Downton Abbey Season 1 Episode 3

Set in November 1912…

The typewriter becomes the talk of Downton

Gwen sends some mysterious mail. Anna later discovers Gwen’s mysterious typewriter. Gwen confesses to aspirations above her station – she’s taking a correspondence course to become a secretary, gasp! The typewriter becomes an object of fear and curiosity once sneaky O’Brien finds it and sets it on the staff table for all to see. Gwen’s upwardly mobile ways become the talk at the upstairs dining table too. Lady Sybil, ever the progressive, brings Gwen a classified ad for a secretary job and offers to be Gwen’s reference if she applies.

A ‘flirty’ Edith asks Matthew out to see some churches and have a picnic. She thinks it’s a date but Matthew just seems confused. During their stained glass and pew tour of the village churches, it becomes obvious that Matthew is actually more interested in the churches than Edith. He suggests next time they bring his mother Isobel.

Lady Edith takes a shot at Matthew

Cora discovers Lady Mary’s corresponding with Evelyn Napier, a Marquis’s son, and invites him to a hunt. When Napier and the Turk arrive at Downton, our English rose Mary is quite overcome and gushes in the Turk’s presence. Mary is only slightly more restrained than Thomas when he first lays eyes on the Turk. Thomas makes advances into Turkish culture long before Mary gets the chance to act mortified when the Turk kisses her. Thomas is hastily rebuffed. The Turk says that will teach him to make assumptions about foreigners. However, the handsome Turk makes a deal to keep things quiet if Thomas shows him the way to Mary’s bedroom. Mary falls into his arms and the Turk falls into the arms of death. A distraught Mary wakes Anna to help her move the body back to his bed, but alas they require a third female to carry the baggage and Lady Cora is enlisted. It’s all hush hush but was creeping around in the night and witnessed the ladies moving the body. A bitter Thomas makes repeated allusions to the Turk’s zest for life the next morning. O’Brien is suspicious there might be more to the story.

The hunt is on!

Mr. Bates goes to see a man about a leg. Or rather a device to correct his limp. The contraption looks positively medieval. After much wincing and cringing around Downton, Mrs Hughes finally demands to know what’s going on. She sees Bate’s gamey leg all bloody in the contraption and gasps. They throw the limp corrector in the lake never to be seen again.

Mr. Bate's instrument of torture

Downton Abbey Quotes from Episode 3, Season 1:

Countess Violet: “Mary won’t take Matthew Crawley, so we better get her settled before the bloom is quite gone off the rose”

Lady Cora: “Is the family an old one?”
Countess Violet: “Older than yours I imagine…”
Lord Grantham: “Old enough”
Lady Cora: “And there’s plenty of money”
Countess Violet: “Really”
Lord Grantham: “Mama, you’ve already looked him up in the stud books and made inquiries about the fortune. Don’t pretend otherwise. Are you afraid someone will think you’re American if you speak openly?”
Countess Violet: “I doubt it shall come to that”

"Are we having tea or not?"

Anna: “She wants to keep it private, not secret. There is a difference”

Gwen: “I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve bought a typewriter. And I’m taking a postal course in shorthand. I’m not aware that either of these actions is illegal”

Mrs. Patmore: “Daisy, what’s happened to you. I said you could go for a drink of water, not a trip up the Nile.”

O’Brien: “They were trying to hide it so I knew it was wrong”

Isobel: “…And Lord Brankson’s charming son, who’s to be flung at Mary presumably”
Matthew: “When it comes to Cousin Mary, she’s quite capable of doing her own flinging I assure you”

Gwen: “I was born with nothing and I’ll die with nothing”

Evelyn Napier: “My mount’s as jumpy as a deb at her first ball”

Lady Mary: “I can see [Mr. Pamuk] now, a funny little foreigner with a wide toothy grin, his hair reeking of pomade”

Matthew: “Will Mary stay in the hunt all day?”
Edith: “You know Mary, she likes to be in at the kill”

Lord Grantham: “Have you seen our visitor? Quite a treat for the ladies”

Thomas: “I’m very attracted to Turkish culture”

Thomas fancies some Turkish delight

Lady Violet: “I should far prefer to be a maid in a large and pleasant house than work from dawn to dusk in a cramped and gloomy office. Don’t you agree Carson?”

Lady Violet: “I hanker for a simpler world. Is that a crime”

Matthew: “It seems we must brush up on our powers of fascination”
Evelyn Napier: “I was a fool to bring him here”

Carson: “Well one day he was a handsome stranger from foreign parts one minute and the next he’s as dead as a doornail. It’s bound to be a shock”

Mary has her way with the Turk

Lord Grantham: “We must have a care for feminine sensibilities. They are finer and more fragile than our own”

Countess Violet: “I’m not being ridiculous. No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house. Especially someone they didn’t even know”
Lady Sybil: “Oh Granny, even the English aren’t in control of everything”
Countess Violet: “Well I hope we are in control of something, if only ourselves”

Countess Violet: “Nanny always said sweet tea is the thing for frayed nerves. Don’t know why it has to be sweet, I couldn’t tell you.”

O’Brien: “There are plenty more fish in the sea than ever came out of it”

Carson: “Even a butler has his favourites my lady”
Lady Mary: “I’m glad”