'Downton Abbey' Recap: 'Like Too Many Women Before Her'

Jessica Brown Findlay as Lady Sybil and Allen Leech as Tom Branson in 'Downtown Abbey'

The thing about comfort food is that when someone serves you a piping hot plate of it week after week, you never suspect that one day they're going to grab it and smash it into your face.

Downton Abbey is just a soap opera, as both its admirers and detractors will tell you; what side of that divide they come down on depends on both how they feel about the genre itself and this show's impeccable version thereof. And while people die on soaps all the time, those deaths are typically tearjerkers, not gut-punchers. That's certainly been the case on Downton until this point, where the major deaths – Kemal Pamuk, Vera Bates, William, Lavinia, even the Crawley heirs whose deaths on the Titanic started it all – have meant more to us in terms of how they've affected the survivors than the dyers themselves.

So I'll admit it: Despite the ominous rumblings from across the pond, where this season aired months ago, I never saw this coming. Not when Dr. Clarkson mentioned his concerns about pre-eclampsia. Not when the family really started to fight about which doctor was in the right. Not when the childbirth seemingly went off without a hitch. Not when Sybil was issuing ominously final-sounding instructions about how her family should be treated. Not even when the panic-stricken family gathered in Sybil's room, watching her scream and pound her own head and seize and convulse and gasp for breath. Surely, surely, something could be done. That's the kind of show this is, right?

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Wrong. And in proving it wrong, creator/writer/showrunner Julian Fellowes and actress Jessica Brown Findlay delivered more than just one of the most physically unbearable-to-watch death scenes this side of Breaking Bad or Deadwood – they served up the show's most powerful broadside against its own sexist system yet.

Every woman I know who's experienced pregnancy and childbirth has at least one jaw-dropping story of creepy or condescending or infuriating paternalism by some male medical professional or other. Well before you get into the well-documented War on Women territory of moving to convict rape victims who abort their pregnancies of felony evidence tampering, women's physical and psychological pain during this process is too often treated like an inconvenience to be brushed aside or powered through rather than treated with all due hippocratically mandated urgency. If those needs are not taken seriously, neither is the gender that generates them.

In tonight's episode, that paternalism becomes tragically literal. That tragedy is foreshadowed when an ebullient Lady Edith learns she's been offered a gig as a newspaper columnist, with a carte-blanche remit that would make a 21st-century freelancer of any gender flip the eff out. (Ahem.) Without even realizing how condescending he's being, Robert reacts as though the editor only made the offer to draught off the great Earl of Grantham's family name. When he looks at his daughter he sees neither her talent nor her need for support, only a weaker-sex reflection of himself. And among his peer group, he's a relatively open-minded guy! Downton Season Three's laser-precise exploitation of Lord Robert's weaknesses has been kind of remarkable to behold.

Enter the odiously arrogant doctor Sir Phillip, and the mistake that costs Sybil her life. Confronted with a difference in opinion among two male medical professionals – one of whom has known Sybil not just as a patient but as a person (and even a staff member, during the War) since birth and therefore reacts to her uncharacteristic appearance and behavior with alarm, the other who'd never even met her until the day before and therefore blows it off – Robert and Cora split on what should be done. Naturally, the default decision is to do what her father prefers: nothing. The delay costs them precious time, preventing them from taking the question to Sybil's husband Tom to make the final call; by this point Sybil herself is too incoherent to make the decision herself. Father knew best, until he didn't. 

The irony is that the Crawleys are supposed to have it easy. But while Sybil and Edith both discovered that their life of mandatory leisure is a stultifying, potential-suppressing prison in many respects, a woman like Ethel, sentenced to a life of poverty and ignominy for the crime of getting knocked up by a deadbeat asshole, doesn't even have the leisure to fall back on. Isobel's insistence upon hiring Ethel back into service, then allowing self-righteous Mrs. Bird to quit rather than firing Ethel when presented with the senior cook's ultimatum, is a cathartic breath of fresh air, particularly in an episode like this. But Fellowes works to tarnish even this brief triumph over conformity: We sense Isobel's irritation that her good deed has been rewarded with terrible cooking and undrinkable tea, revealing the extent of her bourgeois benevolence. And we know that shitty as it is, Mrs. Bird's dramatic proclamation about Ethel, "If I tolerate her, I will be tarnished by her," is probably true, in this world. The system is kept in place by low-ranking members who cling to their few advantages over the even-lower, like a "good name," with terrifying tenacity.

Women, of course, are not the only victims of the ironclad rules and regulations for gender and sexuality. Whatever O'Brien's true knowledge of or feelings about Thomas's homosexuality may be, they weren't an obstacle to being dude's BFF for years. Now that they've fallen out, though, O'Brien's declaring open season on Thomas's closed closet door. With the exception of Dame Maggie Smith's irrepressible Dowager Countess, Downton's not known as a showcase for showy acting – this ensemble's stock in trade is restraint, not fireworks. But the portrayal of O'Brien by actor Siobhan Finneran (who, might I add, looks like this IRL) is so restrained, so rigorously controlled and subdued, it's become a kind of fireworks all its own. Simply put, O'Brien never smiles . . . until tonight, when she reacts to Jimmy's hesitant suspicions of Thomas's motives with a bone-chilling grin. That's the beauty of restraint, isn't it? The little things matter.

And despite Thomas being one of the show's least sympathetic characters, this episode went out of its way to humanize him, in the face of a coming smear campaign to which he's completely oblivious. First, it paired his somewhat transparent attempt to pick up Jimmy the Hunky Footman with his intuitive, compellingly competent, almost poetic expertise with clocks – knowledge learned at the feet of his father, no less. Then it capped his sobbing devastation over the death of Sybil, one of the only people who've ever shown him kindness and accepted it from him in return, with a touching rapprochement with Anna, whose husband he'd once tirelessly worked to destroy.

I loved, by the way, that Thomas and Anna pulled apart when Mrs. Hughes walked by, as if they were doing something illicit, despite the many, many reasons we know they're up to no such thing. That's how strict the rules against physical contact can be, and thus that's how unexpected and welcome something as simple as Anna putting her hand on Thomas to comfort him can feel. Again, the little things matter. But in a system in which freedom is so proscribed for so many, they're not enough.

Last week: 'We All Live in a Harsh World'

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'Downton Abbey': Real Housewives of the 1920s

Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson in 'Downton Abbey'

Nice try, Shirley MacLaine. But the old-school English aristocrats of Downton Abbey already have a resident rage queen, and her name is Dame Maggie Smith. She might be pushing 80, but as the Dowager Countess of Grantham, she handles a one-liner like a bayonet. When she hears she's getting a visit from MacLaine, she says, "I'm so looking forward to seeing your mother again. When I'm with her, I'm reminded of the virtues of the English." When someone responds, "But isn't she American?" the Countess flares about an eighth of a nostril and sneers, "Exaaactly." And that's how it's done.

There's something superbly shameless about the way Downton Abbey begins its great third season with a bit of Hollywood stunt casting, sending in MacLaine as the rich Yank who rattles everybody's nerves in the stuffy English society of 1920. Shirley Mac certainly has the moxie, since she was the token broad in Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack. So it's fun to see her face to face with Maggie's Countess in a frown-clash showdown, flaunting her crude manners – she talks with her mouth full and mispronounces French words on purpose. (She relishes saying "idea fixee" the way Lil' Kim loved to pronounce it "Christian LaCroyx.") But did anyone think Maggie was going to lose this battle on her own turf? Never that. It sums up the whole cross-cultural conflict: Hey, our mean old ladies can out-bitch your mean old ladies.

'Downton Abbey' Season Three Cheat Sheet

That's the weirdness at the heart of Downton. It depicts a vanished world of Edwardian aristocracy, but modernity is always a major character lurking in the corner of the room. However big a deal it is in its native land, Downton Abbey is so perfectly tailored to U.S. Anglophiles it's scary. Creator Julian Fellowes loves to keep throwing in old-world vs. new-world collisions, like the great moments when the Countess has to grapple with innovations such as the telephone. When she struggles to keep her balance on a swivel chair ("Another modern brain wave?"), and is told it was invented by Thomas Jefferson, she fumes, "Why must every day involve a fight with an American?"

This is the first Downton Abbey season produced after it became a surprise U.S. success, and the confidence shows. The story still goes for soapy twists, but with more assurance. The basic tension comes from any Henry James novel: The Americans have the new money, the Europeans have the old manners, but the money tends to win, and the Brits resent their compromises. As the Countess sniffs, "No guest should be admitted without the date of their departure settled."

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There's always been a lot of mourning on Downton, as the Crawley family and their below-stairs servants reel from the rush and the push of the 20th century. They grieve for what's lost, without any clear sense of what is left to build on. They can't afford to keep up their family mansion, yet they have trouble with the fundamental concept of getting a job. The Crawleys would much prefer to cling to the old order, even as they watch it disappear. Their empire, as Michael Corleone would say, has been dying of the same heart attack for 20 years.

If the Countess is having more fun than anyone, it's because the pressure's off. She knows there's no future in England's dreaming, and she doesn't care. She's too old to start over – but what's everybody else's excuse? Yet that just adds to the hyperbolically English repression of it all. The collapse of the aristocracy gives the Countess her perpetual sour temper, but that's a decidedly good thing. Because the surlier she gets, the livelier Downton Abbey becomes.

This story is from the January 17th, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

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'Downton Abbey' Season Three Cheat Sheet

© Carnival Film & Television Limited 2012 for MASTERPIECE

Ready to reenter the world of the classiest soap opera in television history? When Downton Abbey begins its third season here in the States on PBS this Sunday – it's already aired in the U.K., leaving the entire Internet a spoiler minefield more dangerous than a World War I no-man's-land – it's set to make television a more beautiful place pretty much singlehandedly, with opulent sets and costumes, gorgeous cinematography, a cast that's restrained and rock-solid from top to bottom, and a rapturous theme song that makes fans of Edwardian romance drool like Pavlov's dogs.

But it also brings with it a cast as sprawling as any on TV, from the Crawleys – the aristocratic family who dwell in the huge country house that gives the show its title – to the many servants who keep both the house and the family afloat. Add a marriage, a pregnancy, and a visit from the Crawley kids' American grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) on the way this season to the show's trademark breakneck twists and turns, and things will only get more complex.

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Now's the time to sort out the daughters, suitors, butlers and dowagers that make Downton the most popular public TV drama of all time, so we're pairing off the characters to give you a couple-by-couple breakdown of who's who and what they've been up to. Whether you're new to the Abbey or a repeat visitor in need of a refresher, couple up and read on.

Lord Robert and Lady Cora: Land-rich and cash-poor, Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, took the sleazy way out of potentially losing his family's ancestral home, the sprawling estate called Downton Abbey: he married American heiress Cora Levinson for her money. But eventually they fell in love and became the patriarch and matriarch of Downton's entire miniature society: the "upstairs" segment, consisting of them, their three daughters, and Robert's mother, Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess; and the "downstairs" servants who keep the household running – maids, cooks, footmen, housekeepers, and more.

Both Robert and Cora pretty much radiate reassurance and warmth when required, but the outbreak of World War I strained their relationship in Season Two. Relegated to the home front, where all he can do is polish the brass on his uniform, Lord Grantham grows disillusioned with the system that gives him such power but none when and where it really counts. Meanwhile, Lady Grantham throws herself first into the conversion of Downton into a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers, then into the relationship woes of her eldest daughter, Mary. Robert briefly falls for Jane, a war widow recently hired as one of Downton's maids, before recommitting to Cora, who narrowly escapes a potentially fatal bout of Spanish influenza. Now their main concern is the well-being of not one, not two, but three scandal-plagued members of their household, to which Lord Grantham has proven surprisingly, endearingly understanding.

Lady Mary and Matthew Crawley: Mary's the high-strung, porcelain-skinned eldest daughter of Robert and Cora, prevented by law from inheriting their shared estate and fortune. Matthew's the ridiculously blue-eyed, middle-class lawyer and distant cousin set to inherit the Earl of Grantham's lands, titles and money when the previous heir, a closer male relative, dies on the Titanic. Together they're the romantic heart of the show, with a new break-up, make-up, scandal, love triangle or tragedy reshuffling their relationship in nearly every episode.

Class and cash have come between them, with Mary seeing Matthew as an interloper and Matthew suspicious that Mary only wants him for his soon-to-be money. Scandal has threatened to separate them too, like the (true) rumor that Mary lost her virginity during a one-night stand with a hot Turkish diplomat who died of a heart attack mid-thrust. They've even been engaged to other people: Matthew to sweet Lavinia Swire, who stayed by his side when a war wound briefly cost him his ability to walk or have children, only to die of Spanish flu shortly after catching him kissing Mary, and Mary to Sir Richard Carlisle, a nasty nouveau riche newspaper magnate who uses his power to quash the Turk scandal in exchange for marrying her despite her rumor-tainted reputation.

But love conquers all, and rather than subject both herself and Sir Richard (whose heart, let's face it, is really with the Khaleesi) to a loveless marriage of convenience, she dumps him for Matthew, saying yes to his marriage proposal even though she knows the vengeful Richard will now spread her sex scandal.

Lady Edith and Sir Anthony Strallan: Middle sister and perpetual also-ran Lady Edith has long stood in the shadow of her vivacious, occasionally vicious older sister Mary, but her experience working in Downton's army hospital – and conducting a brief and chaste but memorable affair with a married local farmer – seems to have given her a sense of greater purpose and self-confidence. Sir Anthony Strallan, a much older member of the upper class's lower tier, is the nice guy (not in the "Nice Guys of OKCupid" sense but in the "genuinely nice guy, if a bit on the boring side" sense) who was seen by many as about as good a match as Edith could hope for. In retaliation for leaking the truth about the Turk, Mary nuked Edith and Sir Anthony's relationship by lying to him about insults Edith was allegedly making about him behind his back. But when Sir Anthony returns home from the War with a wound, the two appear to have a rapprochement.

Lady Sybil and Branson: The cheerfully rebellious youngest sister of the Crawley family, Sybil's the most likely to challenge convention (in a safe, Downtonesque way): helping a maid get a job as a secretary, becoming a nurse during the War despite her young age and high station, wearing pants. Her chief weapons in these minor crimes against conformity are her incongruously sultry bedroom rasp of a voice and Branson, Downton's chauffeur, who also supports the slightly more serious rebellion in his native Ireland. It takes her a long time to reciprocate the feelings he confesses to her, but when she finally does, they defy Lord Grantham's orders – and his attempt to bribe Branson into staying away – and insist on getting married. Grudgingly impressed with Branson's moral fiber, Robert gives them his blessing to marry, move to Ireland and start a family, as English aristocrats are so famously wont to do when their youngest daughters fall in love with Irish rebels they hired to drive the car.

Bates and Anna: Far less tempestuous than the on-again, off-again love affair between Mary and Matthew, the slow-build relationship between Lord Grantham's valet John Bates and the Crawley daughters' ladies' maid Anna still manages to be the most heartache-inducing on the show, simply because the two of them are just so nice and so cursed. An old war buddy of Robert's, Bates received a wound that forces him to walk with a cane – a bad look for someone in the prestigious right-hand-man position of valet – but Lord Grantham hired him despite both his disability and the discovery that he was both a reformed drunk and ex-con. Anna was the one Downton employee who treated Bates with kindness as he struggled with his new job; that kindness became the basis for a love that both eventually admitted but neither dared act on for years.

Just when Bates overcame his self-doubt and was ready to marry Anna, his vindictive estranged wife Vera resurfaced, refusing to grant him the divorce he'd been seeking ever since he took the rap for crimes she committed. After playing a key role in exposing Mary's sex scandal just out of spite against Bates, she died under suspicious circumstances. Despite the support and testimony of Lord Grantham, Bates is tried and wrongfully convicted of Vera's murder after just one night of happiness as husband and wife with Anna.

O'Brien and Thomas: While there's no romance between them for a whole host of reasons, not least of which being the fact that he's secretly gay, Thomas (one of the footmen) and O'Brien (Lady Grantham's lady's maid) are Downton's dark power couple, a pair of bad-apple BFFs whose schemes and petty revenge plots wouldn't be possible without each other's support. Angry with Bates for swooping in and stealing the valet gig they believe Thomas deserved, the pair waged a long shadow war against him, culminating in O'Brien narcing about his relationship with Anna to Vera.

But by the end of season two, both had taken a few steps back from pure villainy. O'Brien regretted both her involvement in the scheme that led to Bates's imprisonment and the miscarriage she caused Lady Grantham to have before the war, when she set up the pregnant Cora for a fall in the bathroom over her erroneous belief that Cora was going to fire her. Meanwhile, Thomas had already unilaterally disarmed against Bates, and after a series of unfortunate events during the war – falling in love with a dying soldier while working as a medic, losing all his money in an ill-fated attempt to become a black marketeer, almost losing Lord Grantham's beloved dog in a hare-brained dognapping scheme – he cooks up a plan to make his way to the top of Downton's hierarchy so crazy it just might work: doing his job cheerfully and well.

Lady Violet and Isobel Crawley: The show's most quotable character, Lord Grantham's mother Lady Violet, a.k.a. the Dowager Countess, is to Downton Abbey what Mike is to Breaking Bad, Omar is to The Wire and Ben Linus is to Lost, and she's only slightly less dangerous to cross than any of those guys. Deadly with a well-placed putdown, she's opposed to the forces of progress slowly pulling apart Downton's old ways, but nonetheless becomes the number one supporter of Mary and Matthew's everything-rides-on-it relationship. Her chief sparring partner has been Matthew's opinionated mother, Isobel, whose middle-class self-confidence, and her determination to use her training as a nurse to influence the local hospital that Downton funds, gets on the Dowager Countess's every nerve. Typical exchange: "I take that as a compliment." "I must have said it wrong."

Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes: The heads of the male and female servants respectively, Carson is Downton's butler and Hughes its head housekeeper. The pair are almost fanatically devoted to the reputation and well-being of Downton and its residents, which they work to protect both officially and sometimes sneakily, like the good-hearted yin to Thomas and O'Brien's a-hole yang. Both of them are essentially married to the job, with Mrs. Hughes going so far as to turn down a proposal from an old flame. Their own relationship, which frequently unfolds in closed-door meetings in their modest offices, is strictly platonic. Carson's stately baritone may be the best speaking voice on this show, which is saying something.

Mrs. Patmore and Daisy: The real couple here ought to be scullery maid Daisy and footman William, who had a thing for the mousy assistant cook for years. But Daisy only agreed to marry the kind-hearted William after he incurred a mortal wound on the battlefield, and only went through with their deathbed nuptials out of the encouragement of her boss, the blustery cook Mrs. Patmore. Having recently lost a nephew to the war, she wanted William to die happy, even though she knew Daisy didn't really love him. The sweet but flighty Daisy eventually accepted the widow's pension that William's service earned her, too.

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