#1. Lady Mary, sitting down to another twenty minutes of obsessively applying hand cream before retiring, realizes that she’s clean out of the stuff. In a rage, she flings the last empty jar at Anna, which hits the poor ladies’ maid in the forehead. Anna runs out of the room in tears. Will she tell Bates? And what will Bates do for revenge?
#2. Lady Mary’s suitors have increased to 18, the number of which includes the ghost of the notorious Prince Farouk. But as Lady Mary takes a long walk alone in order to sort through the various proposals, she arrives at the top of a barren heath where she encounters…Matthew! “I had to stage my own death, my dear, for the good of my country. You see, Michael Gregson and I are spies operating in Germany. I’ve come back because I’ve learned that that socialist schoolteacher hovering around Tom Branson is herself working for nefarious interests abroad…”
#3. Why was Bates in York the day that Mr. Green, Lord Gillingham’s valet, “fell” in front of a lorry? What “things” did he have to do? He went there, not to murder the odious Green, but to meet his uncle, Reginald Jeeves, in order secretly to interview for the position of personal gentleman’s gentleman to a young London boulevardier by the name of Bertram Wilberforce Wooster. After all that Anna has been through, Bates is thinking that a move to London will do her good. Uncle Jeeves is thinking of retiring from service, and working for Mr. Wooster strikes Bates like a peach of a job. Upon leaving the hotel after his interview with his uncle, Bates goes into a sweets shop to buy something for Anna. But upon coming out of the shop, who does he bump into from behind but Mr. Green! The collision causes Green to stumble into the street where he is struck by the lorry. To the horrified driver of the lorry, it looked for all the world as though Bates pushed Green into the street…
#4. Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes–can their friendship transmute into romance? One day, while filtering the claret into a decanter before dinner, it occurs to Carson that his entire life has been leading up to one question: asking Mrs. Hughes for her hand. Once Lord Grantham pensions them off, thinks Carson, they can buy a little Yorkshire cottage and live out their golden years in peace. But how will Mrs. Hughes take his proposal?…
#5. Lady Grantham’s mother, Martha Levinson, and her son, Harold, arrive at Downton. The taint of the Teapot Dome Scandal still lies upon Harold like a bad aftershave. But his problems go much deeper. Unbeknownst to any of his relatives, he’s been involved in several bootlegging schemes with a wealthy Long Islander by the name of Jay Gatsby. By coming to England Harold hopes to escape the threats of several of his corn mash suppliers to whom he owes money. But his suppliers’ goons have followed Harold to England, and they’re soon to descend upon Downton to “plug” Harold and take the best of the Downton silver to make up for Harold’s debts. One night shortly after Martha and Harold’s arrival, Lord Grantham awakens to the sound of breaking glass downstairs. There are intruders in the house! He puts on his robe, slippers, picks up his cricket bat, and heads downstairs…
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