Peter Fenzel and Matthew Wrather recap Downton Abbey Season 4 Episode 5, with special attention to what’s so terrible about the Bates/Anna plotline.
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One way I had thought of to describe this episode that I didn’t use in the recap.
Some episodes are described as “moving the chess pieces” — where there aren’t big events, but the situation is evolving and big events seem imminent and build tension.
This was like a “moving the chess pieces” episode between two novice chess players who have locked up the middle of the board with their pawns and just keep moving their rooks and knights back and forth.
The pieces are moving, but they’re not affecting each other, the overall tension isn’t rising, and the movements aren’t bringing the central conflict closer to resolution.
Instead of the events now leading to further events that lead to a conclusion, the events now are going to have to stop and be replaced by events that matter if we’re going to get to a conclusion and not have it be a total Mrs. Hughes Ex Machina.