a paste. Before that, I gently pierce its skin with a knife, just enough to release the precious fat after it liquefies.

The version of duck à l’orange St. Julia originally introduced to home cooks via “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” retains its regal savory flavor and simplicity. I’ve been revisiting episodes of “The French Chef” on Prime Video, and she presents her preparation technique in a first-season installment that aired in 1963.

The way we view the dish, dining, duck, and the art of entertaining has changed wildly in the years since, but these recent reminders on TV and the grand finale of “Downton Abbey” have made me rethink my abandonment of extravagant dinner parties. Life is short and particularly ugly right now. Break out the nice plates and a clean tablecloth. Dress up a space for your dearest friends. Make the duck. We may not be earls or billionaires, but we can eat like them.

“Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” is currently available to stream on video-on-demand platforms, including Prime Video and Apple TV+. It will begin streaming on Peacock on November 7.This story originally appeared in The Bite, Salon’s weekly food newsletter. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.

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Lady Mary eventually finds true love and a happy marriage with her cousin Matthew (Dan Stevens), who inconveniently dies shortly after she gives birth to their son and the estate’s heir, George. A few years later, she meets and marries Henry Talbot (Matthew Goode), with whom she has a daughter. But Henry was suspiciously absent from the events of the second “Downton” movie, “A New Era.”

The franchise’s final act, “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” reveals why in a most humiliating fashion. While Mary and the rest of the family are attending a society ball in London, its host, Lady Petersfield (Joely Richardson), interrupts the merriment to reveal she’s gotten wind of Mary’s divorce. The room literally stops, and Mary, along with her father Robert, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and mother Cora, Countess of Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern), are hastened off the dance floor.

Only they’re not quick enough – a royal arrival forces them to duck under the stairs and hide in the shadows with Mary facing the wall like the pariah she’s instantly become.

(Rory Mulvey/Focus Features) Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary, Arty Froushan as Noël Coward and Dominic West as Guy Dexter in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale”

Despite the fairy tales pop culture sells, women have greater odds of getting financially shafted in heterosexual divorces. Socially speaking, today’s divorcées have an industry supporting them, with divorce parties and registries devoted to helping single-again ladies start fresh. Women also tend to keep their closest friendships that they and their former partner mutually enjoyed, too. But not always.

Rewind to the first Gilded Age, as dramatized in HBO’s period drama named for that time, and the story’s reversed: a socialite wife may walk away from a soured union with a pile of cash and no pals to spend it with.

“Downton” creator Julian Fellowes wrote the script for “The Grand Finale,” which Simon Curtis directed; he also created “The Gilded Age,” serving as its co-showrunner.  With an aristocratic divorce heating one of that show’s third-season subplots, Fellowes was chewing on something. Divorce makes for good drama in any era, but vintage society’s unspoken rules about shunning divorced women seem simultaneously silly, bizarre and mean-spirited. Ours is an age in which women make their own fortunes and move through the world without men. Yesterday’s countesses lacked those freedoms and were bound to serve as propriety’s standard bearers. Maintaining the picture of happy partnerships and stable families was paramount. For many, that meant putting up with their spouse’s infidelities and abuses.

As long as they held onto the right name, they could wield influence and retain access to exclusive places. Divorce shredded those illusions of superiority and stability, abandoning women to shoulder the weight of scandal regardless of their loyalty.

(Karolina Wojtasik/HBO) Kelli O’Hara and Ward Horton in “The Gilded Age”

In “The Gilded Age,” it’s poor Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara), the blameless niece of old-money socialite Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), whose husband Charles (Ward Horton) announces that he’s been cheating moments before they’re scheduled to leave for the opera. He asks her to sue for divorce, but Aurora refuses, raging that doing so would mean her life as she knows it would be over.

“Things are not as they used to be,” Charles naively says. Aurora corrects him: “Among our people, things are very much as they used to be . . . Do you think I would be welcome in the circles where I am welcome now as a divorced woman?”

“Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” answers that with a hard no. Once the press gets wind that Mary’s marriage has ended, the gossip is relentless, and the one-time belle of the ball can’t rustle up so much as a small tea party. Not even the stuck-up sire in charge of the local fair wants her stink to rub off on the livestock.

While “The Gilded Age” takes place in the 1880s, the events of the third “Downton” movie occur nearly five decades later and in Britain, from which New York society copied most of its customs. The changed times became the key to Lady Mary’s salvation, since the stage and cinema also upended the social order. Being seen with actors and playwrights brought another perk of privilege. When Hollywood comes calling in “A New Era,” the franchise’s second feature, it brings a much-needed cash infusion to the Crawleys in exchange for their permission to film at the estate. The collision of worlds changes the fortunes of the family’s closeted butler, Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier), who falls in love with screen idol Guy Dexter (Dominic West).

The two happily return in “The Grand Finale” with a third player in tow, a certain celebrated and famously witty playwright.

“We’re living in the age of Noël Coward!” gushes Mary’s sister Lady Edith Hexham (Laura Carmichael), after taking in a production of “Bitter-Sweet” with Robert and Cora. She’s right. In 1930, everybody wants to get next to the sought-after playwright (played by Arty Froushan), which the Crawleys use to their advantage. They invite him and Guy, his star, to a dinner that the Crawleys’ fellow high-class neighbors initially refuse but, hello hello, are suddenly free to attend.

Aurora Fane’s fate is similarly improved by new money empress Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), who assumes hosting duties for the spectacular ball closing the summer social season in Newport, Rhode Island. Bertha wishes to end the ban on divorcées at society functions, but leaves it up to Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy), queen of New York’s elite, whose own daughter is also facing divorce, to make that call. In the end, the grand lady sides with her child, making an appearance at the party and diminishing the perceived ignominy tied to ending a marriage.

(Rory Mulvey/Focus Features) Arty Froushan as Noël Coward and Dominic West as Guy Dexter in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale”

In both stories, the social magnet of celebrity overcomes ancient traditions that don’t make sense. Our parasocial investment in stars is worlds more fervid, but now that women are also superstars, those old ways are mostly dead as long as you hold sufficient capital. The tally of women who turn out to be better off without their ex’s dead weight includes Martha Stewart; Elizabeth Gilbert, whose first marital breakup let her and us to “Eat, Pray, Love”; and Kim Kardashian, thrice divorced and still very rich both reputationally and financially.

The same goes for Halle Berry, whose dumb ex, former baseball player David Justice, recently went on a podcast and claimed he left her because the actress wasn’t sufficiently domesticated for his tastes. “I’m a Midwest guy. So in my mind, I’m thinking a wife at that time should cook, clean,” he blathered on an episode of “All the Smoke.” “. . . And at that time, as a young guy, she don’t cook, don’t clean, don’t really seem, like, motherly.”

Their divorce was finalized in 1997. Five years later, in 2002, she became the first and only Black woman to win the best actress Oscar for her performance in “Monster’s Ball.” She’s also married and divorced two more times, and still has a healthy career. Oh, and Berry’s a mother, too.

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Times have changed, but they were already shifting during the actual Gilded Age. Bertha Russell and her husband George (Morgan Spector) are based on William K. and Alva Vanderbilt, that era’s superstars. Alva instigated a society earthquake of her own by initiating a divorce from William once she’d gotten fed up with his flagrant infidelity. What happened to Mary also happened to Alva: her decision to end her marriage gained her a fortune but eradicated her public standing.

That is, until she arranged a union between her daughter, Consuelo, to the Duke of Marlborough, who, like the Earl of Grantham, was broke and in great need of a woman with a fortune. (Bertha pulls the same move with her daughter Gladys, played by Taissa Farmiga, and George is none too pleased about it.) Faced with the choice between sticking to creaky society rules and rubbing elbows with someone a degree or two removed from Queen Victoria, the cream of New York’s elite decided to make nice with Alva again.

“I blaze the trail for the rest to walk in,” Alva declared, as quoted in The Washington Post’s review of Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe’s book about the Vanderbilts. “I was the first girl of my ‘set’ to marry a Vanderbilt. Then I was the first society woman to ask for a divorce, and within a year, ever so many others had followed my example. They had been wanting a divorce all the time, but they had not dared to do it until I showed them the way.”

“Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” sets up Lady Mary to enjoy a similarly bold and happy ending. The Crawleys’ exclusive dinner with Noël Coward is an unmitigated success, crowned by Coward serenading her with his hit “Poor Little Rich Girl” and citing Mary as the inspiration for his next play.

Coward even sticks around to thrill the locals at the County Fair the next day, where her former mother-in-law, Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton), introduces her to the villagers as Downton’s new great lady. Mary does get her heart bruised again by a duplicitous Yank, but this time she doesn’t mope about it. Instead, she asserts her independence as a woman capable and happy to rule over all she surveys on her own, but assuredly not alone.

“Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

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Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, Smith's sons, issued a statement confirming Smith's death, which their publicist shared. In the statement, they write: “It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.”

Born in Ilford, on the outskirts of London in 1934, Smith once said of her life, “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting," per the AP. She began an apprenticeship at the Oxford Playhouse School when her father was given a wartime assignment in Oxford. She was cast in Laurence Olivier's "Othello" in 1965 after the director recruited her to be part of his National Theater Company. 

It was Smith's portrayal of an Edinburgh school teacher in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" that earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress, as well as the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) in 1969. She went on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for "California Suite" in 1978, (which also saw her win a Golden Globe Award), and additional BAFTAs for her leading role in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988. Smith also received numerous Oscar nominations as a supporting actress for her roles in "Othello," “Room with a View,” “Travels with My Aunt" and “Gosford Park." She won a Tony Award in 1990 for Peter Shaffer's play, "Lettice and Lovage." That same year, she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire — the equivalent of a knight. 

When asked why she took on the role of a wizard professor in the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling's hugely popular book series, Smith simply said, “Harry Potter is my pension.”

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Aside from Nicole’s lovely story (and subsequent win!), I didn’t find anything especially exciting about it, from the conceptualization of the challenge to the food itself. We learned a bit about Amar’s mom, we saw some really good attitude and team player abilities from Dale, Sara delivered some fun confessionals and Ali was as wholesome as ever, but the overall 75-minute episode was . . . uneventful.

Padma drops in and the conclusion of “Last Chance Kitchen” (Round 1)

Sylwia and Charbel discuss how Charbel had never been on the bottom, and I’m still not sure of the relevance of that conversation, but I’m a Charbel fan, so I hope it bodes well. The “Padma stops by out of nowhere” trope is always fun and I liked seeing the cheftestants maraud through the halls letting their fellow competitors know that they should go downstairs. Unbeknownst to them, it’s the final round of “Last Chance Kitchen,” which (also) isn’t very fun to watch.

The two chefs trying to make it back to the competition are challenged to make a three-tiered British afternoon tea tower, complete with scones, tea sandwiches, pastries and the like. Padma and Tom would have one vote and the remaining cheftestants would also have a collective vote. 

Begoña seems “off” right from the jump. I think she’s a prime example of a mind-boggling talented chef who just may not fare especially well in the competitive format (especially one that abides by U.S. rules). The timing seems to get to her repeatedly throughout the competition and aside from her dish week 1 and her collaborative winning dish with Gabri in Episode 2, she seems to flounder a bit. I feel bad for her once she’s unable to plate an entire dish (and those eclairs!) Dale handily wins and is light, breezy and humble as can be throughout the rest of the episode. He also gets a hug from Padma, so win-win!

Nicole Gomes, Victoire Gouloubi, Begoña Rodrigo, Dale MacKay, Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi on “Top Chef: World All Stars” (David Moir/Bravo)

An elevated “Downton” picnic

Here’s where else I struggled with this episode. The rules of the elimination challenge are convoluted and silly. I can’t stand a challenge that sets up the competitors to fail and while only a few wind up fumbling, this is a poorly designed elimination challenge right off the bat: The cheftestants are asked to make a picnic dish that’s easy to eat yet elevated, but it has to be served room temperature and has to sit overnight prior to being served. The shopping is interesting because the cheftestants are offered time and money at two locations this time around: the requisite Whole Foods, as well as Fortnum & Mason, a super-upscale establishment that was apparently the Queen’s favorite (the carpeted floors!).

The location of the elimination challenge picnic, Highclere Castle was constructed back in the 1600s (!) before being renovated in the mid-1800s. It’s now best known (as we were repeatedly told) as being the filming location for “Downton Abbey.”

Gabriel Rodriguez, Tom Goetter, Sylwia Stachyra, Amar Santana, Ali Al Ghzawi in “Top Chef: World All Stars” (David Moir/Bravo)

Our cheftestants split into two groups. One consists of Dale (with immunity from his “Last Chance Kitchen” Quickfire win), Sara, Buddha, Nicole, Charbel and Victoire, and the other consists of Amar, Ali, Gabri, Tom and Sylwia. It’s a blink and you miss it moment, but the budding Sara/Buddha tension (which we also saw a bit of in the last episode) is a compelling subplot. I wonder what that’s setting up? Otherwise, everyone else amicably decides on their dishes overall without much fanfare or conflict.

The shop is a bit contentious, with lots of references and confessionals to Tom’s spending habits. I think the most egregious is when he asks Sylwia if she “really needed” one of her items, which is pretty asinine knowing all that he had already purchased with the limited joint budget.

Tom’s fluctuating energy (either humorous and lax or very tense and irritable) continues to fascinate me. Sylwia’s oddly conceptualized dish consisting of potato, chicken and sausage over a muffin of sorts (?) and a sweet lemon posset on top is a mishap from the start. It’s also fascinating to see the cheftestants pivot to take the picnic basket packing into consideration timing-wise.

Nicole is wonderfully candid, revealing that this is her third time doing “Top Chef” and for her, “It’s all about the money” because she’s gotten approved for adoption, but is waiting on a final payment. There “is a child waiting in Hanoi, Vietnam,” and Nicole hopes to be able to use the winnings to finalize the adoption.

I love the honesty this whacky cooking show sometimes taps into, which for me, oftentimes feels rawer and more genuine than most other reality shows — even in its 20th season and as many other competitive reality shows go down well-worn paths full of platitudes and placeholders.

Gabriel Rodriguez, Tom Goetter and Sylwia Stachyra on “Top Chef: World All Stars” (David Moir/Bravo)

Picnic time and judges’ table

Gabri’s dish of a smoked fish tostada with compressed watermelon sounds fantastic, but his execution iss lacking. Charbel’s mezze is very simple, but super visually striking. Ali’s dish gets a good review, which is odd since day-old lettuce and muhammarra would be strange from a textural perspective, but the judges love it. Sara’s dish — as usual — sounds terrific (a side dish of broccolini, cheeses and cured meats) but it doesn’t garner much attention. Victoire hardly has any screen time overall, but makes a foie gras mousse wrapped in a cabbage leaf.

Tom “begrudgingly” likes Nicole’s dish, a Niçoise-like dish with salmon instead of tuna. I feel like we haven’t seen Tom complain like that in a few seasons, but it’s fascinating to see that he’s proven wrong (much like the okra debacles from the earlier seasons). Nicole wins the elimination challenge, officially giving her enough money for the final installment of the adoption money: hooray! It’s such a lovely win and story.

Competition-wise, I’m also intrigued by how this season is shaping up; there’s no Kristin Kish, Brooke Williamson or Paul Qui with a meteoric run of consistent wins. There’s no clear “bottom feeders” — it really seems like the high level of talent has allowed the wins to be evenly dispersed amongst the group. One thing is for sure, nearly halfway through the season: There is no far-and-away winner here . . . at least not yet. 

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BFFs Amar and Ali are called out as being the only successful dishes on their (losing) team, with Sylwia and Tom on the bottom and Gabri in the middle. Unfortunately, Sylwia’s dish is odd and ill-conceived while Tom’s “cioppino salad” is deemed overly ambitious.

Sylwia is seemingly accepting of her place in the bottom, while Tom is disappointed with himself. Unlike most episodes, though, Padma switches it up, telling Sylwia and Tom to “please come with me.” They follow her around the bend and behind the castle, where we see a kitchen set up, and everyone immediately discerns there will be a cook-off.

So herein lies my other issue: I’m never fond of inexplicable “twists” or formatting changes; why a Bottom 2? Why this week’s episode?  Furthermore, to take it back even further, the kitchen for the “Last Chance Kitchen” returnees is right on the other side of the castle, so why not let the cheftestants have another half hour or so prior to service to finalize the dishes, instead of everyone’s serving soggy, day-old food? I’m just not grasping it. 

We’re left to believe that one cheftestant will go home while the other will be the first person to enter the next round of “Last Chance Kitchen” for yet another second chance. I think I’m rooting for Tom, but I wouldn’t be disappointed to see Sylwia pull out a win. 

After dinner mints

The dishes in the promo for next week look stunning. 

This is the second episode in a row in which Tom references “over-cheffing.” I’m intrigued to see if this keeps up throughout the season. 

This challenge is yet another example of how simplicity really does always seem to work best on modern “Top Chef.”

Until next time! 

“Top Chef: World All Stars” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Bravo and streams next day on Peacock.

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“It was all shelves all the way around,” Alana, the manager of the castle grounds, explained to me in her enchanting Irish accent. “They ripened in the turret, which was mad.”

Stored alongside the apples in the turret were pears, which were picked before they fell off the tree. Many would not see the light of day until the holidays.

On my first night at Clonbrock, Alana served an apple tart topped with freshly whipped cream after dinner. It only took one bite to comprehend that I had just sunk my teeth into best pastry crust I’d ever eaten. Made from cooking apples from the orchards of the castle grounds, it was a true farm-to-table wonder. A beautiful golden color, the pastry itself was incredibly flaky, almost stealing the spotlight from the perfectly tender apples.

I was amazed to learn that there were just five ingredients used to make this thing of wonder. And I knew I had one objective for the week ahead: Cooking class would be called to order.

“The thing about pastry is you have to get your exact measurements,” Alana explained one particularly cold afternoon as I walked into the kitchen with my friend Jason. 

In order to form the pastry, you need three ingredients: ice-cold water, six ounces of all-purpose wheat flour, and eight ounces of cold butter. But not just any butter could be used, and it would not be unsalted butter. That was not worth the drive to Tesco’s. 

The addition of Irish butter transforms the color, flavor, and texture of the pastry. Irish butter is creamier than American butter, sweeter in flavor ,and has a distinct yellow color, because it is produced from grass-fed cows and has a higher butterfat content. 

To begin, you run the flour through a sieve to smooth out the product and remove any excess air. Next, you cube the butter. Using your hands or a food processor, you then mash the two ingredients together until you achieve the consistency of breadcrumbs.

Now, you are ready to add the water. Add a small amount at a time until the dough comes together. The dough will become slightly sticky, but it should never get slimy or wet. If it becomes too damp, it will disintegrate in the oven. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead it with the palm of your hands about four or five times until it comes together in a firm ball. Finally, rest it in the fridge for at least an hour to maintain coolness.

The keys to rolling a successful crust are threefold: work with cold dough, do not overwork your dough, and shoot for about a quarter of an inch in thickness for your crust.

In order to make an apple tart, core four to five large apples, and slice them into thin pieces. After rolling your pastry crust into a nonstick pie tin, line the outer circle with slices of apples. Continue to add circular layers until you reach the center of the pan, achieving the effect of the rose. Top with excess apples; four ounces of cubed, cold butter; and sugar. Bake for 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 375 degrees.

Later that week, Alana would teach another master class — this time on Irish brown bread. That recipe is included below.

***

Recipe: Alana’s Irish Brown Bread

Makes one loaf

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon of pinhead oats, plus more for topping (also known as steel cut, or Irish, oats)
• 1 tablespoon of wheat germ
• 1 egg
• Buttermilk (see recipe note for amount)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of bread soda (baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate)
• 1 teaspoon of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Sunflower oil (for pan greasing)

Cooking instructions: 

1. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius (about 400 degrees Fahrenheit).

2. Stir dry ingredients in large mixing bowl.

3. Crack egg into dry ingredients and mix.

4. Slowly mix in buttermilk until batter is wet. (The consistency is similar to a thick American oatmeal. In Alana’s words: “As much liquid until it’s sloppy. It will nearly pour off your spoon; it’s really wet.”)

5. Grease a nonstick steel loaf pan with sunflower oil.

6. Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes.

7. Sprinkle extra pin oats across the top as batter begins to set.

8. Knock on bread. If it sounds hollow, pop out the loaf and turn it over in the pan. Bake for another 10 minutes, or until the bottom is crispy. (As Alana says, “Nobody likes a soggy bottom.”)

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Not to be overlooked, however, is Ed Speleers. The name may not be familiar, but the face may jog your memory. A few years ago Speleers was best known as “Downton Abbey” footman Jimmy Kent, “a vain and silly flirt” fired for bedding one of his betters. “Outlander” transformed him from a pretty, vapid romantic into a sinister pirate.

The two major characters he currently plays on Netflix’s “You” and Paramount + series “Picard” draw cards from each of those decks, but more pertinent to the topic at hand are the entirely coincidental similarities shared by his “You” author Rhys Montrose and “Picard’s” Jack Crusher: both are charmers who aren’t entirely in control of their actions and, therefore, can claim they aren’t responsible for the terrible things they do.

Granted, the two shows are starkly dissimilar. “Picard” is a futuristic space adventure, while the fourth season of “You” continues the story of Penn Badgley‘s stalker serial killer Joe Goldberg in present-day London. There Joe embarks on a fresh start as a college professor named Jonathan Moore. As Jonathan, Joe finds Rhys to be the most approachable figure in the upper-class social circle he falls in with. The title of Rhys’ bestseller, “A Good Man in a Cruel World,” speaks directly to Joe’s quest to leave his predatory sadism in his past.  

The latest “Picard” episode, “No Win Scenario,” finds Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and a starship’s crew fighting to survive beyond the border of Federation space. The mess they’re in is partly Jack’s fault since his reputation as a smuggler and con artist makes him a wanted man. The only reason the crew of USS Titan hasn’t handed him over to a bounty hunter who has them massively outgunned is that Picard announced that he’s Jack’s father.

Ed Speelers as Jack in “Disengage” in “Star Trek: Picard” (Trae Patton/Paramount+)

Jack is also transparent about his criminality. Despite this, the latest episode closes with a hint that Jack is hiding a secret: some red-tentacled menace lurks inside of him, and may be overtaking his consciousness.

“You” viewers also may have suspected that Rhys is too good to be true. Sure enough, a midseason twist reveals Speleers’ man as the season’s villain compelling Badgley’s Jonathan to do his worst or suffer the consequences.

Rhys’ and Jack’s divided personalities aren’t outliers in the realm of ambitious deceivers, especially at this moment. Our fixation with the Murdaugh trial and the bodies connected to his family explains why characters like this can have a hold on us. The sheer audacity with which Alex Murdaugh, his family, and their accomplices asserted their power and privilege in their South Carolina town is astonishing, certainly.

We may be even more amazed that he was convicted of murdering his son Paul and wife Maggie, especially since part of his lawyer’s early defense is that his client’s unbridled opioid addiction clouded his reasoning. “Your honor, this behavior does not reflect who I truly am,” is a common defense employed by the moneyed and powerful.

Other versions of such characters are astounding enough in their bravado that the harm done by their lies is almost completely outstripped by the extremity of their self-deception. That’s why New York congressman George Santos shows no signs of boring the public. He’s lied so profusely and assumed so many false personas that he can’t seem to keep up with his falsehoods. We continue to pay attention in part because we don’t want to miss the moment when the put-on crumbles. The bigger question is, does he even know who that person is?

All this represents a natural progression from our captivation with grifters, which has had audiences in its thrall since the hugest huckster of our time conned his way into the Oval Office in 2016. He fooled millions, but that man knows himself and what he’s doing.

When Santos loses his office we’ll probably lose interest in him too. But a grifter’s pull is eternal owing to their association with panache and cleverness. The popularity of ABC’s “The Company You Keep” proves this. But even that show’s blend of family drama and glamorous heists hinges its tension on the presumption that the lovers at the center of its game, Milo Ventimiglia’s Charlie and Catherine Haena Kim’s Emma, are fooling themselves.

Charlie is a thief who assumes false identities; Emma’s a CIA agent forbidden to tell anyone, including her family, what she does. Their relationship, such as it is, is based on compartmentalizing their desire for each other from the familial and career obligations intrinsic to who they are. There’s no way it can work in the long term without someone’s mask dropping. 

But its tension is circumstantial. The aggression Rhys wages in “You” and Jack is barely keeping at bay is, in a real way, part of an internalized war, like the psychological conflict driving Bill Hader’s ex-Marine hitman over the edge in “Barry.”

Hader’s Barry Berkman also tried to free himself from a murderous path by persuading himself that he could make a new life out of a character of his imagining, that of a nice, safe guy and a solid boyfriend to Sally Reed (Sarah Goldberg). As it turns out, Sally is also bent on dramatizing her way into a life that’s better than her old one, a disturbing chapter shaped by abuse. The darkness with them doesn’t make that possible, and in the third season, Sally loses the limited professional standing she gains when she’s recorded abusing a former colleague, while Barry is now in prison.

Bill Hader in “Barry” (Merrick Morton/ HBO)

Speleers’ characters are more eloquent and skilled at performing empathy. Since he’s wearing their costumes that also means they’re also golden-haired white guys with British accents. To American audiences the English accent still confers both authority and the assumption of elitism. When it comes out the mouth of a handsome devil who can wear the hell out of suit, beware.

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Speleers, who naturally wields both of these figurative disarming devices, easily persuades the viewer of Jack’s inherent heroism or the notion Rhys Montrose could sell the London Bridge to voters by sneering a little. He does much more than that, mind you, to the point that in “You,” Rhys’ off-the-charts appeal makes him a threat to another white guy with power and political influence on a global scale.

But he’s also a model of self-deceit that colors Rhys’, the real Rhys, and the ultimate purpose served by the one we know with minatory tragedy. Something similar may be afoot with Jack.

If a part of us is cheering for Barry or understands Sally, Rhys and Jack, it could be that we recognize them as versions of the classic “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” horror, an allusion to which “You” points in the second half of this season. Blacking out, and behaving in ways we don’t remember and may be shocked to be told about when we’re sober. All of us harbor some fear of being overtaken by a shadowy alter ego that rampages in our name.

Then again, those hidden personalities are also a means of escaping accountability. If we don’t know these hidden selves exist, how can we accept the blame for their crimes?

The upcoming fourth and final season of “Barry” was announced with a trailer that shows Barry in prison, for now. He’s the hero of his show and, at least for a time, made an honest if doomed effort to be a better person. More importantly, Hader plays Barry persuasively, daring us to like the guy and desire his escape despite his murderous rages. 

We may not feel the same about Rhys on “You,” whose hold on Joe and effect on the people around him places him in a position to do damage on a broader scale. Whatever impact the duplicity gestating on “Picard” has yet to be revealed, but the view is already inclined to have sympathy for Jack purely based on his parental drama.

Speleers’ performance and persuasive mug lend both characters an air of credibility and danger in a way that indicates he understands how his physicality fits what these men represent. Hopefully, the actor is having as good of a time not being himself as one imagines the audience is in watching him.

All episodes of “You” are currently streaming on Netflix. New episodes of the third and final season of “Picard” stream Thursdays on Paramount +.

The post From “You” to “Barry,” we’re fascinated by audacious grifters: The man who deceives us and himself appeared first on Salon.com.

The period between 2010 and 2019 was once defined by the term Peak TV, but that was before streaming platforms that did not yet exist leapt into our lives. Now the term feels inaccurate, if not outdated. Television shows no signs of peaking. Not yet.

There’s a positive side to this: So many TV options means there was a lot of extraordinary TV to choose from. There’s a surfeit of mediocrity along with that, of course, but even the act of sorting that chaff was pleasing. And I say this as a person who, need I remind you, dreads the annual tradition of year-end lists.

That means the usual caveats apply: One, all lists are subjective, and obviously this one is no different. Your absolute best show of all time may not be on this list. That doesn’t mean it’s not good; it merely didn’t make my top 15.

Two, this list favors series that aired the majority of their episodes between January 1, 2010 and now, and premiered their first episodes close to 2010. This means you will not find two of the greatest series ever on this list: “Breaking Bad,” which debuted in 2008,  and “Mad Men,” which premiered in 2007.  I feel like their magnificence needs no further burnishing from the likes of me.

That said, they’re shoo-ins on any list of best episodes of the last decade, which may be forthcoming. (FML.) For the same reason you’re not going to find “BoJack Horseman” on my main list, or “Rick and Morty,” “Archer” or “Bob’s Burgers,” even though I love those shows. Again, additional validation from me is not required. (Skip to the honorable mentions section to find them.)

Lastly: Why yes, I did indeed snub “Game of Thrones” — a groundbreaking work of technical brilliance buoyed by extraordinary characters and a few incredible performances, but one that was unevenly written and downright infuriating at times for a variety of reasons.

Still with me? Cool. Here we go.

15. “Downton Abbey,” PBS. (2010-2015)

Who could have predicted that PBS’ most popular scripted series in decades would grow into a full-blown international phenomenon over the course of the decade? Hindsight being 20/20, it bore all the markers of a broad-appealing TV hit: love, rivalry, reputation-shattering secrets and betrayals, all playing out through an old-fashioned upstairs- downstairs period piece about post- Victorian upper class life in Britain.

Differentiating “Downton Abbey” from the majority of its comparatively staider “Masterpiece” relatives is creator Julian Fellowes’ crisp, shady wit, the lioness’ share delivered by way of Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, along with its thoughtful, elegant and quite fantastical examination of class dynamics.

In examining the ways that changing economic realities were leading to the decline of the aristocracy, it also navigated viewers through the servants quarters, their personal hopes and aspirations, and their own struggles to find their way in a quickly changing social landscape.   Fellowes gifted us this by way of touching portraits of humanity, even within the smallest interactions. No wonder the 2019 film set hearts aflutter: the reality of that era must have looked quite different and half as beautiful. But in this time of chaos and casual evil, one can’t be blamed for taking refuge with the Crawleys.

14. “Hannibal,” NBC (2013-2015)

Frankly it’s amazing that the grisly, gorgeous world of Bryan Fuller’s “Hannibal” made it to network television, let alone lasted for three seasons. There’s no questioning why NBC brought it to primetime – Hannibal Lecter (seductively interpreted by Mads Mikkelsen) is one of the 20^th century’s most recognizable villains, and Fuller outdid himself in bringing him into the 21^st.

Fuller treats the story and the fractured psyche of protagonist Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) as an opportunity to transform high definition TVs into a canvas, using every shade and CG trick imaginable to evoke simultaneous wonder, horror, repulsion and hunger. For as much as “Hannibal” is a stunning procedural, it is also, in its very twisted way, extraordinary gourmet food porn.

Leaves shivering on trees take on an ominous implication, but so does a tight focus on white cream swirling in sensuous tendrils through black coffee. Blood spatters become art, viscera becomes a still life – and somehow, queasily, the preparation of a victim’s body part can look delicious. There may never be another show like it on TV . . . thank goodness?

13. “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Logo/Vh1 (2009-?)

So what if RuPaul Charles and World of Wonder didn’t exactly break the mold in the inventiveness department? (Basically it’s the beautiful love child of “Project Runway” and “America’s Next Top Model.”) No other series has done more to celebrate and elevate the artistry of drag performance, along with turning a spotlight on the discrimination, trauma and injustice that LGBTQ people face simply for being true to themselves.

When “Drag Race” is at its best (i.e., in its early seasons) its contestants inspired viewers with their extraordinary artistry, slicing one-liners and wrenching vulnerability. But I’d also argue that its stumbles provided lessons, too. The series’ tone-deafness on its treatment of transgender issues – its classic mailroom call being the worst example of that – mainstreamed the conversation about respecting trans men and women, and it’s one of the earliest broadly-cast conversations I can recall that sparked awareness about gender identity and proper usage of pronouns. Putting aside its political relevance and appeal, it’s simply a series that inspires everyone who watches to feel better, do better, and love themselves. Because if you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?

12. “Parks and Recreation,” NBC (2009-2015)

Modern workplace comedies don’t usually get many points for sweet earnestness. Nevertheless, these very qualities fuel this NBC comedy that gifted us with idealist Leslie Knope, Amy Poehler’s cheerfully, solutions-driven bureaucrat who went to ridiculous lengths to do the right thing and keep her loved ones happy – a desire to spread goodness that eventually leads her to seek office.

But the stalwart, prematurely grizzled Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) is the cement that holds the Pawnee Parks Department gang together through every development in Leslie’s political life, even after she meets and falls in love with Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott).

“Parks” boasted a broad ensemble of actors who have achieved greater fame since the show went off the air, including Retta, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza, and Chris Pratt. What keeps people returning to the series, or seeking it out for a first look,  is its relentless faith in people like Leslie who deeply believe they were put on Earth to make their small corner of it more efficient, fairer and better.

11. “The Good Place,” NBC (2016-2019)

Our Michael Schur tribute section continues with the “Parks & Recreation” creator’s next mission to bring joy into the universe, and a true surprise in the realm of broadcast TV: an afterlife comedy starring Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, D’Arcy Carden, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, and Manny Jacinto as a group of misfits traveling through realities on an odyssey to find redemption – first for their souls and now, for all of humanity.

“The Good Place” really shouldn’t work as a network comedy. Its existential themes quote moral philosophy and play out their principles week by week, eventually stumbling upon some of the bigger existential quandaries of our time. And yet it does work due to the writers’ commitment to keeping the story bound and rooted to very simple truths – that we are connected to each other, that even the worst of us are capable of becoming better versions of ourselves, and all that we owe to each other is our best efforts to be good.

. . . Damn, I’m going to miss this show.

10. “Atlanta,” FX (2016-?)

Donald Glover holds the unique position of starring in two of the decade’s best half-hours. Granting a place to this one over “Community” feels right, owing to Glover’s willingness to shatter the thematic restrictions of what a half-hour must be.

Where the first season feels like a dreamy cinema verité comedy about struggling hip-hop artists in Atlanta, Season 2 raises the bar with its “Robbin’ Season,” a series of stories in which its characters are robbed time and again, materially or figuratively.

Glover’s Earn can only take his ambition so far in an industry and a country that limits the social and economic ascension of black Americans to a select few. Lakeith Stanfield’s Darius finds creative solutions to circumventing those barriers, but even those sometimes trap him in a murder house. Zazie Beetz’s Van struggles between her love for Earn, the father of her child, and her need to transcend the limits of their small circle. And Brian Tyree Henry’s Alfred wants his hip-hop career to flourish but is unwilling to sacrifice the truth of who he is.

For these reasons I referred to “Robbin’ Season” as a translator that demystifies and explains the black experience to white viewers, but honestly that applies to the entire series. FX has picked up a third and fourth season of the series, but it has been on hiatus since 2018 – and is one of the few series whose absence has been felt.

9. “The Good Wife, ” CBS (2009-2016)

Robert and Michelle King introduced the world to Julianna Margulies’ Alicia Florrick in the wake of a number of scandals involving philandering politicians and the accompanying photos of the dutiful spouses standing by them. In our post-Stormy Daniels world, the fact that we found such political dish scandalous feels quaint somehow.

Soon enough, Alicia pushes her husband out of the spotlight as she throws a few haymakers in the law firm where she returns to work; in the media that seeks to paint her as either a fool or a corroborator, with a man who compromised his office (again, it was another time!) and at home, where her marriage enters a precarious new period. Between Margulies, Chris Noth, Christine Baranski, and Archie Panjabi’s quietly intimidating investigator Kalinda Sharma, the performances make this drama one of best of its time.

8. “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” FX (2016)

Each best of the decade list is subjective, but from my point of view it is impossible to refrain from including Ryan Murphy’s first installment in his “American Crime Story” anthology series. On the ephemeral end it provides us a fleeting look at what my predecessor coyly refers to as the origin story of the Kardashians, the modern era’s most resilient reality TV family and brand.

But although the series premiered nearly 22 years after O.J. Simpson’s fateful Bronco chases, it came to us only two years after the fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson sparked waves of protests in Ferguson, Mo.

Simpson’s murder trial, as portrayed by a cast led by Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J. Simpson; Sarah Paulson and Sterling K. Brown as prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden – and with Courtney B. Vance, David Schwimmer, and John Travolta as defense attorneys Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, and Robert Shapiro, respectively – dominated news headlines for more than a year. It is credited for juicing up the 24-hour cable news industry and tabloid journalism. The long view of history also marks it as the modern era’s first major example of the inequities within the justice system and lingering animus surrounding race relations, wealth disparity, and the public’s dismissal of domestic violence.

These elements nimbly play out within “The People v. O.J. Simpson’s” 10 episodes alongside issues such as gender and cultural bias in the workplace, and intra-racial tension within the African-American community. And if we’d been paying attention, we might also have seen it as a predictor of how the coming years might shape up.

7. “Justified,” FX (2010-2015)

In spinning off a character from a short story by Elmore Leonard, executive producer Graham Yost created one of the most intriguing exciting lawmen on television: Raylan Givens. But it took Timothy Olyphant’s quietly fierce performance to take the U.S. Marshal Givens beyond a mere ode to Western-style justice and into the modern age.

Olyphant and the writers left room for Givens to grow beyond simple anger into a world-weariness one; to read it, the difference may seem subtle, but Olyphant makes it palpable through his numerous clashes with local criminal Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) and his many ways of frustrating his boss Art Mullen (Nick Searcy). Equal to Raylan’s glorious smolder are the villains he faced, none more fascinating than Margo Martindale’s mining town crime boss Mags Bennett.

Martindale made Mags easy to like but dangerous to trust, and her contentious face-offs with Raylan, rooted in an intergenerational rivalry between her family and his, often began with friendly conversation and, perhaps, an offer to sample Mags’ legendary Apple Pie moonshine. Like the woman herself, the drink occasionally masked a deadly poison. That did not stop people from agreeing to a glass of it – and wanting more long after she was gone.

6.”Insecure,” HBO (2016-?)

Issa Rae is far from the first YouTube star to cross over to TV, but she might be one of the most creative and emotionally intelligent web series stars to make a mark in the auteur TV space.

The ongoing adventures of Issa, her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji) and the cast of friends surrounding them helped establish a forum for the voices of young black women to be heard, appreciated and more than this, understood. Considering that TV has tended to favor the stories of single white women over and over again, Rae’s honest and bracingly hilarious stories are refreshing and somewhat revolutionary.

At the same time, Rae and her writers refuse to shy away from the realities facing black professionals in larger cities such as Los Angeles, where traditional outposts for black culture are gentrifying hastily, leaving fewer affordable places for 20-somethings like Issa to live. Where the characters on “Girls” have the luxury of navel-gazing and finding themselves, Issa and Molly have to focus on forward movement.

Nevertheless, “Insecure” finds insistent joy in contemplating the direction Issa and Molly are taking, together and separately, in stories blessed by stunning cinematography and an addictive soundtrack.

5. “Rectify,” Sundance TV (2013-2016)

Sundance’s first original scripted series lasted four seasons, each one of them a gift – in no small part owing to the fact that it was so low rated that the cable channel would have been well within its rights to cancel it.

Sometimes a piece of art is so powerful that the usual business concerns take a back seat. So it was, thankfully, with Ray McKinnon’s story of Aden Young’s Daniel Holden, a man imprisoned as a teenager for the rape and murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend, Hanna, and left lingering on death row until his sentence is vacated nearly two decades later.

“Rectify” is a family story and a redemption tale merged into a complex and lovely tale that intersects reality and doubt. Daniel’s life is an ethereal, dreamlike place that crashes in uncomfortable ways against the stony brutality of his hometown’s suspicion. It ended in a place of uncertainty and benediction for its characters.

As I previously wrote, “that it existed at all — and leaves four tremendous seasons to savor and contemplate — is its own lovely blessing.”

4. “Better Call Saul,” AMC (2015-?)

A shared theme among some of the best series in recent years is the concept of redemption. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s “Breaking Bad” prequel show us what happens when a man like Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill finds his every effort to become a better man thwarted.

But that doesn’t only apply to Jimmy, either. In the most recent season Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler became a fan favorite simply by playing the stand-in for people everywhere who devote themselves to hard work and have little to show for it.

Whether Slippin’ Jimmy is pushed down by his pathologically envious and sadistic brother Chuck (Michael McKean) or cannot help but succumb to his addiction to grifting, viewers somehow never lose their taste for the guy, even though we all know what kind of man Jimmy is destined to become.

And in choosing to end its current season with a scene that reveals us all to be his marks, the series creators place “Better Call Saul” in the minuscule league of spinoffs that very well may end up being better than the series from which it originates.

3. “Fleabag,” Amazon. (2016-2019)

What an amazing double act. In its first season Phoebe Waller-Bridge introduces us to her heroine whose true name is never mentioned, and sells us on the image she projects as a cool, nihilistic sex machine. By actively seducing us by breaking the fourth wall in the middle of conversations to reveal what she’s really thinking, she makes us accomplices to her willful insouciance, making the finale’s reveal utterly gutting.

How on earth does a woman follow that? With a redemption story that leaves us in a state of grace and affirmed in our humanity. And Fleabag achieves this by, yes, romantically pursuing a Hot Priest. The attraction here is less about the taboo nature of her focused desire but the realization that Fleabag and Hot Priest (played by Andrew Scott) share a level of true affection few people ever experience. Not only does he see through her B.S., he can also tell when she’s breaking the fourth wall to confide in the unseen viewer, robbing her of any emotional hiding place.

Left with no choice but to be genuine and honest with each other, the pair surrender to the inevitable truth that sometimes the most divine aspects of living, like finding true love, are more important than adhering to dogma. And in its sacrilegious way, this makes “Fleabag” one of the television’s most sacred works of, if not humanism, then maybe the church of the human heart.

 2. “The Americans,” FX (2013-2018)

FX’s ’80s-era Cold War spy thriller came on the scene before Russia interfered in our elections and the current president declared his love for its leader Vladimir Putin. A nostalgic soundtrack, retro wardrobe, and one of the craziest wig collections TV has ever seen in action granted it a certain kitsch factor. But the seriousness with which Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields treated it as a study of a marriage under pressure for Keri Russell’s Elizabeth Jennings and Matthew Rhys’ Phillip Jennings bestowed a certain timelessness upon it.

And their effort to walking that finest of lines between loyalty to their family, especially their children, and loyalty to Mother Russia led them to do terrible things. To survive, yes, but sometimes to achieve vengeance. Quite often the deaths in the series felt sudden, heartless, and cruel, constantly reminding the viewer that this drama is as far from a romance as one can get.

Even so, it managed to tie up the story that remained true to the series’ original intentions while serving up a couple of painful surprises, a feat few series manage to pull off.

1. “The Leftovers,” HBO (2014-2017)

How can I summarize this show’s brilliance differently from how I have already? I can’t , so why not just repeat: This is the first drama to capture, directly and metaphorically, what it’s like to grieve on a massive scale, in all its horror and humor and wonder and gloom.

And what is the story of our time if not one of worldwide grieving? Of course that’s the story of any year – light and loss are always present, and to know this is to embrace the sting and glory of being human.

Memorable episodes of “The Leftovers” take on a dreamlike and even an unapologetic silliness, but the soul of this series is feeling. And I mean feeling it all – joy and complete despair, confusion and absolute anger. What it leaves us with in the end is the choice of what to do with those feelings, and the knowledge that even if there is some way to connect with the people we lose, sometimes the kinder move is to find comfort and closeness with the people who are with us now, whether they be at an arm’s length or on the other side of the world, hiding in the Australian wilderness.

“We can’t just be going through all of this for nothing,” a character blurts out, maybe echoing some frustration about the series or maybe simply speaking a truth about the human condition. The beautiful message of this series is that it doesn’t offer any solid answers, only the invitation to find our own reasons.

Obligatory shout-out:

“Terriers,” FX (2010)

One of the mottos the heroes of this shaggy dog P.I. series adopted was that they were “too small to fail.” Sadly it did: “Terriers” is a one-season wonder, canceled due to depressingly low ratings. It also happens to one of the most consistently smart, surprising, and heartbreaking little shows to ever grace the small screen, thanks to stellar performances by stars Michael Raymond-James and Donal Logue. We’ll never know what it could have become . . . but we hope more people have a chance to appreciate what it was.

Very honorable mentions: “Key & Peele,” Comedy Central. “Broad City,” Comedy Central. “Drunk History,” Comedy Central. “BoJack Horseman,” Netflix. “Orange is the New Black,” Netflix. “Spartacus,” Starz.” “Banshee,” Cinemax. “Portlandia,” IFC. “Luther,” BBC America. “Orphan Black,” BBC America. “Rick and Morty,” Adult Swim. “Archer,” FX. “Better Things,” FX. “Boardwalk Empire,” HBO. “Bob’s Burgers,” Fox.

We had some good times for a while there: “The Walking Dead,” AMC. “Game of Thrones,” HBO. “Revenge,” ABC. “Pretty Little Liars,” ABC Family.

The post Best TV of the Decade, from 2010 to 2019 appeared first on Salon.com.

A century ago, as the stock market crash of 1929 approached, it was clear major societal change was afoot. Fascism was on the rise as people’s economic security grew ever more precarious — hm, relatable — and even in the escapist soap opera of “Downton Abbey,” the moneyed Crawley family could feel it coming. 

In “A New Era,” the TV hit’s second feature film (streaming now on Peacock and out on Blu-ray and DVD on July 5), head of household Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) — already trailblazing, being a woman and all — invites a film crew to shoot a silent movie at Downton in 1928. Though at one time it would have been unheard of to stoop below her blue-blooded heritage and fraternize with showbiz professionals, Lady Mary knows that Downton is an expensive estate to run. The additional income will help keep the storied manor in top condition as the Crawleys’ peers are forced to sell off their own property to stay afloat.

Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern star as Robert and Cora Grantham, Robert James Collier as Thomas Barrow, Phyllis Logan as Mrs. Hughes and Jim Carter as Mr. Carson in Downton Abbey: A New Era (Ben Blackall / © 2022 Focus Features)

That willingness to adopt new ways – the upper classes used to only patronize the arts, not benefit from what was seen as common trade or labor – is what ensures the Crawleys are set up to survive the forthcoming economic downturn (though they don’t know exactly what’s headed their way). In 2022, similar economic and political conditions mean that the status quo — a minimum wage that hasn’t budged in more than a decade; a Supreme Court striking down decades of precedent in one session — just isn’t going to cut it anymore, either. Beyoncé is “looking for a new foundation,” and so are the people today.

RELATED: Hugh Bonneville on the enduring charm of “Downton Abbey”

The “Downton Abbey” cast and crew spoke to Salon about what it takes for progress to happen and insights from the franchise itself.

“It’s cyclical,” explains star Raquel Cassidy, who plays a lady’s maid in the franchise. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons why ‘Downton’ is so popular — or any of these period dramas — because we can see it all happening, but it’s that far away and therefore, although we’re moved by it or appalled by it or whatever, it’s still at a distance. So it’s not quite so raw.”

But why does it seem like we’re facing the same struggles as 100 years ago? And how do we prevent the same issues from popping up in another century? 

“The history of mankind proves that we never learn anything or else we wouldn’t be in this state with Ukraine now, would we? The state of progress is agonizingly slow,” says Jim Carter, aka the esteemed butler Mr. Carson. “We’ve got rail strikes today in the same way as we had them in the ’70s. I’m not pointing a finger of blame there, but self-interest wins out all the time, I’m afraid.”

Phyllis Logan stars as Mrs. Hughes and Jim Carter as Mr. Carson in Downton Abbey: A New Era (Ben Blackall / © 2022 Focus Features)In reality, progress is slow, but it’s still progress. And we’re going to keep facing the same issues “until we smash capitalism,” jokes Carter.

The only option: to embrace change, just as the Crawleys are doing in “A New Era.” Even the fictional filmmakers who take over Downton are forced to pivot to a talkie mid-production. It’s a move “A New Era” director Simon Curtis likens to a shift the industry is currently feeling: “There’s a parallel with the film industry undergoing a great technological change with what’s going on now with cinemas versus streaming, so I think you have to embrace the new technology and make it work for you.”

But the Crawleys weren’t always so willing to embrace a new way of life. It took years for the family to adjust when youngest daughter Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay) fell in love with and eventually married chauffeur Tom Branson (Allen Leech). And although the downstairs residents of Downton Abbey have aspired to more, only a few were able to move on to move on from a life in service to a new profession: Tom with his marriage, housemaid Gwen (Rose Leslie) becoming a secretary, and Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) becoming a schoolteacher (and, no spoilers, his new venture in “A New Era”). Without that preparation, would the Crawleys have been open to the declassé movie industry as a way to keep up their home?

What will it take for someone to achieve real progress in today’s economic climate? Short of smashing capitalism, leaving behind what isn’t working could be a start. 

Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” encapsulates the feelings of the Great Resignation, yes, but the song (and the sentiment) is not just about quitting. More importantly, it’s about recalibrating one’s priorities. And while the Crawleys figured this out peripherally, the circumstances are just right for people today to realize this on their own. If we want to survive our own societal shift, it’s best to heed the advice Cassidy’s character, Miss Baxter, offers: “Times change; we must change with them.”

“Downton Abbey: A New Era” is now streaming on Peacock and out on Blu-ray and DVD on July 5.

More stories to check out: 

• Sex and the city: “Harlots” provides an engaging view of the sex trade in 18th-century London
• Why the latest “What We Do in the Shadows” twist makes sense in The Great Resignation era
• “Downton Abbey” is entirely unnecessary, and essential viewing super-fans

The post “Smash capitalism” to “release your job,” what “Downton Abbey” & Beyoncé can teach us about progress appeared first on Salon.com.

This is all very true . . . although, when pressed, the story’s devoted fans might claim that what keeps them coming back to their favorite fantasy Yorkshire estate is knowing that at their core the Crawleys remain the same genteel characters as ever. What they can’t change is time. When Julian Fellowes (“The Gilded Age,” “Belgravia“) first introduced Hugh Bonneville’s Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, along with his wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) and mother Violet, the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith), it was 1912.

Six seasons of television and two films hence, their latest chapter, “Downton Abbey: A New Era” picks up in 1928 and offers new paths for several of beloved characters, along with emotional developments both expected and entirely surprising. 

RELATED: “Downton Abbey” is entirely unnecessary, and essential viewing for super-fans

Bonneville knows quite a bit about that feel after spending more than a dozen years playing Robert, as well as stepping into the roles of Mr. Brown in “Paddington” and “Paddington 2” along with his recent turn as Roald Dahl in the biographical film “To Olivia.”

Salon Talks caught up with Bonneville recently to talk about the lasting legacy of “Downton Abbey” as well as his other recent work, and you can watch our entire conversation here or read our conversation below.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

“Downton Abbey” is one of the most beloved shows of our time and it keeps on extending. First, we had the series on television, now we have two films. You have returned again as the Earl of Grantham in  “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” which starts in 1928, correct?

That’s right. We open in 1928. The story has moved on a little bit, as ever in “Downton.” It’s a glacial pace, so we don’t want to rush things too much. We’ve moved on a few months from the last one, and the roof is leaking at Downton. In order to plug the gaps, Lady Mary suggests that we should accept the idea of a film crew coming to film with the castle. Meanwhile, my mother, Lady Violet, has inherited a house, a villa in the south of France. And so some of us go off to find out why.

That must have been fabulous to be able to take that trip. Was it filmed on location or did you mock it up in post-production?

No. I’m delighted to say it wasn’t a green screen . . . because for a long period during pre-production and indeed during production itself, there was a danger that we wouldn’t be able to film in France because of the COVID restrictions. And so they had a plan Z, which was to film in a couple of properties in the UK that they could sort of stitch together and sort of make look a bit French. But it would’ve had the quintessentially gray skies of Britain overhead and that would’ve required a lot of CGI. So we were very fortunate that we were actually able to go to the south of France and film at Cote d’Azur.

Let’s go back a bit: You started playing Robert Crawley, what, back in 2010 at this point? Perhaps a little bit earlier [considering] pre-production. So it’s been quite a long time. What do you think it is about this series and this story that keeps it enduring more than a decade later?

It’s a question we’re always asked. It’s a question none of us have the answer to, and we always search around for it. And I always end up saying, I can only put some of it down to the experience I had when I first read the script, which was, I wanted to know what happened next. And . . .  I enjoyed spending time with the characters. Each of them popped in my imagination.

Also I think there was just a sense of escape, that where the world was when we started, just coming out of this painful financial hit, [people] wanted a piece of escapism really. Now, of course, it’s seven years since we finished the TV show. It was pre-Brexit, pre-, dare I say, pre- Mr. Trump, pre-pandemic. And it seems like a golden era. It seems like a kind of calmer time.

. . . So a lot has changed, but “Downton” remains the same.

Maybe by its third season, as people had seen it a little bit more, I recall reading a number of critiques talking about the idea of the class relationship between the Crawleys and their servants, and of course the people in the village. And how the show takes a very kindly view of how the noble classes might have treated the working classes.

It’s a fictional world. And it gives me a bit of a tickle, actually, that newspapers treat it like it’s a sort of documentary and get very angry. . . . There were some articles recently saying it should be pretty much canceled as it’s disgusting, that it perpetuates the class myth, that there was a sort of benign benevolence in certain estates. And that in fact, all land owners were ghastly people and that should have been put up against the wall. You don’t critique “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” in the same way. This is equally fictional.

. . . It’s not pretending to be a historical document . . .  any more than “The Waltons” is a true account of life in the early part of the 20th century in the U.S.

Do you think that reaction is angrier now? Because there’s more class inequity nowadays. And I just wanted to say – and I love “Downton,” I just want to establish that – but when you were saying we don’t critique “Star Wars” and Star “Trek,” I wonder if it’s the fact that it is a historical drama, that it does depict something that’s real and not on a spaceship, that might be part of the reason that sustains some of these critiques.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I can understand because of course in the space genre, you are completely outside the reality, but whereas we have one foot in reality, as indeed many TV shows do, but I think to get exercised about a piece fiction, particularly in the UK, there’s a tall poppy syndrome. If something is successful, there must be a reason, there must be a way that we can put it down. And it’s part of the British psyche. Maybe it’s part of human psyche, I don’t know.

. . . But ultimately it is about family. And there must be a reason why it’s resonated around the world. I think one of those reasons is that it is about a recognizable set of human relationships that pertain worldwide, that are just universal, that pertain to human beings.

Julian Fellowes writes from a default position that people try to be good. They try, they get it wrong and they do bad things and wrong things, but they try ultimately to get by and look after those around them that they care about. And I suppose that may sound wishy-washy, but I think that is one of the, going back to the question, why does it work or why has it worked and why has it resonated? I think that’s, again, one of the factors. That there is a sort of underlying sense of compassion in these characters that they do try and care for each other.

I want to step back a little bit and talk a little bit about you, Hugh, because we have you playing Robert in “A New Era.”  People also know you from “Paddington,” as I’m sure you know, [“Paddington 2”] has now topped “Citizen Kane” in the U.S. is one of the most beloved movies on Rotten Tomatoes. And then you also are playing Roald Dahl in “To Olivia.” So we have these very different roles of fathers here. . . . Two of the men are very similar just in terms of they’re the kinds of people that we want in our lives. And then Roald Dahl is very complicated as people know. So what has been appealing for you to play these characters in recent years?

Well, I mean Mr. Brown was, I was nervous about doing the “Paddington” film because I grew up with Paddington and I didn’t want to see a childhood hero of mine being given the Hollywood treatment and made a complete mess of. But when I read the first page of Paul King’s script, I was laughing on page one and I thought, “We’re in safe hands here.” This guy understands Paddington and understands Michael Bond, more to the point, the creator of Paddington. Also, the Mr. Brown in the book is a fairly straightforward character. There’s not a lot of texture to him. He’s just Mr. Brown, who works in the city somewhere and is a dad. And that’s about it. Whereas with Paul . . . we spent quite a lot of time improvising and building up the sort of texture of their relationship and their characters. And the idea that Mr. Brown has been very risk averse.

And of course, the presence of the bear gradually unleashes his hinterland. And so playing a character who one can really genuinely flesh out from the bare bones of what Michael Bond had created was really fun, and it had Michael’s blessing. That was important to us.

And in Roald Dahl it was a very different thing. It was really the complexity of the matter that I found riveting. I mean, like millions of people, I knew, I’d read his books when I was younger, but I had no idea about the family challenges that he and Patricia Neil went through.

. . . And Roald is a very complicated man. There’s no question about that, and a controversial man, and you get into the whole world of, if you like, the whole world of cancel culture . . . It’s well documented in Patricia’s own autobiography and indeed books about the Dahls, about how Roald did or didn’t cope with the loss of his daughter. . . . So it’s an extraordinary time of charting this journey through grief for this man and this woman, charting their marriage and also charting their creative energies.

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Since you had “To Olivia” before “Downton,” did it feel like a relief to let Roald Dahl go and let that world go? You’re talking a lot about just the processing of grief that we see in the story. How was it to go from that to coming back to this role that you’ve known for such a long time?

Yeah. It’s obviously a very different tone, and was a relief. I mean, the Roald Dahl filming and the development of that story, which we’d been working on for several years actually, it was quite intense and it was a small budget film, but I think a very telling film. And so then to go to something that was more familiar, more relaxed, more lightweight, even though it’s got these little wave patterns of quite intense emotion within it. “Downton” is a much broader, more relaxed landscape in terms of I knew the territory, we all knew the territory much we’re much more familiar with it and weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel.

Then laterally, I did a movie that’s coming out soon called, “I Came By,” which is a movie by Babak Anvari, a British movie that’s being released by Netflix that is altogether a different experience and is neither Lord Grantham, Mr. Brown, nor Roald Dahl. So I’ve had a very enjoyable sort of, different textures to play with over the last couple of years.

So you’ve cycled back to Robert. Are going to cycle back to Mr. Brown again?

Oh, I hope so. I mean, there’s certainly talk of a third “Paddington” film, but the logistics of it at the moment are quite complicated. And so it won’t be for a while anyway.

With “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” just because it’s a new era that doesn’t mean necessarily that it’s ending. Do you foresee coming back to playing Robert Crawley again in the future?

I’d never say never. It’s entirely going to be down to the box office. . . . If the audience is still enjoying it, then it would be fun to think we could do one more.

“Downton Abbey: A New Era” is currently playing in theaters.

More stories like this:

• “Belgravia” is a Dickensian “Downton”
• “The Gilded Age” is a glittery confection that’s more “Dynasty” than “Downton Abbey”
• “Mad Men” vs. “Downton Abbey”

The post Hugh Bonneville on the enduring charm of “Downton Abbey” and why he was nervous to film “Paddington” appeared first on Salon.com.

Riding this wave is “Downton Abbey.” Yes, the Crawleys and their beleaguered staff are back. Focus Features anounced Monday that a second film based on the wildly popular British drama will be hitting theaters this Christmas.

Even if you were a devoted “Downton” fan, the existence of the first movie may have come as a surprise, since its six seasons on TV wrapped up in a satisfactory manner for most of the characters. Nevertheless, the 2019 film not only made the examination of fading nobility larger than life on the big screen, but was a commercial success, bringing in over $194 million worldwide in its theatrical run.

As Salon critic Melanie McFarland wrote, “‘Downton Abbey’ is basically designed to take the edge off of 2019 life, the visual equivalent of half a Valium chased by a flute’s worth of champagne.” The film proved to be less focused on necessity and more focused on offering a much-needed fan service as a diversion. 

The second film will no doubt double down on this strategy for a world hungry to escape our pandemic stress. “Downton Abbey 2”  promises the return of all of the original cast members and a screenplay written by creator and Academy Award winner, Julian Fellowes. Returning heavy hitters include Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess, Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley, among the rest of the upstairs and downstairs denizens.

Joining the new “Downton Abbey” cinematic universe will be “Hannibal” star Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye, and Dominic West. Simon Curtis will direct.

Other than that casting announcement, the plot for “Downton Abbey 2” remains under wraps for now. The first film took place in 1927 with the Yorkshire country house in a tizzy preparing for a visit from the King and Queen. One can only speculate what this upcoming movie will bring, besides a slew of questions of course, such as:

How could “Downton 2” top a royal visit? When will this new film take place? Will it leap forward to the future and introduce a new decade? Or will it leave off exactly where the last film did? What new technological advances will the Crawleys have to contend with next? And why do we need another “Downton” film now? 

It’s been two years since the last one, and five years since the series itself concluded. And while the characters didn’t end up dead in a giant natural disaster, their storylines felt fairly finished. Do we really need to hear about the new business venture that Tom (Allen Leech) pursued or see how much Lady Mary is morphing into the Dowager Countess? How many more children can be born – and summarily ignored?

There is one storyline that feels unresolved though, even if the film ended on a hopeful note for Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), the servant known best for being a closeted man in the 1920s. While the series itself clunkily presented racial and social issues, the film made an effort to at least not to traumatize Thomas too much for storytelling purposes. In fact, he became aware of a world of other gay men, even if it was a world lived in the shadows. 

Whether or not Thomas gets his happily ever after remains to be seen, but at least “Downton” fans ought to be pleased since the timing couldn’t be better. The film’s Christmas release could coincide with the new season of “Bridgerton” – which first debuted last Christmas to great success. Come December, fans of costume dramas could have a excess of bodices and British accents on the big and small screen. 

The post Another “Downton Abbey” movie is the Christmas gift you’re getting, but didn’t know you needed appeared first on Salon.com.

Still, the close, still air that rules over the story does “Belgravia” few favors.

Fellowes, in case you need reminding, gave us “Downton Abbey,” a fantasy in which the nobles stand up for the servants who take care of them, and the Earl of Grantham softens to the reality that Britain’s class hierarchy is slowly transforming.

“Downton” casts a long shadow over every British period drama that has arrived in its wake. “Belgravia,” based on Fellowes’ own 2016 novel and making its U.S. debut on Epix, is not immune to this. To some viewers, in fact, the series suffers in comparison because it exudes less joy and holds a lower level of rarified snark in its corseting. Not even the familiar melodic sparkle of John Lunn’s score can compensate for its humor deficit or the glaring lack of a character on par with Maggie Smith’s razor-witted Dowager Countess.

However, if you can accept the story’s Dickensian flavor and content yourself with Tamsin Grieg’s heartbreaking performance and Harriet Walter’s bone-dry and class-conscious bitchery, then break out your best china service and settle in . . . some more.

One aspect of “Belgravia” that feels different now, as hinted above, is the overwhelming closeness of the era’s gracious and opulent interiors. The majority of the series takes place in the mid-1840s, and appropriate to the period, many significant interactions take place inside the grandest rooms of opulent estates, or before sullen fireplaces in humbler abodes. Everyone is shoulder to bosom, a sight that would have delighted us a few weeks ago but now just makes a person want to stick her head out of an open window.

Mostly though, the inside conversations and populated streets only amplify the stuffy feeling “Belgravia” instills in persons suffering from harmless fevers of the hay and cabin varieties. If the story weren’t so stoic, maybe that wouldn’t matter. But it is a solemn affair, one in want of a few more open windows and a breeze.

Our story begins at a famous ball in Brussels (based on a real event – it’s that fancy!) that dances away on the eve of the Battle of Quatre Bras, which pit British-allied forces against Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies. It is at this heady affair where we are introduced to James Trenchard (Philip Glenister) a merchant building his success on alliances with aristocrats. High society looks down on James and his wife Anne (Greig), and their “betters” wonder how they wrangled an invitation. Chalk it up to the beauty of their daughter Sophia (Emily Reid), who has won the heart of Lord Edmund Bellasis (Jeremy Neumark Jones), an officer in the Duke of Wellington’s army.

Alas, the lovers are not destined for an ever after, happily or otherwise. Edmund is called off to battle, Sophia’s heart is broken, and both of them come to an unexpected end. The Trenchards’ devastation lasts long after losing their daughter.

Leaping forward a quarter of a century, and Anne happens to be attending a social tea where she meets the Countess of Brockenhurst (Walter), sister to the Duchess who threw the legendary ball in Brussels and the late Lord Edmund’s father. The bereaved mothers exchange a few kind words.

What Anne does not tell the Countess, however, is that the memorable romance their children shared resulted . . . in a baby boy. Twist!

Now before you get your knickers in a similar twist by declaring “spoiler!” bear in mind that this historic setup rolls out swiftly in the first episode. The real class battle occurs after that tea, when Anne returns to the Countess to reveal that they share a grandson, who was left to be raised by a country vicar. The Countess, in response, behaves most unbecomingly. Like a grand old “see you next Tuesday,” if we’re being frank. And we are!

Once the Countess cools down, she realizes that since she and her husband Peregrine, the Earl of Brockenhurst (Tom Wilkinson), have no heir – Lord Edmund was their only son – perhaps they should look in on their lost grandson. Lo and behold, the boy, Charles Pope (Jack Bardoe), has grown up to be a hot catch of a cotton merchant. The Countess is beguiled!

From this point on, quiet tension, buttoned-down anger, and parlor schemes rule the day. Charles is a lovely gentleman – adventurous, kind, humble and a self-made success. And he can’t fathom why the Earl and Countess have suddenly taken a shine to him.

Neither can the high society drips surround them, including the Countess’s entitled fop of a nephew John Bellasis (Adam James) who, along with his useless father, is biding his time to inherit the family fortune and cheat on his soon-to-be wife Lady Maria Grey (Ella Purnell).

The Trenchards, meanwhile, are stuck with a thankless and useless son Oliver (Richard Goulding) and his status-obsessed wife Susan (Alice Eve).  Both Anna and the Countess would much rather dote on their kind, brilliant grandson, except each couple’s relationship to him is a secret and, more importantly, they hate each other.

There’s also a “downstairs” element to “Belgravia,” with servants acting as av c Greek chorus. None receive the sort of character development that might place them on par with the Grantham family’s staff.

This being a Julian Fellowes joint, “Belgravia” pretty much telegraphs where it’s headed from jump to landing. Fellowes may be channeling the grim of Victorian tragedy but enough of his signature flair and a few anachronistic touches make Belgravia’s bleaker elements palatable. The villains behave badly, and a few learn their lesson and improve their souls in the bargain. War breaks out over tea, peace is brokered over multi-course dinners.  Everyone and everything glows beautifully in candlelight.

The result is a lushly brocaded and silky affair that has its good points despite the murk in its tone, and the clutch players in the ensemble – Grieg, Walter, Glenister and the happy couple around which this world whirls – make palatable the slower stretches in the story. “Belgravia” doesn’t transport us into a dream as easily and skillfully its predecessor did. But the very least, it adopts a touch of luxury to the art of sitting, brooding, doing little, and waiting for misfortune to pass.   

“Belgravia” debuts on Sunday, April 12 at 9 p.m. on Epix.

The post “Belgravia”: Where “Downton Abbey” meets Dickens, except with a more dashing, less hungry orphan appeared first on Salon.com.

But “gone forever” is a relative concept in these days of reboots and continuations. Even a show like “Downton Abbey,” a period drama smash that ended about as nobly as such things can after six seasons, isn’t allowed a permanent rest. “Downton” aired its last episode stateside in 2016, but still turns up regularly in member station pledge drive rotations.

Never mind that series creator Julian Fellowes tied a merry bow on virtually every major storyline in its finale; talk of a theatrical follow-up has been kicking about since the drama closed up shop.

So here we are some three years the TV series ended, journeying back to Highclere Castle to inspect an entirely unnecessary addition: a theatrical release that hits theaters on Friday, written by Fellowes and directed by series veteran Michael Engler.

The main fuss in this beautiful folly concerns a visit from the royals in 1927: King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) send word that they’ll be spending the night at Downton as part of their tour of the kingdom, which sends Downton and the surrounding village into a tizzy.

There’s a parade to be organized, silver to be polished, chairs to be arranged! No ball, thank goodness — that’s someone else’s problem, as we’re reminded several times throughout the episo — er, film.

“Downton Abbey” rejoins the Crawleys some two years after the series finale’s events, with Lord Robert Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and Lady Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) ever the pillars of calm at the center of the action. They’re able to relax somewhat now that Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and her widower brother-in-law Tom Branson (Allen Leech) have assumed management of the house.

Though their positions and others are somewhat changed in the household structure, the characters who shape Downton’s upstairs-downstairs dynamic are more or less the same as they ever were.

Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) and Mary still despise each other, but since Edith came into her own fortune and married into a title — she’s now the Marchioness of Hexham — she has less of a reason to behave like the Jan to Mary’s Marcia.

Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier) is now head butler at Downton – the faithful Carson (Jim Carter) retired, even though his wife Elsie (Phyllis Logan) remains ever-watchful over the household. Otherwise the stalwarts remain as they were  — Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) is still plainspoken and intolerant of laziness, and lovingly pokes at her assistant Daisy (Sophie McShera).

Lady’s maid Anna (Joanne Froggatt) and the Lord’s valet John Bates (Brendan Coyle) still unofficially act as house mother and dad of the place. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) has bumbled off into a new livelihood, but remains a well-meaning idiot who only gets socially clumsier when word of the royal visit gets around.

However, the descent of the highest of high society upon the manor also humbles Downton’s denizens — or in some cases, outright insults their pride, beginning with Barrow, whom Mary bumps aside to bring Carson out of retirement when she fears the younger butler might not be up to the task of serving their Majesties.

This is a much kinder cut than the ones delivered by Buckingham Palace, which informs the household that the King and Queen travel with their own servants and more or less calls the staff a crowd of provincial bumpkins. Be assured that up with this they will not put!

Provided you’re still reading this — some of you may have gotten the gist ten paragraphs ago when you saw the words “entirely unnecessary addition” — you may be wondering whether “Downton Abbey” is worth paying the price of theatrical admission. The answer to that question depends on the depths of your addiction.

The “Downton Abbey” film exists entirely to serve hardcore fans who would spend time with the Crawleys through many generations. Their numbers are significant enough to have purchased more pre-release tickets than any other 2019 drama in terms of first-day advance sales, according to Fandango. Yes, pre-sales of “Downton Abbey” exceeded those of even “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

And if it’s possible to view “Downton Abbey” in a theater full of likeminded folks overflowing with affection for these characters, do so. I happened to preview the movie as part of a special fundraiser for my local PBS affiliate, and there’s something heart-melting at witnessing an audience break out in applause at the mere sight of Carson walking up the graveled path toward the manor’s heavy double-doored entry.

The true reason for people to shell out cash for a two-hour, three minute episode is enjoy more time with Dame Maggie Smith’s Violet, the tart-tongued Dowager Countess, and to relish in her verbal jousts with her staunch frenemy Isobel Grey (Penelope Wilton).

Why Fellowes didn’t simply create a spin-off with these two characters is unfathomable, since their barbed exchanges provide regular injections of amphetamine into a movie that is by and large a very relaxed stroll through gilded rooms in the British countryside. But the gentlewomen are in rare form in this movie, and adding Imelda Staunton to the mix as Violet’s hated cousin Maud Bagshaw, the queen’s lady-in-waiting, sharpens their barbs.

Fans, then, should be very pleased with the movie. As for the casual “Downton” tourists, much as I hesitate to say it, incredible costumes and heavenly lighting probably won’t prevent feeling utterly lost and somewhat bewildered as to what all the fuss is about.

This is not to say the movie has no value beyond pure fan service, however. Indeed, its determined gentility and grace is its greatest sales pitch and a very attractive one to people searching for a box of calm amidst ever-renewing storms of anger fogged in uncertainty. There’s a mote of tension that plays out with expediency, and a revelation that evokes about half of a sharp inhale. Other than these moments, “Downton Abbey” is basically designed to take the edge off of 2019 life, the visual equivalent of half a Valium chased by a flute’s worth of champagne.

Entertainment is full of stories starring rich people, but few of them are kind or happy. “Succession” is about as close to a modern story of royalty as we’re likely to get, but its appeal is in watching the family patriarch’s endless manipulation of his children, ruling over his empire with threats and shame. The source of its appeal is equal parts schadenfreude and surface-level empathy.

Fellowes nurtures diametrically opposite emotions in “Downton.” Granted, a few allegoric parallels to modern societal ills stand out, particularly when Buckingham’s servants clash with Downton’s staff. The royal servants and chef thumb their noses at Carson, Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore, despite the fact that they’re all in the business of serving people fortunate enough to have been born royalty or aristocrats. They all have the same skills, but one group must somehow let the others know they’re a better caste of working class.

Beyond this, the main emphasis is to present aristocrats and royals as flawed gems whose humanity overrules their loyalty to tradition and society rules. That’s an unrealistic vision, but it also aligns “Downton” with our fantastic imaginings of how we’d want the royals to behave.

In this way, the movie manages to be outwardly apolitical while promoting a somewhat utopian vision of aristocratic rank as a soothing beacon of tradition, willing and able to evolve with the times and stubbornly plugging onward — not merely for the family legacy but to support the community surrounding it.

A character points out that Downton has survived wars and pandemics, and the family itself has weathered unspeakable tragedy and scandal. Yet they remain devoted to a way of life steadily being swept aside by progress, supporting the men and women who work for them and the villagers surrounding the manor. Generations will rise and fall, he says, but Downton will always be standing, solid and unmovable. With so many days leaving us with the sense of the world crumbling beneath our feet, there’s a solace in that which may be worth the cost of a movie ticket. The rest of us should be fine with waiting until this one-off episode returns to TV.

The post “Downton Abbey” is entirely unnecessary, and essential viewing for super-fans appeared first on Salon.com.

As if that isn’t enough, within the next month and change, three very important TV-related films are making their debut. You’ve probably heard about the impending arrival of “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,” coming to Netflix on October 11, yes? Before that comes the “Downton Abbey” movie, hitting U.S. theaters on September 20. And before that — as in Monday at 6 p.m. on Cartoon Network — comes “Steven Universe: The Movie.”

Nobody needs to tell you that a few re-watches may be in order prior to the movie premieres. Luckily for you, the one that’s looming closest, “Steven Universe,” also happens to be the star of a weekend-long marathon on Cartoon Network, starting at 6 a.m. and running through 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, with Monday’s 6 a.m. start time culminating in the movie debut.

So you can strap in and watch all weekend long or do a selective catch-up on Hulu.

“Steven Universe” is more loosely serialized compared to “Downton Abbey,” but fortunately you have a few weeks to chew through those, which are streaming on Amazon Prime. But you can also watch by way of the PBS Passport subscription, allowing you to stream any PBS series for a monthly fee which, in addition to supporting your PBS member station, also happens to be tax deductible. Just saying.

You have even more time to re-familiarize yourself with “Breaking Bad,” which is available to stream on Netflix — but that will give you less time to cram on TV series that are currently in production and returning this month. With that, here’s a selective guide on the most worthwhile series to revisit before they return to our regular schedule.

“The Deuce,” premieres Monday, September 9 at 9 p.m., HBO. Streaming via HBO Now, HBO Go

David Simon’s clear-eyed view of the porn industry’s rise ends with this third season, dropping the audience into 1985 and the escalating popularity of VHS as the main way to consume adult films. The sex industry’s shift to California sets off an irreversible decline in the seedier areas of New York where all the action started. And the characters in this series have come a long way since that first season which, though excellent, is still tough to watch.

The second season, in which Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Candy rides the wave of porn’s mainstreaming to wide success and financial benefit, but at tremendous personal cost, still hits hard but isn’t as rough around the edges. All of the women in this series deliver incredible performances, but it’s Candy who illustrates the price women breaking into a man’s world often pay for innovating and perhaps doing their job too well.

 “American Horror Story: 1984,” premieres Wednesday, September 18 at 10 p.m., FX. Streaming on Hulu and Netflix.

Per tradition, few details about this new season have been released as of yet, save for the news that series regular Evan Peters won’t be appearing in it, and previous “AHS” regular Sarah Paulson may only recur — or have a cameo. Nearly every “AHS” installment tells a mostly unique story save for the crossover storylines of “Apocalypse” — which, sadly, is not yet available to stream on the aforementioned platforms. But this season hints at paying tribute to 1980s slasher films, which should be fun.

“This Is Us,” premieres Tuesday, September 24 at 9 p.m., NBC; available on Hulu

Stepping away from this cry factory of a drama is understandable — we can only take so much weeping nowadays, but when we do, we miss a few key carrots and thoughtful examinations of what it means to commit to other people. A main focus of season 3 is Beth and Randall’s marriage, which veered onto shaky ground until Randall finally noticed all the ways that he made his family’s needs secondary to his desires, even if (by his reckoning) he wasn’t doing that intentionally.

There’s time to watch all of season 3 before the premiere, but a glimpse at the finale, which stands as a mild reset of sorts, is obligatory.

“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” premieres Wednesday, September 25 at 10 p.m., FXX. Available on Hulu

I offer this title as a pure pleasure binge option, since a person really doesn’t require much of a backstory to understand what’s going on, other than knowing Mac (played by series creator Rob McElhenney) finally admits he’s gay in season 12. Which changes very little about the character, honestly. That said, the 13th season finale is a not-to-be-missed creative masterpiece, featuring a jaw-dropping five-minute dance number — a very serious one — that Mac uses to come out to his father. That is currently streaming on Hulu and well worth a look.

Oh, and there’s another reason to mark the 14th season premiere — with this run of episodes, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” overtakes “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” as the longest running live-action sitcom in American history.

 “Superstore,” premieres Thursday, September 26 at 8 p.m., NBC. Streaming on Hulu

For whatever reason Serious Television Viewers still require convincing to watch “Superstore,” one of the few truly working class series on TV that smoothly weaves subversive, hard-hitting subject matter into a broadcast sitcom format without losing sight of its obligation to entertain the widest audience possible. Past seasons have seen the characters contend with their big box chain’s shoddy healthcare coverage and non-existent maternity leave policies and watched what happens when employees attempt to strike for better treatment and pay.

But the fourth season ended with an ICE raid in which agents cuffed and carted off one of the show’s best loved characters, Mateo. This is the type of subject matter a viewer expects of a series like “Orange Is the New Black,” which devotes most of its recently released finale season to following several characters through the deportation process. To see it on an NBC comedy, however, is revolutionary.

What happens to Mateo is expected to be followed throughout much of the fifth season. Before it debuts, though, season 4 is prime binge material over your three-day weekend, and beyond.

“Mom,” premieres Thursday, September 26 at 9 p.m., CBS. Streaming on Hulu and CBS All Access

Everybody loves/loved “The Big Bang Theory” and its adjacent story “Young Sheldon” (also returning on Thursday, September 26 at 8 p.m.). Meanwhile, Chuck Lorre’s other series doesn’t come up in many TV discussions without a fair bit of prompting. Truly unfortunate, because few series so accurately and humorously portray what it’s like to stumble through life constantly feeling as if you’re just hanging on, while being reminded that other people are right there with you, and helping to hold you fast. This is another comedy worth streaming regularly over the coming weeks, if only to be reminded of why Allison Janney has earned two Emmys for her heartfelt, acerbic portrayal of Bonnie.

“The Good Place,” premieres Thursday, September 26 at 9 p.m., NBC. Streaming on Netflix

As the series enters its final season one would think that the majority of the TV audience is aware of this comedy’s brilliance. And yet I still encounter people who haven’t watched it, or are intending to get to it, or watched the first few episodes of season 1 and decided it was all hype.

For the benefit of those people I will say yet again that the season 1 finale is one of television’s greatest game-changers that transforms a loopy little show about a weird afterlife into an ever-deepening exploration of what it means to be a good person. Along the way it leads us to ask ourselves how each of us can strive to be better to each other and do good in the world.

It’s also one of the few sitcoms that its fans can’t discuss in detail because doing so would ruin that game-changer, which I can only tell you proves Ted Danson to be one of the finest comedic actors around.

Unlike other sitcoms, though, you won’t get the full effect of this comedy’s brilliance unless you watch every episode — which you can and should before the fourth season premiere.  So get on that.

The post Smart Watch Fall preview: 7 must-see TV shows returning in September appeared first on Salon.com.

To be clear, he didn’t want something terrible or ribald to happen to the March sisters. He merely wanted to know if there was a point to devoting three hours of time to this literary adaptation, the first hour of which premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. on “Masterpiece.” (The concluding two hours air May 20, also beginning at 8 p.m.)

I explained to him that Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel had no such twists — no outside threats, no piquant, torrid romances, no spikes of heart-pounding anxiety or excitement. The main threat is an outbreak of scarlet fever. At this his face slackened into a puddle of bewilderment as he quietly muttered, “I’m just not sure why I’m watching this.”

Lots of people will be asking themselves that question, I suspect, even those who adore Alcott’s tale. The roots of that love reach deep, but even that level of affection may not be enough to triumph over the emotional aridity of this new “Masterpiece” production.

The challenges screenwriter Heidi Thomas and director Vanessa Caswill face in updating “Little Women” for 2018 are multifold. First, Alcott’s creation is so timeless that the story has been adapted for film and television screens numerous times already, although not lately.

Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 production with Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon and Christian Bale (!) as Laurie, the prototypical guy who gets friend-zoned, is the novel’s most recent cinematic take. But in the quarter century that has passed since the release of that work and this one, our expectations of what a period piece can or should look like have drastically changed.

Simply put, we’ve been primed to expect something to happen in such stories.

“Downton Abbey,” a drama borne on cumulus clouds of etiquette and fantastic, glittering refinement, brought in problems straightaway in the form of the seductive Mr. Pamuk. Hence my husband’s assumption that, following the girls’ whinging about an impoverished Christmas, some guy that looks like Colin Farrell would show up at the door and, you know, mix things up.

No such luck!

Then again, neither are they set upon by zombies, a la “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” or made to dodge vampires hunted by Abraham Lincoln. I’m not being entirely ridiculous in citing those titles, given how popular twisting literary greats proved to be only recently. “Little Women” itself wasn’t immune to that craze. Only three years ago, The CW was developing this grim, millennial-targeted take on the story:

“…disparate half-sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy band together in order to survive the dystopic streets of Philadelphia and unravel a conspiracy that stretches far beyond anything they have ever imagined — all while trying not to kill each other in the process.”

Even in that version, as in all others, everyone would envision themselves as a Jo.

At different points in cinematic history the independent, ambitious protagonist of “Little Women has been played by trendsetting women of a given era, Winona Ryder and Katharine Hepburn among them. Maya Hawke, the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, brings Jo to life in this new production’s version of 19th-century Massachusetts, a place far removed from the grime and peril of the Civil War.

Hawke commands the focus of the story quite ably. Sometimes, actually, her Jo outshines the other March girls sharing scenes with her, particularly Willa Fitzgerald’s graceful and confident Meg and Annes Elwy’s frail and retreating Beth. This is less excusable for Fitzgerald’s society butterfly than Elwy’s shy heroine, even if Beth is in one key respect the heart and soul of the piece.

In contrast, Kathryn Newton, cast as the self-involved and bratty Amy, holds her own. She’s the second-strongest performer in the cast after Angela Lansbury, pitch-perfect as the high-handed Aunt March, a mistress of caustic wit and spiritual sister to the dowager Countess of “Downton.” Declaring Lansbury to be a revelation is like informing you that the sky is blue: the woman elevates everything she does, and her work in this “Little Women” is evidence of that.

Less impressive, though not for lack of talent, is Emily Watson’s Marmee, written as a matriarch who allows her girls space to blossom into their individual personalities but realized here almost as auxiliary to the action. Their neighbor Laurie (Jonah Hauer-King), grandson to the wealthy Mr. Laurence (Michael Gambon, who is barely there), soon becomes Jo’s bosom confidante and the source of romantic competition, though muted between her and Amy.

With the family patriarch (Dylan Baker) tending to soldiers on the front lines, Marmee and the girls are said to barely be getting by. Yet their dresses are smart and they have a servant; they’re not stuffed into a crumbling cabin and they can afford to blow the occasional quarter on pickled limes.

The visual demarcations of social and economic status aren’t particularly obvious, save for Aunt March’s ostentatiously decorated parlor and her overly familiar parrot; a scene where the bird chomps on Amy’s bow is a rare entertainment.

Beyond that, and to its detriment, “Little Women” returns to the classic PBS “Masterpiece” style of being true to a piece of literature nearly to the point of drowning it in formaldehyde.

One positive note is Caswill’s cinematography, evocative of an aesthetic that resembles Hudson River School landscape art in miniature. Woefully, the action occurring within these settings is less interesting: Unless you find watching Jo, Meg and Amy change into a variety of gowns, prance between fancy parlors and poor, dilapidated homes, or run through the wintry woodlands of 19th-century Concord enticing, there’s precious little to keep a person enthralled.

Perhaps loyal “Little Women” readers would argue that Alcott’s examination of their progress from adolescence to adulthood holds its own fascination, and to those viewers the production’s close adherence to the source material could be seen as its strength. To them, Marmee being called away to care for Mr. March, leaving the girls to find their own way in the world, is all the action “Little Women” requires.

Alcott’s story is a journey of maturity, after all, one that empowers and tests the sororal bonds of the March sisters. Largely that narrative’s perspective is Jo’s. Admirably, Thomas has written a script that allows room for Meg, Amy and even poor Beth to stand out as individuals finding their own way within a world where their choices are limited and prescribed for them. Jo defies these notions; that’s why so many love her.

But after about an hour of “Little Women” you may hanker for a refreshed view of this bygone era akin to what Julian Fellowes achieved with “Downton.” Even the smallest refinements to Alcott’s dialogue to make it sound natural to modern ears, in the way Kenneth Lonergan finessed turn-of-the-20th-century conversation in Starz’s recent presentation of “Howards End,” would have done a service to the production without sacrificing its charm.

Worse still, and much to my spouse’s chagrin, the tale’s central non-familial relationship plays out between two actors, Hawke and Hauer-King, who have zero onscreen chemistry. Readers might excuse this, suspecting this lack of spark is intentional given how their story plays out, but it does very little to spice up the two-hour second part of the work. It’s fine that no alluring strangers show up, and maddening that none of Alcott’s uplifting zest does either.

The post PBS’ “Little Women” looks thoroughly unfashionable appeared first on Salon.com.

Despite what we’ve learned about the entertainment industry’s systematic culture of harassment and assault, women in it have been telling new, arresting stories, adding new dimensions to film and television’s traditionally flattened representations of women, fighting to be heard and, more and more, finding themselves listened to.

Luckily, Salon was able to have just a few of these women in our studios to discuss not just their craft, but how their jobs are changing as culture shifts around them and they themselves are shaping that same culture.

To bring us into a better 2018, here’s a roundup of some of the wisdom given to us by these women in 2017.

Niecy Nash, “Claws”
“Three words that I’ve lived by in my career are ‘no matter what.’ Those are the words, because there’s always going to be an obstacle, there’s always going to be a challenge. I had to go to casting directors’ offices with three babies in tow. Because they call you for a callback, but the kids already got out of school. That’s the ‘no matter what’ of it all. . . Because I had to.”

Jenifer Lewis, “Black-ish”
“When I tackle those roles, I think of my mother, and my aunts. I try to play them with yes, sass, and funny, funny, funny, but I give them warmth. I give my characters warmth and heart.”

Amber Tamblyn, director, “Paint it Black”
“I just hope to tell stories about women who are fucked up. . . When we show women grieving or being sad or being depressed in any films, it’s so kind of one-dimensional.”

Kirsten Dunst, “Woodshock” ”
“I think I’ve always led by own barometer of what I want to see and what I want to be a part of and what’s going to be pleasurable for me, because I’ve been doing this for so long, as well. So for me, it really needs to be a meaningful experience, a cathartic experience, and it’s always the best when you’re surrounded by your friends.”

Michelle Dockery, “Downton Abbey,” “Godless”
“It’s not just about women being strong, it’s about creators who are writing real women, women that are complex, multi-faceted, vulnerable, weak, they don’t necessarily have to be strong.”

Kimberly Hébert Gregory, “Vice Principals”
“The industry has created these categories, and I’m just hoping that as women, as women of color, and just women in general, we’re able to take ourselves out of the category and say ‘I’m not going to be the blonde lead, I’m going to be the strong woman’. . . I want to be able to play vixen, I want to be able to play soft, I want people to know that the artistry is there.”

The post Six actresses who taught us how to deal with Hollywood misogyny in 2017 appeared first on Salon.com.

“I think that’s what we’re all trying to do in life,” Dockery continued. “We’re all sort of trying to better ourselves. That’s essentially the through line of it.”

“Good Behavior” returned to TNT for its second season on October 15. Dockery has also appeared in the hit show “Downton Abbey” and the Netflix series “Godless.”

Dockery reflected on the importance of female characters going beyond portraying women as any one given thing. It’s about bringing depth and truth to a character, she says.

“It’s not just about women being strong,” Dockery said. “It’s about creators who are writing real women. Women that are complex, multi-faceted, vulnerable, weak. They don’t necessarily have to be strong.”

“I think there’s something about our show that is very, very honest,” she added. “At the heart of it, it’s very truthful about people and about the way that we are with one another.”

For Dockery, that is the type of drama she enjoys the most. When a character, no matter how complex or corrupt they are, but at the core, has these redeeming qualities, that feel relatable and universal.

Watch our full “Salon Talks” conversation on Facebook.

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Michael Edelstein, president at NBCUniversal International Studio, told a reporter, “There’s a movie in the works.” Edelstein said, “It’s been in the works for some time” at Wednesday’s opening of “Downton Abbey: The Exhibition,” in Singapore. The exhibition, which has been touring the world, is a collection of costumes and artifacts from the show.

Edelstein continued, “We are working on getting the script right and then we’ve got to figure out how to get the [cast] together. Because as you know, people go on and do other things. But we’re hopeful to make a movie sometime next year.”

If true, Edelstein’s comments would confirm what many people in and outside the entertainment industry have predicted and wanted for years. While few, if any, have believed that the show would ever return as an episodic series, rumors and prayers for some kind of movie (be it on the big screen or the small) have circulated almost since the finale of “Downton Abbey” a year and a half ago.

To throw just a bit of water on these dreams, however, were statements from the cast at that very event suggesting they knew little about the project. Laura Carmichael, who played the long suffering Lady Edith Crawley told a reporter, “Well, tell my agent, because we’re still waiting to know. We’re hoping that will happen soon.”

Daisy Mason actor Sophie McShera echoed that with the statement, “Oh, well you’ve got confirmation before us. We have no idea if that’s happening. . . . But we would all love to be part of the film if it was to happen, for sure.”

Even series creator Julian Fellowes was far more cautious than Edelstein: “I think we’ve got a film in us,” Fellowes said. “I hope it happens.”

As of publication, no official statement from NBCUniversal International Studio, Carnival Films, ITV or any other major stakeholder in “Downton Abbey” has surfaced. Nonetheless, Edelstein’s mark the closest to the confirmation that many have waited for to this date. The takeaway? There is more reason than ever to be hopeful for a return to the Crawley estate.

The post “Downton Abbey” movie may start production in 2018: Report appeared first on Salon.com.

Sex, when and if it comes into play, is a device to establish dominance and illustrate decadence. Whereas in “Harlots,” another family drama about organized crime — prostitution, conducted in an 18th-century London whorehouse — the sex takes center stage. The family in question is headed by a woman, a madam who makes a living off other women who sell sex, including her daughters.

A key plotline within the first episodes of “Harlots,” premiering Wednesday on Hulu, concerns the internal struggle of Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton) with how and when she should sell the virginity of her youngest daughter, Lucy (Eloise Smyth), and what price she can fetch for Lucy’s deflowering.

Margaret’s dilemma isn’t moral, mind you. There’s never a question of whether Lucy can escape a life of prostitution or even if she wants to. Her turn in the world’s oldest profession is all but inevitable and not uncommon in Georgian-era London, when one in five women made their living as prostitutes.

For years now dramas have hung stories around the necks of difficult men who worked to ensure that their children wouldn’t have to sink into a life of crime. The women in “Harlots” are more concerned with their ability to assert their agency, which has a value to them above money. Margaret’s eldest daughter Charlotte (Jessica Brown-Findlay) is a gleaming example of a successful courtesan in 1763, a woman kept by a besotted nobleman willing to drain his fortune on her behalf. He wants Charlotte’s love and loyalty above all else. Since those are off the table, he’ll accept her continued interest. In turn, she goes where she likes and does as she pleases, for as long as the affair lasts.

Margaret, meanwhile, has a monogamous relationship and biracial children with a black man named William North (Danny Sapani), who helps her keep the business safe and running smoothly.

Given their having to choose between relinquishing their power and wealth to a husband or scraping their way through life as servants, how could someone judge these women for opting to sell sex? According to historians such as Dan Cruickshank, a housemaid in 18th-century London made about five pounds sterling a year. The average prostitute could clear two pounds from one encounter — easier money, earned at a higher rate.

“This city is made of our flesh,” Margaret stoically observes. “Every beam, every brick.”

A co-production of Hulu and Britain’s ITV, “Harlots” depicts Wells and the other women in their circle as determiners of their own destiny as well as shrewd and ambitious, and the drama artfully balances the emotional impact this life has on Margaret and her girls with the political and social machinations they must navigate to remain profitable, not to mention alive.

“Harlots” is a series whose main roster of executive producers are women who have intentionally sought out female directors to helm each of its eight episodes. As a result, every episode is a conscientious construction depicting a woman’s view of this word, from the modern, electric guitar-and-synth soundtrack to the drama’s first glimpse of illicit coitus — a woman on top, of course.

The visuals are deliberately sensual if not universally sexy or pretty; for example, in its opening moments Lucy wears a cerulean dress and elegant shoes as she strolls through muddy streets, unconcerned with a ring of mud besmirching her skirt’s hem. These small touches typify the sort of care at work in this period piece, elements that allow the characters to win a viewer’s empathy without dabbing too much concealer over the uglier truths about the era or the trade.

Think of “Harlots” as a work of heightened honesty. Every frame teases viewers with just as much beauty as it does filth, all without going overboard with imagery of sooty cheeks and catawampus chompers.

Sticklers for historical accuracy might take issue with the relatively clean faces on Wells and her workers, but only if they fail to appreciate the elaborate dialect largely inspired by “Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies,” that era’s Zagat’s guide for prostitutes. You can tell that the entire cast is having a wonderful time rolling the script’s ribald language off their tongues, but none so much as Morton, whose delivery and hardened stature dominates every scene she’s in.

As much as the first two episodes show us the power and relative freedom these women enjoy, showrunner Moira Buffini, who co-created the series with Alison Newman, mindfully weaves the nastier side of the business into the script. Midway through the series premiere, a jarring and violent crackdown tears through the brothel and leaves prostitutes who don’t have the protection of madams such as Margaret bleeding in the streets. And in the second episode, one of Margaret’s publicity schemes involves taking in a once-famous courtesan who is near death and ravaged by syphilis.

For while “Harlots” never paints these women as tragic or even guileful, the series executive producers Debra Hayward, Alison Owen and Buffini do not shy away from depicting the violence and unequal treatment they face in their work. But the producers’ determination to unspool these tales from the female point of view as opposed to catering to the male gaze is also acutely apparent from the start.

Margaret, Lucy and Charlotte are not above sashaying through the filth, but they do have goals to do better in life.  Margaret wants to own a nicer house where she can cater to a higher class of customer like those who frequent the establishment of Lydia Quigley (Lesley Manville), a madam who trains her girls in the fine arts and sets them in detailed tableaus inspired by Renaissance paintings.

And Charlotte is proof that she can cultivate girls of a similar caliber. Brown-Findlay, for her part, relaxes into this role with a vamp heat that viewers never saw in Lady Sybil on “Downton Abbey,” providing an ideal contrast to Smyth’s relatively more innocent Lucy.

Margaret’s daughters and her girls dress in colorful fashions that are louder and more refined than the tattered clothing worn by the “two-penny bunters” yelling offers to potential customers. Lydia and her harem, in contrast, drape themselves in pale pastels and deceptively virginal white lace, as if to announce their cleanliness. Lydia has the upscale market cornered and has no intention of sharing.

She’s also connected to powerful men and religious women who can work on her behalf to keep the Wells family in its place. By igniting this rivalry between Lydia and Margaret, “Harlots” mines a compelling conflict simmering with unspoken commentary about the justice system’s double standard as well as pointing out the religious hypocrisy, all of which drives the action forward.

Through all this, “Harlots” efficiently maintains its focus on the significant and understandable motivation keeping these women in the game and at one another’s throats. “The only safety is in money,” Margaret urgently explains to Charlotte. “Money is a woman’s only power in this world. You make it your solace and your dream, and one day wealth — real, lasting wealth — will make you free.”

Such a sentiment rings true for any modern woman, even those who feel uneasy about the central theme of “Harlots.” But any potential discomfort one may have with the subject is soon overwhelmed by the spirited intelligence and sharp style with which this series is executed. Surely the sex will sell “Harlots,” but ultimately the captivating performances and astutely written story are the enticements that seal the deal.

The post Sex and the city: “Harlots” provides an engaging view of the sex trade in 18th-century London appeared first on Salon.com.

Ostensibly this item of “Downton” trivia has little to do with TNT’s “Good Behavior” beyond a common connection through Michelle Dockery, whose starring role in the new cable drama represents a distinct effort to separate herself from Lady Mary, the character with whom she is most closely associated. Dockery’s Lady Mary is an icy patrician, a class-conscious beauty who reveals just enough vulnerability to keep her from being insufferable.

As Letty Raines, the anti-heroine of “Good Behavior” (which premieres with back-to-back episodes at 9 p.m. on Tuesday), Dockery is a hard-luck case: a thief, con artist and addict who recently has won early release from prison but can’t let go of her old ways.

Both of Dockery’s characters get into trouble with one-night stands.

The world isn’t exactly rising up to meet this high-school dropout with a prison record. Her straight-world job prospects are grim, and in spite of the patient counsel given her by her parole officer Christian (Terry Kinney), there isn’t much evidence to let her know that anyone cares if she lives or dies. Her mother Estelle (Lusia Strus) is no prize herself, but she has written off her daughter and refuses to give her access to her 10-year-old son.

Besides, the criminal world is where Letty excels. Donning a wig, a designer gown and heels, Letty transforms herself from a poor grifter with a country accent into someone who could believably run in the same circles of as the Lady Marys of 2016. The disguise of privilege gains her access to the hotel rooms of affluent people, including that of a man who makes enough money to hire an Argentine assassin named Javier (Juan Diego Botto) to kill his wife.

Letty overhears the plot while hiding in the assassin’s hotel room, which forces her to confront a dilemma: Does she walk away with the $50,000 the professional killer has stashed in his room or does she warn the intended victim? You can easily guess which option she chooses. And you may also infer that it doesn’t go quite as planned.

If one thinks of Dockery as the lure bringing viewers to the door of “Good Behavior,” this incident is what leads them down the hallway to discover how convincingly the actress can portray a woman who does very bad things very well.

This is also the point at which “Good Behavior” becomes a problematic and strange story with S&M undertones that conflates seduction and the spice of danger with elements of actual menace. Not only does Javier track down Letty after their one night stand and the events that ensue, but he forces her to accompany him on his next job. Letty is unwilling, but the perks are tempting and, as the series establishes early on, she and Javier have amazing erotic chemistry.

Indeed, this is the sexiest story of Stockholm syndrome you may ever see on basic cable, albeit chilled down by the knowledge that Javier kills people for a living.

“Good Behavior” is based on the Letty Dobesh character created by Blake Crouch, the author behind the “Wayward Pines” novels. Those familiar with Crouch’s work know his fondness for incorporating twists that land like haymakers, and so may already trust that he and fellow executive producer-showrunner Chad Hodge have held back a paradigm-shattering reveal for later in the story.

Viewers lacking such a foundation may take a little more convincing. And those who may have been initially hooked by Fox’s adaptation of “Wayward Pines” only to abandon it after the show couldn’t maintain its sense of intrigue would be right to meet “Good Behavior” with sharper doubts.

There’s also the question of Letty’s charisma. As much as the drama hangs on Letty’s internal struggles (of which we’re regularly reminded via regular interludes featuring her listening to self-help recordings), “Good Behavior” establishes fairly early on that any of her outward appearances of wanting to walk a straighter path are just that — appearances. She’s already broken bad. The question is whether her being left to her own devices is worse than her joining her fate with Javier’s.

Most of the future success of “Good Behavior” hinges on viewers investing in the relationship between Letty and Javier, whatever that shapes up to be. Dockery and Botto have heat to spare, and troubling as Letty and Javier’s partnership may be, the actors’ performances make us believe that the two have enough in common for the plot to evolve into a standout narrative. The three episodes provided to critics leave no clues about what that may be or which route the story could take. Hanging the tension of an entire episode on a dying Tesla battery — which is as exciting as it sounds — is a sign that the show’s creative navigational system may not be optimally calibrated.

Choosing to run the first two episodes back-to-back is an intelligent tactic on TNT’s part because within those opening hours are the ones most likely to seal the deal. Skilled directing by Charlotte Sieling makes the pilot crackle with sensuality and highlights Dockery’s versatility, although the adopted Southern twang she accompanies in the midst of a con wanders in and out like cellphone service on a back road.

But this is a forgivable blemish that doesn’t get in the way of Dockery’s skill with evoking a range of emotional shades we didn’t get to see in “Downton” days. When a viewer recalls that role, it’s especially refreshing to watch her let loose in Letty’s shoes while maintaining enough subtlety, even when she’s breaking apart, to lend her character poise in the most undignified situations.

American audiences are far less familiar with Botto, but he’s a supportive onscreen partner without fading away beside his better-known co-star. If the series’ writers persuade audiences that there’s something worth exploring in Javier’s relationship with Letty, Botto’s work will deserve a lot of the credit for making that argument successful, as will that of Kinney, who uses his overworked civil servant to give voice to frustration viewer may have with client.

“Good Behavior” is a dark, turbulent story and fits in with TNT’s new scripted direction as ably as it finds success in busting Dockery out of her Victorian drag. Whether the drama develops into something worth revisiting week after week beyond her prickly sex appeal is questionable, especially after the third hour’s breakdown. With Dockery at the wheel, it’s at least worthy of a short test drive.

The post Lady Mary Behaving Badly: TNT’s “Good Behavior” lets Michelle Dockery break bad appeared first on Salon.com.

As Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, senior vice-president of the Washington State Hospital Association, who has taken a keen interest in the show told me, “They’re asking the right questions. Who will be in charge? Will someone tell me what to do? Will we be able to continue to provide free care?”

The U.S. and British health systems, while dramatically different, have had to grapple with these same questions. And in their exploration they’ve discovered that a case can be made for big and for small but the weight of evidence suggests that the optimum medical configuration is when high tech and specialization is in service to responsible and accountable community hospitals.

In 1859, in real life, Albert Napper opened the first cottage hospital in Cranley. As Doctor Irvine Loudon at Oxford University observes, it was “built explicitly as a warm, clean, idealized version of the farm labourer’s cottage in order to reassure patients.” A familiar doctor would treat people in a familiar atmosphere. Communities rallied around the concept. Hundreds of cottage hospitals sprang up and over the decades evolved into relatively sophisticated operations, often with state-of-the-art medicine and surgery.

In a very early episode in “Downtown Abbey,” a farmer named John Drake was admitted to the hospital with a terminal case of dropsy.  Isobel suggested to Dr. Clarkson that they use a new technique. He reluctantly agreed and Drake promptly revived. By 1925, the year in which the final season of the series is set, voluntary hospitals constituted about 40 percent of all hospitals. They were largely supported by contributions and staffed with volunteers. There were government hospitals as well: The infirmaries that grew out of the much-despised workhouses of the 19th century. But to many people, these remained an unwelcome venue. In 1913, the liberal/labour coalition passed a law that gave a cash benefit to workers ages 16-70 who earned below the poverty level and the right to receive medical treatment at no cost. (These benefits did not extend to their spouses or children.)

Early in the series, Isobel asks Robert, Earl of Grantham, how Downton Cottage Hospital was financed. He notes that his father had given the land and building and established an endowment and then he adds, “Mr. Lloyd George’s new insurance measures will help.”  Violet is aghast. “Please don’t speak that man’s name, we are about to eat,” she archly announces.

In 1925, despite the federal money, cottage hospitals were still suffering losses. Demand was up while charitable contributions were stagnating, in part the result of the decline of the landed aristocracy. Meanwhile the price of medical equipment was climbing. Most hospitals filled the financial hole by introducing subscription medicine, a form of local and self-insurance. Many of these were based in the workplace. Some doubled down on their efforts to gain contributions. The Granthams have responded by opening their castle to paying visitors as a benefit for the hospital. Some cottage hospitals merged with bigger regional hospitals. That is the focus of the ongoing debate in “Downton Abbey.” Will their cottage hospital merge with the larger Royal Yorkshire Hospital? Some communities converted their voluntary hospital into a municipal hospital. That is what happened in real life when the city council of Bradford, located about 30 miles south of Downton’s village of Ripon, took over the running of hospital services in 1920.

Socialized Medicine and Community Hospitals

A Gallup poll in July 1944 found that 85 percent of former patients were satisfied with their hospital treatment. Two-thirds of these had been patients in voluntary hospitals. But the question of sustainable financing remained. Over 71 percent of Britishers said they would prefer a state-financed hospital system to one supported by contributions. At the stroke of midnight on July 4, 1948 they got their wish.  The National Health Service came into operation. Hospitals became government hospitals. Doctors became employees or contractors.

It was Violet’s worst nightmare. In the series she declared another reason why she wants to maintain local control of Downton’s Cottage Hospital: “For years, I’ve watched government take control of our lives. And their argument is always the same: fewer costs, greater efficiency. But the result is the same too: less control by the people, more control by the state. Until the individual’s own wishes count for nothing. That is what I consider my duty to resist…Your great-grandchildren won’t thank you when the state is all-powerful because we didn’t fight.”

That the NHS began operation on the American day of independence would probably have struck Violet as a cruel joke. For to her it was a declaration of slavery, a sentiment that would make her at home with current Tea Party philosophy. Indeed, in 1961, Ronald Reagan opposed Medicare with a rant that would have made Violet proud: “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism has been by way of medicine….If you don’t do this [oppose Medicare], one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in American when men were free.”

The NHS made it possible for cottage hospitals to survive. But it didn’t make that survival inevitable. Health policymakers were unsure about community hospitals. At almost every turn they undervalued their benefits and overvalued the benefits of centralization. In the 1990s the NHS announced a wave of closures. Communities fought back with equal resolve, writing petitions, packing public meetings, organizing marches. Some were successful. Others were not.

In Odiham, a four-year battle against the closure of its community hospital resulted in its becoming financially independent. The town of Rye, East Sussex, after discovering that its pleadings fell on deaf ears in Whitehall, took matters into its own hands, bought the local hospital and land, improved it and managed it. That protest had the benefit of being led by a local resident named Sir Paul McCartney, who gave a million pounds to the community’s initiative. “My mother was a nurse,” McCartney told the Independent. “I’ve got a lot of time for nurses and doctors because of what I saw her go through. The NHS is something our tax money buys. It’s like education. That was the deal, I always thought. We’re finding now that it isn’t quite the deal….”

British support for community hospitals has waxed and waned and waxed. In 2006, an Independent headline reported, “Cottage hospitals to make a comeback.” Eight years later, a headline in the Guardian announced, “NHS must end mass centralization, says new boss.”

But even while criticizing large, impersonal institutions for robbing people of “dignity and compassion,” the Conservative government cut another 20 percent from the NHS budget. Dr. Mark Porter, the Chair of the British Medical Association’s hospital consultants committee, worries that the happy talk about reviving community hospitals is simply a justification for turning the clock back and not in a good way. “Very deliberately the government wishes to turn back the clock to the 1930s and 1940s, when there were private, charitable and co-operative providers. But that system failed to provide comprehensive and universal service for the citizens of this country. That’s why health was nationalized.”

Community Hospitals in the United States

The U.S. hospital system began much as it had in the United Kingdom, as a charitable, often church-related institution governed locally and staffed by volunteers.

A bill for national health insurance made significant headway in Congress about the same time as the British Parliament enacted its first worker-based health insurance benefit, but ultimately failed when WWI made all things German distasteful, and after WWI the Red Scare undermined any further efforts. In 1946, Republicans took control of Congress, in part by charging that Truman’s proposal for a single egalitarian medical system that included all classes (and races) was socialism.

After Truman’s surprise victory in 1948, he doubled down on national health insurance. The American Medical Association assessed its members an extra $25 each and launched the most expensive lobbying effort in American history. One of its pamphlets echoed Violet’s warning, “Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of life? Lenin thought so. He declared socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.” If you think that sounds an awful lot like Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric 13 years later it should. The AMA wrote his speech, too.

At the same time the British were rolling out the world’s first free universal health system that was based on citizenship, not premiums or payroll taxes, Truman’s plan died in committee. No political party in America ever again embraced a universal, national health insurance system.

After World War II, Congress appropriated billions of dollars to build hundreds of mostly rural community hospitals. Many of these are now threatened. Since 2010, more than 50 rural hospitals have closed and over 280 across 39 states are vulnerable to closure. In big cities, community hospitals built a century before are closing. Detroit boasted dozens of hospitals in the 1960s. It now has four. Since 1988, Milwaukee County has lost its public hospital and five city hospitals. Since 1990, New York has lost more than 20 hospitals even as its population has grown. From 1999 to 2008, according to the American Hospital Association, the number of independent hospitals fell by 290 by mergers and bankruptcies.

Adding insult to concentration, most closures are occurring in poorer communities and in communities of color even while new, fully equipped hospitals continue to open in the wealthier suburbs. Federal rules are complicit in undermining the financial stability of community hospitals. The original health care law required states to expand Medicaid and the law reduced federal payments to hospitals that had been used to cover their costs of providing care to the indigent because the federal government believed many of those poor patients would now be under Medicaid.

Tragically, the Supreme Court declared that provision unconstitutional and almost half the states have refused to expand Medicaid.  The result is that in 2016 their hospitals will begin to lose federal revenues, putting a significant strain especially on many fragile rural hospitals. In states that had expanded Medicaid, 8.5 percent of rural hospitals are vulnerable to closure, nearly doubled in non-expansion states, where 16.5 percent of rural hospitals are vulnerable to closure, according to iVantage Health Analytics.

Hospital administrators complain about too low reimbursement rates from federal health care programs. As one administrator told USA Today, “Commercial insurers reimburse the hospital $1.33 for every $1 spent on a patient, on average, while Medicare pays about 83 cents for every dollar spent, and Medicaid pays 80 cents for every dollar spent.”

Many independent hospitals lack the clout to get higher payments from insurers and steeper discounts from suppliers because they aren’t part of larger hospital systems, another peculiar aspect of the U.S. medical system.

The Benefits of Local

Some argue that the closure of community hospitals has not negatively affected health outcomes but those working in these hospitals vehemently disagree. One community hospital physician responded that the study “does not resemble my real world.” The medical profession talks about the “golden hour” after heart attacks, trauma and stroke in which treatment is needed to prevent loss of heart muscle and brain tissue. Closing community hospitals often eliminates the ability to provide medical care within that critical hour.

The anecdotal information about the health impacts of closing community hospitals is not insignificant. Stewart-Webster Hospital had served the small town of Richland, Georgia and surrounding farms for more than six decades. With only a week’s notice, it shut its doors in 2013. A month after it closed, a farmer named Buren Jones, 52, died of a heart attack. His family had to wait 15 minutes for an ambulance to take him to a hospital 22 miles away, where doctors couldn’t revive him. The closed hospital was 9 miles from his house, a distance his wife or daughter — who performed CPR on him at home — might have driven.

“I have heard our little hospital called a Band-Aid station. But that little Band-Aid station saved my father’s life two times after heart attacks,” says Mike Pryor, judge-executive of Nicholas County, Ky., which lost its small, rural hospital a few months before.

Six days after a nearby hospital closed in Bellhaven, North Carolina, Portia Gibbs died while waiting to be airlifted to a big-city hospital 80 miles away. A rural hospital that recently closed in Nevada makes the nearest hospital 100 miles away.

Empirical evidence suggests that smaller and more localized institutions increase operating efficiencies while not reducing quality. In 1976, one British doctor commonsensically addressed the economics of centralization: “If the small hospitals are closed it means that the district hospital will have to cope with all the patients suffering from ordinary uncomplicated complaints and needing comparatively simple operations. The district hospital is geared to deal with the most complicated type of case. It has sophisticated diagnostic and therapeutic equipment which may be totally unnecessary and wasted upon such patients. The cost per bed in the district hospital is vastly greater than that in the cottage hospital. There will be no economy.”

To which one might add that new clinical and technological developments mean that services such as kidney dialysis, ultrasound and MRI scanning can be offered in small hospitals.

Studies that have looked at the comparative efficiency of big and small hospitals ignore the direct and indirect economic impact of a community hospital. Directly it tends to be one of the largest employers in town, especially in rural areas. Indirectly, economic development is hurt because of the negative image to businesses of communities lacking a hospital.

Studies also ignore the substantial community-wide out of pocket savings of more localized medical attention (e.g. extra driving time and expense). And they ignore the substantial collateral damage of community hospital closures. In 2005, University of California researchers looked at hospital closures in L.A. County between 1997 and 2002. Joe R. Hicks, vice-president of Los Angeles-based Community Advocates Inc. writes, “They found that the closures overwhelmed staff and facilities at the county’s four general hospitals. The closures triggered a stampede of patients to doctor’s offices, clinics and emergency rooms. They increased the time and distance that patients had to travel to get to a healthcare provider. That meant that fewer patients saw doctors, fewer children had checkups, patients were less likely to seek and get preventive care, and there was a jump in the number of deaths from injuries and heart attacks. This virtually guaranteed that the number of people who suffered from acute illnesses would climb. These ailments are more costly to treat.”

And then there is the unquantifiable satisfaction from the peace of mind of having a medical facility nearby where you know the personnel.

Doctors too have lost their independence and autonomy. Hospitals have been on a buying spree of physician practices for a decade. Why? Federal rules allow an office visit with a physician in a hospital outpatient department to be reimbursed at a rate 80 percent higher than the same procedure performed in a physician’s office. In May 2013, the Denver Post reported on a patient who received the same cardiac stress test twice from the same cardiologist. The first time the physician was independent. The test cost about $2,100. The second test, performed a year later after the practice was purchased by a local hospital, cost more than $8,000, mostly because of an added facility fee by the hospital.

“Hospital acquisition of physician practices leads to higher prices,” the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation concluded in 2012, and had not improved quality. It also concluded that physician-hospital consolidation has not led to either improved quality or reduced costs. Consolidations are undertaken “primarily for the purpose of enhanced bargaining power with payers.”

“Doctors really don’t want to sell their practices,” says H. Christopher Zaenger, CHBC, chief executive officer of Z Management Group in Barrington, Illinois. “They do it kicking and screaming.” Nevertheless, so many did that as of 2012, the majority of physicians were employees instead of owners.

In 2014 Medical Economics magazine intriguingly asserted, “Put simply, fighting to preserve physician autonomy may be one key to help rein in America’s enormous medical bills.”

Obamacare and Community Hospitals

All of which brings back the key question: what is the optimum configuration of a medical system? Most might embrace the vision of a network of well-equipped and locally owned or controlled hospitals that are part of regional networks of larger more capital-intensive hospitals that focus on specialized treatments.

The new buzzword in the medical community is “affiliation.” The key, as both Violet and Isobel might agree, is how to affiliate in a way that maintains local control and patient intimacy while adding the access to specialized treatments and expensive technologies.  Cooperative agreements come in hundreds of varieties. Mary Kay Clunies-Ross of the Washington Hospital Association notes a common joke among health policymakers: “If you’ve seen one affiliation, you’ve seen one affiliation.”

One of the key strategies the Affordable Care Act has embraced to reduce health care costs is by encouraging Accountable Care Organizations, networks of doctors and hospitals that share financial and medical responsibility for providing coordinated care to patients in hopes of limiting unnecessary spending. The focus is on Medicare because it is a single-payer insurance program where the government can establish the rules directly. Each ACO has to manage the health care needs of a minimum of 5,000 Medicare beneficiaries for at least three years. At the heart of each patient’s care is a primary care physician.

While ACOs are touted as a way to help fix an inefficient payment system that rewards more, not better care, some economists warn they could lead to greater consolidation in the health care industry, which could allow some providers to charge more if they’re the only game in town.

Kaiser Health News observes, “ACOs have become one of the most talked about new ideas in Obamacare.” Some applaud it as a way to help fix an inefficient payment system that rewards more, not better care. But as Kaiser notes, “some economists warn they could lead to greater consolidation in the health care industry, which could allow some providers to charge more if they’re the only game in town.”

It is clear that Downton Abbey’s cottage hospital will merge with Royal Yorkshire Hospital. Viewers will never discover what happens then. When a hospital is taken over by a system, the parent company typically replaces local board members. Physicians may end up with less say. “If you have a strong parent, they make all the decisions,” says Donald Thieme, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals. When the depression hits Britain, where will the Royal Yorkshire Hospital cut expenses first? Will the Downton Cottage Hospital survive?

The post What “Downton Abbey” tells us about Obamacare appeared first on Salon.com.

And now that “Downton Abbey” nears its conclusion, it’s hard not to compare it to another retro-set show that recently completed its final season. When you put the two next to each other, it becomes clear that Julian Fellowes’ series – for all its virtues – is weakest where “Mad Men” was strongest: The Madison Avenue characters, from first season to last, grew and changed almost as much as the times did. The upstairs-and-downstairs characters in “Downton Abbey,” by comparison, barely budge even as their world moves from the 1912 Titanic disaster to 1925. (The show, which aired its final season’s first episode last night, has already concluded in the UK.)

The characters of “Mad Men” went on real journeys. Sure, Roger Sterling’s mustache and some of the sideburns were silly. But even leaving out Don Draper – a character with more layers and complications than everyone on “Downton” put together – the show still demonstrated how some people evolve over time.

Joan started out a busty secretary – seemingly, at first, a kind of cliché thrown in as eye candy – and took possession of herself and her career as the show went on. Peggy’s metamorphoses into a substantial professional was even more drastic. And these weren’t just you-go-girl tales of triumphs. Their arcs, over the seasons, were persuasive.

Weasely rich kid Pete Campbell marries, becomes a sort of nerd playboy, and then seems to mature and come back to his wife.

Does this kind of thing happen to every marginalized woman or callow male narcissist? Of course not, but “Mad Men” showed how history, and force of will, can change people.

“Downton Abbey,” by contrast, has its characters stuck in place even as Britain and its class system go through the seismic shifts that inspired aesthetic Modernism. It may not be fair to point out that the bitter and pithy Dowager Countess is no different than she was in the first episodes – she’s defined by her refusal to change. But it’s true of most of the other characters as well, from Thomas Barrow, the scheming under-butler, to Lady Mary. (“Sure, scandal, intrigue and tragedy are what initially drew us to this foreign world of titles, entails and illogical hereditary rules,” the Wall Street Journal’s Sarene Leeds asks, “but, come on, Lady Mary Crawley being blackmailed for an illicit tryst again?”)

Do people have traits and tendencies that cause them to repeat the same thing over and over again? Sure.

But the difference between the two programs is not based on a philosophical view or psychological theory. Both “Mad Men” and “Downton Abbey” have a lot going for them. (Since I’ve beat up on the latter, I’ll also say that the series is beautifully shot, generally well-acted, and engagingly told.) But while “Mad Men” attracted attention originally because of its midcentury-modern style, and was often written about because of its social critique – its disapproving/celebratory look at macho office behavior, daytime drinking, consumer capitalism, and so on – by its last season, it was really defined by memorable and convincing characters. (It’s something that clearly guides critic Matt Zoller Seitz’s book “Mad Men Carousel.”)

“Mad Men” had its faults, too. But looking back, it’s hard not to miss the men and women who illustrated how the world was changing in the ‘50s and ‘60s. There’s nearly a whole season of “Downton Abbey” that I (like most Americans) haven’t seen yet; maybe it’s full of complex transformations. Anything’s possible. But it will need to go a long way to catch up with the gang from Sterling Cooper.

The post What “Mad Men” could teach “Downton Abbey”: Hemlines aren’t the only changes we need to see appeared first on Salon.com.

Check out some of the most popular and awesome moments from Colbert’s “Late Show” in 2015:

Donald Trump has nothing to apologize for:

In preparation for Stephen starting the “Late Show,” he hosted “Only In Monroe” and no one knows why:

That time PewDiePie taught Stephen some Swedish curse words:

Stephen and Ted Cruz talk about Ronald Reagan

Donald Trump is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for comedian material:

John Oliver won’t stoop to the Trump buffet, he doesn’t give a shit about him:

Stephen’s profound response to the shooting in Oregon:

A visibly shaken Colbert responds to the Paris attacks:

Amy Schumer told Stephen that she accidently drunk-ate Jake Gyllenhaal’s cake:

If Downton Abbey was done in American accents would it still be good? Stephen finds the answer:

Jennifer Lawrence had a scary nightmare where she was on set and couldn’t get out of her Kentucky accent:

That one time Jon Stewart crashed Stephen’s opening monologue, Stephen put a wig on Stewart and then smeared Cheeto’s orange dust all over Stewart’s face:

Stephen Colbert mocks Donald Trump’s announcement in the most epic way:

Here’s who Frank Underwood is really talking to when he looks at the camera:

What happens when James Bond goes to rent a car given that his rental history is a bit….. complicated…?

Bill Clinton explains why Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are so popular to the American electorate:

Stephen and Bruce Willis beat the ever-lovin‘ shit out of each other:

And two pretty kickass debate wrap-ups:

The post Stephen Colbert madness the right-wing missed: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Amy Schumer and the comic who drove the right mad appeared first on Salon.com.

But for all that my job transforms, at times, from TV Critic to “Senior Rape Correspondent,” it does not quite compare to the immersion in sexual assault that the actors cast in these TV shows take on in order to play their parts. Performance in the era of prestige television, especially for women, often entails the possibility of acting extreme trauma. It might be hard to watch these scenes; to perform them is to attempt to inhabit the desolation and suffering of victims.

One of the most viewed and discussed rape scenes on television was on the wildly popular British costume drama “Downton Abbey,” when Anna Bates was brutally attacked by a too-friendly visitor at the beginning of season four. Joanne Froggatt, who plays Anna Bates on “Downton Abbey,” described a process around filming that demonstrated a lot of consideration.

“What was shown was very slightly more than what Julian wrote, actually,” Froggatt said. “There was a discussion about how much to show and how much not to show, and Julian was adamant that no show that he was involved with would depict violence against women actually on the screen.”

Fellowes wrote the portion where Anna’s rapist, Mr. Green, slaps her in the face. But that was where his script left off. The remaining scene-setting was contributed by director Catherine Morshead—who became, with that episode, the first female director of “Downton Abbey” (she’s done several episodes since then)—and producer Gareth Neame. In Froggatt’s words, “It sort of needed to feel like she was cut off. It wasn’t about showing more of the attack. It was about shutting her off in this room away from her safety net, away from the safety of somebody possibly coming in… without showing the physicality of the attack.”

“As an experiment, we actually shot a little bit more of the attack,” she said. “It was never shown on the screen. That, in a weird way, did inform my performance to an extent. It didn’t go extremely far, but we did shoot a little bit more than was on-screen.”

Froggatt is a diminutive woman, even in the stilettos she was wearing for the PBS cocktail. She is also Hollywood-thin, and in the way that becomes standard for performers in Los Angeles, immaculately put together, in a dress that was knee-length on the model but nearly ankle-length on her. Nigel Harman, the actor who played her rapist, is a broad-shouldered man with a steely gaze. His IMDb profile lists him as 5-foot-10.

“It just felt right having a female directing those scenes, for some reason — for obvious reasons,” Froggatt said.

* * *

Abigail Spencer was a regular on two shows with sexual assault in the story line—the second season of “True Detective,” where she plays Ray Velcoro’s ex-wife Gena, a woman whose years-ago rape precipitates the emotional tailspin we find Ray in at the beginning of the show, and Sundance’s “Rectify,” which is preoccupied with the aftermath of many kinds of assault and trauma.

With “True Detective,” she told me, she and showrunner Nic Pizzolatto “talked at length about the back story. We knew every single thing about Gena and Ray before you ever meet them on the show. So I knew everything about the dates and the timing, and we discussed point-of-view, and what she did since, and why she did this. You maybe get one word of it on the show. But, I think, if you make a lot of really detailed and internal and very specific choices, then even if you never talk about it, hopefully it’s felt and it’s seen. I think Colin and I just knew.”

“It was really important to Nic that, yes, she was a victim of this thing, but that wasn’t what destroyed them. He went and killed someone; he became a killer. She was a victim, but he took vengeance.”

At that point, we were interrupted by Spencer’s co-star on “Rectify,” Aden Young — Spencer, Young and creator Ray McKinnon were trying to eat lunch while I was asking questions — “You’re giving me all the fucking spoilers!” Young’s character, Daniel Holden, is both accused of rape and then, in prison, a victim of it. I asked him, as well, how he prepares.

“Well, you do horror. You take the moments of horror in your life, where you’ve experienced something, and you amplify it and you what if, and it’s as if,” he said. “But also, you take your own human empathy that you feel for people who’ve survived that mutilation, and bring it forward as an artist, to portray—and in order to perhaps welcome them back into themselves, when they’ve been so brutally ejected from themselves, because of that act. You want them to feel as whole as possible, even though your main focus is the entertainment of this concept.”

I asked—who is “them”? He elaborated: “The victims of these crimes, and the families of these perpetrators, and the families of all that have suffered at the hands of a single choice, a single moment in time where the monster came out. Where does that ripple end? Where does that tsunami touch shore?”

“I’ve always said—we have to be very careful with how we measure our fiction against their truths, because their truths are what our stories are about,” he added.

Spencer added, “It really only works well if you tell it through character, and you’re not actually commenting or trying to tell the story of sexual assault. That is impossible to me, with grave danger of mishandling.”

She observed that on “Rectify,” her character, Amantha, Daniel’s sister, has never brought his rape up with him, even though she suspects it happened. It’s not because it’s sexual assault; it’s because in their relationship, Spencer argued, Amantha is trying to preserve and restore her brother’s dignity. “It only can cut through the surface of the shallow end of the pool if it’s through character.”

McKinnon offered his perspective on the story lines he himself wrote. Without intending to, a sexualized assault from season one has reverberated in the story through to season three, he said. “I didn’t not plan for it to,” he hastened to add. “It just, when you think about them as real human beings, that’s what’s going to happen. … When you have had trauma done to you, it doesn’t ever go away.”

He reflected, too, on the way rape is depicted in other television shows — often through forensic cases, studying rape through studying the dead.

“It takes away from the individuality of the victim, and a lot of it came on the edge of questionable titillation. That’s where it gets murky, because you think, ‘What are you attempting to do with this sensationalizing?'” he said. “Part of me says, ‘Why do I want to watch a show about children who are assaulted? What part of me wants to take that home, or take that into tomorrow and then follow it?’ That to me is not entertainment. I’m trying to keep my life away from that experience.

“And yet, we are creatures who are drawn to the morbid and macabre, and drawn toward the instinctive terror and instinctive horror,” he added. “It’s part of us because without that shadow, we don’t have the light.”

Much as cave paintings were a way to process fear—drawing a beast to warn others, to record its unexpected size—television is “our story, it’s our fear,” McKinnon argued. “For whatever reason, they drew our stories. We’re not using a camera to redraw, but it’s the same story. Part of that story is its horror. When that line gets blurred by somebody without that respect for the individual and only uses it as a sensational tool in order to up the ratings, then that’s when you go, What are you doing?”

* * *

The most uncomfortable I felt while conducting interviews on this topic was neither at the cocktail party nor over lunch, despite the severity of my questions in the otherwise festive environments. It was instead in the most press-friendly location possible that the press tour has to offer—the scrum right after the session, when the talent happily answers a few questions before the next panel is brought on. It was a moment where I knew I’d gone a little too far—and forgot, for a moment, that the world of fiction is not always that distant from the world we live in.

Alona Tal is best known for her turn on “Supernatural,” and after that, the gone but beloved “Veronica Mars.” But I was interviewing her for her Amazon Studios show “Hand of God,” a wannabe gritty drama (that ends up being rather too gritty). Tal is hands down the best element of the show; both on-screen and off-, she is warm and expressive. In the pilot, she goes toe-to-toe with no less than Ron Perlman’s lead character, and ends up spitting in his face. It’s magnificent, even if the rest of the show isn’t.

“Hand of God” is built on an event that occurs well before the story starts. Tal’s character Jocelyn was raped a year ago, and the trauma becomes unbearable for her husband, who was forced to watch. He tries to kill himself, and ends up in a coma, which is what Jocelyn is dealing with when the show opens.

Creator Ben Watkins told press that his interest in Jocelyn’s assault as an event that had happened well before the events of the show was to emphasize the “irony” of the male characters’ subsequent breakdowns: “I also like the idea of having a character who has already done all this work to sort of recover from a situation like that and is putting herself together and then now, because of the events that happened in the pilot, in going into the season, now she’s got this other burden to bear. And I wanted to see how she would be able to stand up to that.”

Tal, when asked about preparing for the role, name-checked rape culture. “Sadly, it doesn’t take much to put yourself in that position,” she added. “As a woman in today’s society, we kind of all have to deal with that in one form or another.

“I don’t think there’s an appropriate way of depicting rape, period. I think there’s many different heads to this hydra, and it’s a monster. It doesn’t just begin or end with the way it’s portrayed on television. It’s the way people perceive it in their own life.”

To follow up, quickly, I asked, as others were waiting to ask questions. You’re a petite woman. How do you prepare for a role where you embody trauma?

She gave me an enigmatic and kind of sad smile, woman-to-woman, while sitting on the edge of the stage and fielding questions with a lot of poise. “I don’t want to go too deep into it,” she said. “But I think each and every one of us has had an experience or a brush with that, one way or another.”

I wanted to say something else, or to offer her something. But there was nothing more to say.

* * *

When “Downton Abbey” first aired Anna’s rape episode, there was quite a bit of outcry. Though Froggatt’s performance earned rave reviews—and a Golden Globe—the framing of the story took a lot of heat. Many protested the brutality of the scene; others criticized “Downton Abbey” for focusing not on Anna’s recovery but on how the sexual assault affected her husband, Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle).

Froggatt denied the suggestion of sensationalism.

“Personally, I haven’t had any negative feedback about that story line,” Froggatt said. “People were obviously shocked by it,” she added, but response was “all positive, and saying that I’m really glad Julian [Fellowes, creator and writer] wrote that story, and I’m really glad that a show like ‘Downton Abbey’ tackled that subject matter.

“It was about the emotional journey. That’s why he wrote it. It wasn’t about a shocking scene for the audience. It wasn’t about gaining viewing figures from a shock.”

I asked her how she took the focus on Coyle’s character, especially as his costar and frequent scene-partner.

“What Julian was trying to do was reflect the time,” she said.

“The fact that Anna, within that time period—and even with women now as well—wouldn’t have felt able to talk about what happened to her. People didn’t go to counseling then. There was no such thing as help, in that way. A woman in her position, a working-class woman at that time wouldn’t have been able to talk about what happened to her—in fear of losing her family, her reputation, her job, and losing everything,” said Froggatt. “There was no source of security then. It’s that fear of losing your life. You lose everything. That is a real fear, on top of the emotional torture that she’s going through as well.”

“The first time I read it, I was like, ‘Why doesn’t she tell Mr. Bates?’ I just wanted her to tell Mr. Bates. And it was the fear of losing him, the fear of feeling spoiled, which hopefully, in this age, we think is, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s ridiculous!'” she added. “But that’s, at that time, unfortunately how she would’ve felt.”

“Downton Abbey’s” worldwide audience is something like 120 million viewers. Some of those viewers, like some American viewers, are probably engaged in a discussion about the portrayal of rape on television—and more broadly, the more pressing question of an endemic culture of rape.

Most probably aren’t.

“I’ve received a small number of letters from survivors of rape,” Froggatt said. “Each and every letter I received, the woman had either not felt able to talk about what happened to her or when she had, she’d not been believed,” she said. “One woman had said that even though Anna is in this time gone by, it still feels that difficult, as hard as it feels for Anna.

“That was incredibly saddening and frustrating to learn. In my naive mind, I hoped that we’d moved on so much further than that.”

The post Rape on TV is difficult enough to watch: Here’s how — and why — those harrowing scenes are made appeared first on Salon.com.

A few shows were practically founded on it—“Law And Order: SVU,” which premiered in 1999, has dealt with rape in nearly every episode of its 16-season and counting run. “Oz,” the 1997 HBO show set in a prison, regularly featured male-on-male rape.

But starting around the turn of the decade, rape on television morphed from a delicate topic to practically de rigueur. In the last two years alone, shows as vastly different as “Downton Abbey” and “Game Of Thrones” have graphically portrayed violent rape—typically, but not always, perpetrated by men onto women—to the point that depictions of sexual assault on television have become a regular part of the national discourse. “SVU,” “Outlander,” “Broad City,” “Inside Amy Schumer,” “Orange Is The New Black,” “Tyrant,” “Stalker,” “Shameless,” “Scandal,” and “House Of Cards” have all handled sexual assault, in their own way—either by depicting rape, exploring whether or not a sexual encounter is rape, or making jokes about how often rape happens. For a crime that has a dismal 2 percent conviction rate, it certainly is getting talked about an awful lot.

I can identify that this is a phenomenon that is happening. It’s a little harder to explain why. Some of it is purely a numbers game: There’s more television than ever—and more and more of that television is not on broadcast networks, with their stricter censorship rules and mandates for reaching a mainstream audience. It’s certainly easier to depict and discuss sexual assault on television now than it ever was before.

But that’s not the whole story. I joke, morbidly, that my job title has changed from television critic to “senior rape correspondent” because I cover televisual sexual assault with alarming frequency. The cases, on TV, run the gamut from 14-year-old girls drugging 18-year-old boys into having sex with them and plots attempting to reconstruct hazy memories of late-night drinking to men raping other men as an act of war and husbands raping wives in the bedroom. It’s a topic that engages, uncompromisingly, with our notions of gender, sexuality, power, and equality. And despite the barrage of sexual assaults on television, it’s a crime that occurs far, far more often in real life.

* * *

What we call rape is an entirely new phenomenon—barely 50 years old. For most of human existence, rape was not a crime committed against women but instead against the men who supervised them—husbands, fathers, brothers, lords, kings. The word “rape” likely comes from the Latin “rapere,” meaning to seize or abduct—to kidnap, to rob, to deprive another of property. Rape sullied a bloodline and damaged goods and/or services; it was a crime against private property. The implication of that language is also that rape happens to women, not men. Men might be violated, abused, tortured, yes, but not seized; they were typically not someone else’s property.

And though the Romans had their own word for sexual violation, “stuprare,” it was not necessarily immoral, criminal, or otherwise repugnant. Women were by and large not empowered enough to grant consent over their bodies, so the question of nonconsensual sex was rendered moot. Greek and Roman mythology is rife with gods raping maidens; in those stories, treated almost casually—an irritating fact of life, kind of like chicken pox.

The language of this era is extremely familiar, even today: Women invite sexual assault through their behavior; men have carnal urges they can’t control; people have to continue the species somehow. It’s reasoning that all hinges on the same logic—female desire is necessarily subordinate to male desire.

In 1975 Susan Brownmiller published her landmark work “Against Our Will,” which provided the foundation for the language of consent as a bulwark against the prevalence of rape. We rely on terms like “consent,” but consent can be silently or unconsciously given, and hard to prove after the fact. Intent is hard to prove in any context; the upside of a crime like murder is that at least there’s a dead body to point to. With sexual assault, it’s much harder to point to the aftereffects of trauma—either because the rape kit was mishandled or lost, as happens an awful lot, or because the aftereffects are more psychological than physical.

But primarily, what Brownmiller’s work did was center rape as a crime committed against women, not against property. “Against Our Will” fit into the feminist movement’s aims to recognize sexual violence and redefine it—both socially and legally. Before rape reform legislation of the 1970s, marital rape was an oxymoron, rape against men wasn’t illegal (or even acknowledged), and a woman’s reputation could be used as evidence against her accusation of rape in court.

It was a victory, but one with an upsetting aftertaste. A change in legislation cannot change social attitudes to sex and gender overnight. A prudent study of history asks us to not impose our own perspective of what people are like onto peoples throughout history, which could lead to the argument that because it so radically redefined the concept, before Brownmiller’s seminal work, rape as we know it didn’t exist. But that part of us that does identify with people from the past—that part of humanity that both spins tales and listens to them, rapt—is forced to acknowledge something much more upsetting: Perhaps, instead of there being no rape, there was only rape. Perhaps human existence is built entirely on intimate violence.

* * *

When it comes to the history of rape on television, it boils down to two basic categories: TV meant for men, and TV meant for women. Primetime, network television was for male audiences (or a mixed-gender audience, which then, as now, defaults to appealing to men). Soap operas, TV movies, and niche cable channels appealed to women. The era between the ’70s, when the rape reform movement was at its height, and the ’90s, when the “golden age of television” began to take over, offers up an awful lot of one-off episodes about rape on primetime where a male protagonist encounters a female sexual assault victim and is heroic about it. The heroism was typically accomplished by both not raping and by avenging rape, through safely masculine methods like beating the crap out of a guy, arresting them, or killing them quietly.

There are significant deviations from the established form—Lisa Cuklanz, in her book “Rape On Prime Time,” notes astonishing examples from “21 Jump Street,” “All In The Family,” and “Barney Miller,” among others—but she ultimately concludes that rape on primetime is mostly a study in masculinity addressing itself, reframing rape as a failure of masculinity that can only be fixed with more rigorous masculinity.

Rapists are depicted as identifiably outside the mainstream through their language, clothing, habits, or attitudes. Each of these plot elements works to rein force sensitivity and desire for justice on the part of the male protagonist. In most episodes it is the male detective/ main character who provides the primary comfort and support for the victim. The stories end when the detective protagonist has completed his work, that is, when the rapist is caught or killed. The detective’s sense of morality, and often his need for revenge on the criminal, thus culminate in a successful triumph of the “good guy,” which is often accomplished through violence against the rapist. However, the further plight of the victim through the course of counseling or a trial are not included… In short, these plots are about the male avengers of rape rather than about the problem or crime of rape or the experiences and feelings of the victim.

Daytime TV and made-for-TV movies such as those on Lifetime, in their low-budget, melodramatic glory, was far more likely to offer a woman-centric narrative of rape. Where mainstream TV ran away from topics like domestic violence, prostitution, abortion, and of course rape, soap operas and Lifetime films almost reveled in it; presumably there was some cathartic release in watching crimes suffered mostly by women in the real world play out in exaggerated glory on television. Lifetime’s films, then and now, were characterized by lurid titles and grim scenarios: “The Burning Bed” (1984), “She Fought Alone” (1995), “She Cried No” (1996), “She Woke Up Pregnant” (1996). On the abuse and rape survivor advocacy site The Road To Anaphe, the site’s creator includes an exhaustive list of Lifetime films, adding: “Lifetime Television may be a ‘women’s network,’ but it is one that shows a lot of good, informative movies on the subjects of child abuse, domestic violence, and missing children.” You could count on violence and exploitation in these films. The crucial difference is that you could also typically count on the point of view of the victim being central to the story.

Soap operas, unlike TV movies or even primetime TV shows, are not just serialized but heavily serialized. The short production time for soap episodes means that the shows can respond on the fly to audience interests, making the medium a fascinating one for measuring audience sentiment. And, uncomfortably, when rape shows up on soap operas, often those stories end up redeeming the rapist—indeed, in response to popular affection for those characters.

The best example of that might be the iconic Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) on “General Hospital,” who have been one of that show’s foundational relationships. But their first sexual encounter, in 1979, was rape, when Luke drunkenly forced himself on Laura. She eventually fell in love with him and they were together for 37 years. Their wedding episode in 1981 remains to this day the highest rated soap opera episode in history. It was only in 1998, when their son learned of the rape, that the show really confronted the myth of “forced seduction” they had established nearly 20 years earlier, and reframed it as the assault it really was.

“One Live To Live,” in 1993-1994, focused much of its storytelling on the gang rape and subsequent aftermath of a college student named Marty Saybrooke (Susan Haskell). The football jock who instigated the rape—a tall, handsome guy named Todd Manning (Roger Howarth)—was originally intended to be a serial rapist. The brutal honesty of the scene inspired both audience and critical praise; the series won Daytime Emmys for the plot arc, which unapologetically framed Todd as a sadistic villain.

But then the story took a turn: Audiences loved Todd. Their enthusiasm spurred the writers to instead build a redemption arc for the character, even as Marty struggled to rebuild her life. Todd lingered as a flawed character on the margins as the writers of the show tried to reconcile their desire to maintain that the rape was reprehensible with audience enthusiasm for the character. The situation was settled (sort of) in 1998, when actor Howarth decided to walk away from the show. Unfortunately, I can only find this quote from Soap Opera Digest in Wikipedia, but it’s so compelling, I’m reproducing it:

If the rape had been an unrealistic, soapy thing, then it wouldn’t matter. But because it was so in-depth and so brutal, to show Todd and Marty having drinks together in Rodi’s — to show Marty feeling safe and comfortable with Todd — is bizarre… People have come up to me and said, ‘My 7-year-old loves you.’ What do I say to that? I’m not going to tell them, ‘Don’t let your 7-year-old watch TV.’ But I have to say, it’s disturbing.

Howarth’s departure from the show effectively scuttled any possibility of redeeming the character (though he did return for guest-stints on the show). Of course, this being soap operas, Todd was recast with Trevor St. John, who believed himself to be Todd but then turned out to be Todd’s twin brother, and in the meantime, Marty returned to the show with amnesia, and they had sex, which ended up getting dubbed “re-rape.” But it’s a plotline notable for never losing sight of the fact that what Todd did to Marty was unforgivable, in a landscape where, to quote the writer and unofficial soap expert Joe Reid, “The laundry list of incredibly popular soap characters who started off as rapists — or even just terrorizers of women — is uncomfortably long.”

Interestingly, by 2003, when the rape of Bianca Montgomery on “All My Children” dominated national conversation, the audience’s desire to see the rapists forgiven seems to have fallen off. Bianca herself, as the first openly lesbian lead on a daytime drama, became the subject of redemption; where some audiences had hated her for coming out of the closet, her rape—a “punishment” or “corrective” for her sexuality—and her subsequent struggle to keep her baby became objects of such audience fervor that the New York Times covered it in 2004.

* * *

The book “Prime Time: How TV Portrays American Culture” makes a stark observation that Cuklanz, includes in her own book I quote above. The authors state that rape is “a crime ideally suited to television. It is violent and therefore action packed. The sexual nature of the crime can easily be presented as the act of a violent, mentally unbalanced madman.” And after noting both a study on sexual assault finds rape to be “the only violent crime to be a matter of universal concern among women of all class and ethnic backgrounds” and the role that detective procedurals in primetime played in shaping socially acceptable performances of masculinity, Cuklanz comes to a conclusion that is, in its way, astounding: Rape on television is used to, more often than not, to redeem masculinity,

by offering a subtle redefinition that frames masculinity as the means through which women are protected and avenged rather than brutalized and demeaned. At the same time, protagonist males can engage in violence within certain parameters, such as when they become so morally outraged at criminals that they can no longer contain their anger. Masculine volatility is harnessed for acceptable purposes and never used against women. … Rape provides a subject matter for which these stereotypes are easy to maintain. Not only are victims clearly deserving of protection and care, but the extreme evil and brutality of rape also serve as a clear contrast to the detective’s behavior and legitimize his use of force.

Rape on television is the theater through which both men and women grapple with masculinity—with the fact that in its most corrosive form, masculinity is a quality that wreaks violence on those closest to it. Destruction and power are built into our concept of maleness; rape plots on TV work desperately to allow men that access to power while also codifying when it’s acceptable to use.

I’m reminded of one of the most shocking and iconic rape episodes on primetime television—“Sylvia,” a two-parter on the family-oriented “Little House On The Prairie,” in 1980. The episode is horrifying, drawing on slasher-film imagery to tell a story of a girl whose “bosoms” came in “too soon,” resulting in horrific violence at the hand of a man in town. Sylvia herself is a one-off character who is introduced at the beginning of the two episodes and dies by the end. The episode is not about her; it’s about the men around her—her father, her rapist, her boyfriend, and most importantly, Pa Ingalls (Michael Landon), the show’s continued figure of masculine righteousness. What would have happened if Pa hadn’t been around is a chilling possibility left unrealized.

Underneath the archetype of the righteous man, the myth of the redeemed rapist, and the specter of the girl who was “asking for it,” in “Little House On The Prairie” or elsewhere, is a far greater fear, a far bigger problem. If good men don’t exist, if rapists can’t reform, if it’s not ultimately the woman’s fault, then something much scarier bubbles to the surface: This world, and masculinity in it, is very, very broken.

* * *

In this long examination of rape on television, it is hard not to think of HBO’s “True Detective,” which both consciously borrows the bones of the detective procedural and its unsubtle discourse on righteous masculinity. In the first episode of the second season, we learn Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) is a man tortured by the fact that his wife was raped; it is almost farcical, given the work we have done to center women in their own victimization. (I remain convinced, perhaps naively, that it is farcical, but that’s another story.) “True Detective” is a show with many faults, but it does attempt rather dramatically to tell a big story about masculinity in this world. And what it seems to tell is that the myth of masculinity we currently are all invested in is purely unsustainable. The men of “True Detective,” the ones consumed by the warring ideas of both destruction and violence but also righteous, proper violence, are erratic, addicted, and tortured; they fixate on violence done to the innocent because they know that on some level, they are responsible for that violence. The men of the first season of “True Detective” both have to confront their own monstrosity in order to come out the other side of a case that they could not solve; the confrontation leaves them both desolate and broken. If the mythos of masculinity is a beautiful, irresistible supernova, “True Detective” offers a vision of the collapsed, soul-sucking black hole it really is.

And if men struggle with it, women struggle with it, too; the story of soap operas and Lifetime movies is overall the story of women attempting to come to terms with the fact that that which they love is always capable of violating them. Women’s television offers either redemption for the abuser or an open-and-shut justice, via Olivia Benson (Mariska Hartigay) in “SVU”; neither happens with any notable frequency in real life. Rapists keep raping, with premeditation and without recourse, and we can barely admit it to ourselves.

There’s a point in Cuklanz’s work, which focuses on TV between 1976 and 1990, where she argues that as television is a more formulaic medium, it’s unsurprising how this standard detective-rape plot is produced and reproduced. It’s 2015 now, though, and we don’t live in a world of formulaic television. The past few years have yielded an incredible number of rape plots that often push the envelope in ways we’ve never seen before—exploring their violence, their frequency, the insidiousness of acquaintance rape, and the less-discussed phenomenon of male-on-male rape.

My complaint with these plots, over and over, is that the stories—usually written and directed by men, despite progress in gender equity—is that so often they focus on the feelings of the men in the story, at the expense of the victims’. But I can see why they focus on the men; the men, as the overwhelmingly more likely perpetrators, present a greater puzzle for us. It would be simpler to dismiss all rapists as monsters, but when so many are fathers, brothers, friends, boyfriends, it becomes harder and harder to do. Sexual assault has only existed the way we think about it for a few decades, and we are still trying to figure out how to address it—how to change the way this world functioned for millennia, and still functions in pockets of untouched refuge all over the world. I don’t particularly have a solution for how to “fix” rape on television; it’s graphic, brutal, violent, and horrible, to the point that it is very difficult to watch, hard to explain, confusing to discuss.

But one thing is clear: I’d rather we dealt with this than we didn’t. I’d rather discuss rape on every TV show than not discuss it all. I’d rather see the world convulsing with outrage over Sansa or Anna or Mellie or Claire or Pennsatucky—who are all, by the way, white women, suggesting an erasure of experience for women of color that has yet to be addressed—than pretend that this isn’t a crippling social problem, an epidemic that we appear to lack the political will or interest to fight. This is what we do with stories; we imagine not just what happened then, and what happened now—but what happens next.

The post The truth about TV’s rape obsession: How we struggle with the broken myths of masculinity, on screen and off appeared first on Salon.com.

Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes, played by acting heavyweights Jim Carter and Phyllis Logan, have been reliable fixtures of the downstairs stories in “Downton Abbey”—both as consistent fictional characters and dependable Edwardian servants. Carson’s name, in the show, is synonymous with gruff, endearing rigor; he’s more exacting about propriety than anyone else on the show, including knowing exactly where his place is. Mrs. Hughes, meanwhile, is the soul of efficiency. Anything that crosses her purview is handled with quiet expedience, whether that means managing the upstairs family’s dramas or the downstairs servants’ trials and tribulations. Unlike the other servants, they each have their own office. In the privacy of their chambers, Carson polishes the silver and filters wine in solitude, while Mrs. Hughes rotates linens and occasionally experiments with newfangled contraptions like the toaster. Dinner, for the servants, can only start when they’re both present. Carson sits at the head of the table, and Mrs. Hughes at the foot. If it sounds like they’re the de facto mother and father of the household, it’s because they are.

Carson’s engagement to Mrs. Hughes in last night’s finale is taking their professional intimacy to its logical conclusion—logical for modern audiences, anyway. This is television, and we are a viewing audience that believes wholeheartedly in workplace romance, whether that comes in your detective-partner-barely-consummated “The X-Files” variety or your and-then-they-lived-happily-ever-after “ER” variety. In the landscape of television, five seasons of making eyes at each other and holding hands once or twice isn’t even that long.

But in the context of 1924, which is when the episode takes place, it’s a lot more shocking. “Downton Abbey” has had servants marry before, but never such high-ranking ones; it would have, in all likelihood, been strictly prohibited. This is a very pleasant fiction, on levels—allowing for both a workplace where a sudden marriage between two professionals expected to remain single would be tolerated in these positions; and one where a lifelong housekeeper and butler would even have the emotional bandwidth to fall in love with another human being.

Carson and Mrs. Hughes are, not so subtly, a rehash of another fictional butler and the fictional housekeeper he was in love with—Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 novel “The Remains of the Day,” which was made into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in 1993. And where “Downton Abbey” is a cheery vision of aristocracy as a graceful system of noblesse oblige, “Remains of the Day” is a tragedy so carefully constructed that it reads almost triumphant—the tragedy of service, specifically; of how being a good servant comes at the cost of feeling emotions like the rest of us.

Halfway through the book, for example, Stevens relates of a terrible evening where his father dies during an important dinner for his employer, Lord Darlington. Stevens is not being forced to ignore his father’s sudden decline and passing so that he can do his work, but he forces himself to do it, anyway—pouring port for lords and ladies, tending to the bandages of a crotchety French diplomat, making small talk about plants. He does not show up to the moment of his father’s passing, and he does not see the awfulness of letting his work for these aristocrats supplant his personal crisis. Later, he recalls: “For all its sad associations, whenever I recall that evening today, I find I do so with a large sense of triumph.” It’s this same focus that leads him to overlook and dismiss entirely the love he feels for Miss Kenton—and the love that she feels for him. (When she is attempting to tell him how she feels: “I have not taken anything you have said to heart, Miss Kenton. In fact, I cannot recall what it is you might be referring to. Events of great importance are unfolding upstairs and I can hardly stop to exchange pleasantries with you.”) The book ends with Stevens only barely able to understand the personal life he gave up to satisfy his sensibilities of what it meant to be a good servant—to preserve “a dignity in keeping with my position,” as he says.

Carson and Mrs. Hughes from “Downton Abbey” occupy the same time period (the ‘10s and ‘20s) and the same positions as Stevens and Miss Kenton; they’ve shared some of the same plots, too. Mrs. Hughes considered marrying a man from her past and leaving service a few seasons ago, as Miss Kenton eventually does in “Remains of the Day.” The difference is what’s insinuated to the audience about service. It’s very easy to read “Remains of the Day” as a wholesale critique of service—Stevens is so distorted by stripping away his personality to serve others (his “masters,” his “betters”) that he cannot even see his recollections as sad. He is entirely about manners and propriety and the desires of others; he can’t even see himself.

“Downton Abbey” is a deliberately much more lighthearted show, largely because it makes its aristocratic family, the Crawleys, into perfect examples of noblesse oblige. The part where the downstairs staff is literally at the upstairs’ beck and call tends to be played down, in favor of cutesy drama that never questions the status quo. In that sense, Carson and Mrs. Hughes’ engagement, as muted and affectionate as it is, falls in line more with the show’s interest in sundown romances—both the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) and Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton) have courted suitors this season.

And yet, the class element is there, and the show struggles with showing the pomp and circumstance of aristocracy without revealing the ruthlessness that would necessarily underpin it. In last night’s episode almost every subplot—played mostly for laughs—was about keeping butlers, in particular, in their place. At the Sinderbys’ estate, a rude butler is manipulated into being deferential by Lady Mary, Miss Baxter and Mr. Barrow; as Mary says cuttingly upon witnessing her plans come to fruition, “the butler’s back in his box.” An employer snaps at his butler, “Do you dare to use the word ‘obviously’ when you contradict me?” And the Dowager Countess has to put down her own butler for having too many airs with her ladies maid (who calls him a “dreary little man”). On one hand, the episode works to remind the audience and the Crawley family why Carson’s excellent service shouldn’t be taken for granted. On the other hand, it’s an uncomfortable little parable about keeping servants in line.

It extends to our lovebirds, too. Carson and Mrs. Hughes end up inching closer and closer to domestic partnership when they engage in a business partnership—this is a workplace romance, as I said. But they take advantage of the upstairs family’s holiday on a shooting trip to have their version of courtship—inspecting properties for their venture, making plans and even drinking leftover wine out of a crystal carafe. Carson brings it to Mrs. Hughes with undisguised glee: No one will miss it, because it’s extra, and they’re away tomorrow; for once, they are free of the shackles of servitude. For a few brief scenes they’re even wearing casual clothes, instead of their severe dark uniforms. And when Mrs. Hughes worries that she doesn’t have the cash for their venture, Carson concludes, practically, that he hates to change a plan when there’s no need. “I’m not marrying anyone else,” he points out.

There’s one way to look at the engagement of Carson and Mrs. Hughes, and that’s as the escapist fantasy that “Downton Abbey” is always happy to be. The other way to look at it is as a flight of fancy so radical that it’s political; these are two people of the lower classes making the choice, late in life, to live for themselves from here on out. I’m honestly of the opinion that the show has no idea which one it’s going for; if the past five seasons have taught us anything, it is that “Downton Abbey” is kind of just messing around with its very pretty production values. I am pleased to see a version of Stevens and Miss Kenton get a happy ending. But I think that happy ending comes at the expense of us, the audience, being truly critical about what was required of these servants—and in blissful ignorance of how much of a privilege marriage was at the time. As it turns out, it still is. And if we can’t even be critical about the past, how could we possibly be critical about the present?

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The congressman from Illinois has a habit of taking selfies wherever he travels, and some of those trips — including a trip to London — are being examined to see if they were paid for in the proper way according to congressional rules. Stewart of course demanded to see these Instagram pictures and displayed them in a montage set to Taylor Swift. Watch below:

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1. Seth Rogen on “Broad City”
Abbi hasn’t had the best romantic track record, from lusting unrequitedly after her neighbor to the condom, erm, incident in last season’s finale. But hopefully that will change once her new love interest, played by Seth Rogen, steps into the picture. Not only are we sensing some pretty good romantic chemistry between these two, Rogen might be one of the few people who can keep up with Abbi and Ilana’s manic comedic energy. This should be good.

2. Ana Gasteyer on “Girls”
“Girls” has a whole lot of guest spots lined up — including Natasha Lyonne, Gillian Jacobs, Marc Maron, Zachary Quinto, Jason Ritter, Maude Apatow and Spike Jonze, to name a few — but we are perhaps most excited about the appearance of “SNL” alum Ana Gasteyer, who is going to play Shoshana’s mom, and presumably shine a light on both the origins of Shoshana’s various psychological issues and her affinity for decorative throw pillows. This really is perfect casting, if you ask us — Bobbi Mohan-Culp is such a Shoshana.

3. Cheech Marin on “Jane the Virgin”
“Jane the Virgin” has a pretty awesome track record of casting Latin celebrities thus far, so who better to play grandma Alba’s love interest than the one and only Latin King of Comedy, Cheech Marin? That said, we hope he’s cut down on his herb intake, because Abuelita does not suffer fools gladly.

4. Everyone in the world on “Portlandia”
“Portlandia” always has epic guest stars, and it’s fifth season promises to be no exception. The all-star lineup includes “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, Vanessa Bayer, Justin Long, Seth Meyers, Paul Simon, Jane Lynch, Greta Gerwig and more, as well as old hats like Kyle MacLachlan and Jeff Goldblum. Byaaaay!

5. Cicely Tyson on “How to Get Away With Murder”
In ShondaLand news, Academy Award nominee Cicely Tyson is scheduled to reunite with her “The Help” costar Viola Davis for a one-episode guest spot on “HTGAWM.” No word yet on who she’ll play, but some are speculating she could be Annalise Keating’s mother, which is a dynamic we’d simply *kill* to see.

6. Ricky Gervais, Hugh Bonneville and Weird Al Yankovic on “Galavant”
“Galavant” just premiered, and already it’s displayed some impressive guest-star game — notably, episode 2’s appearance of an eyeliner-sporting John Stamos as an effeminate jouster named Jean Hamm. And the quirky cameos will continue, with future episodes featuring “Downton Abbey”‘s Hugh Bonneville, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Ricky Gervais as a magician named Xanax (A-plus character naming all round here).

7. Kim Dickens on “House of Cards”
“Gone Girl’s” detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) was one of the film’s breakout stars (along with Amy’s cat, obviously), so we’re super-excited to see her sleuthing skills transplanted to Frank Underwood’s White House.

8. Old favorites on “Parks & Recreation”
So many old favorites will be returning for “Parks & Rec’s” last hurrah that it’s hard to decide whom we’re most excited for. Paul Rudd’s naive candy heir Bobby Newport? Megan Mullally as Ron’s terror of an ex-wife, Tammy 2? The reincarnation of Little Sebastian?! (We can dream).

9. Lee Pace on “The Mindy Project”
Jack-of-all-genres Lee Pace (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Lincoln,” “Pushing Daisies,” “The Hobbit,” etc.) will guest star on “The Mindy Project” as Alex, the man Mindy lost her virginity to back in college, and will appear both flashbacks and present day. While we are a little worried about anyone who threatens to come between Danny and Mindy, we’re pretty excited for those college flashback scenes (and for all of Mindy’s ’90s pop culture references).

10. Richard E. Grant on “Downton Abbey”
“Downton Abbey” is a veritable magnet for dapper scoundrels, and who fits the bill better than Maggie Smith’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” costar Richard E. Grant? Grant will play an art historian named Simon Bricker who stops by Downton to check out a painting and proceeds to “cause ructions” in the household, natch.

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