I had to bail on that series after the 3rd or 4th one but am interested to know if the the young, ambitious, creative, pretty blonde female clerk wound up okay? Did she wind up with the store owner or another guy?

Final episode of the season, final scene, Denise ended up with the owner. For now...

I am several episodes behind. I am re-watching season 3 and savoring every minute and I don't want to skip ahead. But PLEASE tell me what happened to Anna. I have to know.

A guest who was visiting DA brought his man servant, who had first flirted with and then beat and raped Anna while Bates and all the other servants and downstairs staff were upstairs with the family enjoying an opera singer the family had brought in to sing. During that beautiful performance with the wonderful music drifting all through the house and even downstairs, Anna was being brutally attacked in a small room with the door closed. All you could hear from the room were some muffled screams.

Thanks!

Thank you. I was afraid that's what it was.

Yes. And she won't let that housekeeper tell Bates because she's afraid he will kill the guy and go right back to prison so she told him she fell and cut and bruised her face as a cover story for her facial injuries.

I guess it's good that Anna did that. Bates and Anna are two of my favorites and I would hate to see him kill the guy and go back to prison. I think that is exactly what he would do. He seems like such a good and honorable man.

Yes, exactly. Plus, that rapist is so cocky, I'm scared now that eventually Bates will find out and no telling what happens then. :(

See though, Anna not telling Bates wasn't really because she was afraid of what he would have done- that is modern thinking. In that time frame she would be terrified to tell ANYONE what happened because she was now a "ruined" woman and would lose her reputation. A woman's reputation is all she really had, especially if you were in the serving class. Heck, look how hard the upstairs family fought to keep Mary's dirty little secret and not soil HER reputation! Anyway, if someone like Anna was found out SHE was likely to take all the blame because "he's just a man, he can't help himself" and she would lose everything. She would bring disgrace on the house and so would lose her reputation, her job, her husband, her hopes for the future. That is just how it was.
Now, I had to find spoilers about the rest of the season pertaining to this story line. I couldn't not look! I'm happy with how this story progresses, I'll just say that much.

I see it a little different. Being Anna, she is way more worried about her husband going back to that awful prison than she is herself or her reputation. When you see the episode and the panic in her face when that lady wanted to tell him, you'll see. I think she's much more concerned about him right now than she ever could be herself or what will happen to her. It's typical Anna.

Is there any place you can watch Season 1 on line? I wanted to buy the boxed set but it was $52 at Costco for seasons 1 - 3. I didn't want to spend that much.

Normally, I would agree with you but after I posted that I found a link on FB about Felowes and Froggatt defending the episode. Ms. Froggatt went into detail about why she played it the way she did and the research she did about women of the time going through such things and what it would cost them to tell anyone. I have to say, I was spot on. I'm terrible with posting links, but I'll find it and try so you can see for yourself! =)

http://bit.ly/DAEp2

Anyone who's studied their social history and gender roles knows of the plight of women when they were victims of sex crimes and what happened to a victim of sexual battery or rape, etc. back then, but just because that dynamic was in play in society, it was not any woman's sole reason for keeping the violence toward her quiet. Women being complex creatures back then and now, they were multi-dimensional and very often - especially in those days - put their loved ones and particularly their husbands' and childrens' well-being before their own self-interests. But imagine the motivation of a woman whose husband has already been sentenced to death for killing - just think of how strongly she would be motivated to keep him from ever facing death a second time!

Any woman whose husband had been through the rigors of being wrongly accused of murder once, gone through a horrible first degree murder trial as she sat and listened and watched her husband sitting there in the dock charged with murder, had watched his face as he was sentenced to death once and had to see him live with the stress and horror of facing dying at the end of a rope as the public watched, would go a far piece to avoid her man EVER having to face the death sentence of hanging again and her reputation or her future or place in society would be the last thing on her mind compared to what her husband would be facing. The last thing.

She would do just about anything - including killing the rapist herself - to keep her husband from EVER going to his death for a second charge of murder, however justified it might be should he kill the scum. I disagree with whatever blog or review you read. I think Anna's motive for keeping the rape quiet is she is absolutely terrified Bates will hang this time for sure if he gets charged and found guilty of murder again. He won't get off a second time and Anna knows that.

The writer or person who wrote she script or whoever directed the episode may have had different motives in their mind as they wrote and directed but each fan of any dramatic work is able to interpret any character's motives for any action as they see fit and what they personally think makes the most sense to a human being in any given situation. And putting myself in that poor woman, Anna's place, I would be far more concerned about my husband's likelihood of living another year over my reputation should he kill my rapist - and I think Anna was, too. It fits her nature more to me. I think she's terrified for Bates - I know I would be if he were my husband and had barely escaped hanging on the gallows once!

I followed your link and listened to the Ms. Froggatt's interview and shall we say, I have vast "creative differences" with the young woman who is totally only thinking about motivation of her character in such a shallow, one-dimensional way in my opinion - as if HER interests and reputation or place in society or that of "the house" were mainly what Anna would be concerned with after that rape, stressing the social mores of the times over the very real and tragic reality of how nearly Bates came to being put to death at the end of a rope by the Crown and how circumstantial the conditions of his pardon were!

As actors and directors often disagree with the playwright or screen writer about a character's motivations for doing a certain thing, I'm just going to have to take a creative difference with this young actresses' assessment of why Anna didn't want her rape made known her just-pardoned husband or anyone and chalk it up to that young lady's inexperience in knowing much about human nature.

I just cannot agree that strong, heroic, loyal Anna who suffered so from her beloved husband going through all that he did in that humiliating murder trial, rotting in prison and facing death itself from a rope around his neck wasn't terrified he couldn't stand anymore horrific stress and would break if he found out she's been raped.

Bates would just break when he found out that that man beat and raped his Anna, the very woman who stood with him through thick and thin, believed in him when few did and worked until she saved his life and got him home again. He owes her his very life. And once he knew what happened to her, he would utterly lose it and go after that rapist with murder in his eyes and no doubt beat him to death. He'd be wild with pain and anger and horror for what that monster had done to his Anna and just flat beat him senseless - justifiably so in my opinion. But for certain then the Crown would arrest him, saying that obviously his pardon from death and prison were based on highly circumstantial evidence at best and a mistake, rescind the pardons and charge him with a second first degree murder charge and this time he wouldn't ever get a pardon from hanging for two separate murders. I've never known a person to escape a death sentence TWICE for two different murders.

And noble little Anna knows that. She knows she is all that stands between Bates and being put to death by the Crown if he ever finds out and beats that scum to death.

I have another question. I take it Mathew and Mary were an item at one time before Mathew's relationship/engagement with Ms. Lavinia Swyer. What happened to that relationship between Mathew and Mary? I realize they are cousins but that seems to be okay.

That was the second series. No word yet on a third series. Hoping for one.

I think they are distant cousins, and they knew each other as children. When he returns to Downton as the heir in waiting, he and Mary are taken with each other. I don't recall exactly, but I think Mary puts him off because she wants to marry someone of a higher social station, or someone more "exciting" than a country lawyer.

Mary also felt pressured by her father to be with Mathew, since he would inherit the estate, and she could not as a female.

I'm sure someone else can explain better.

No, in the second series Lord Glendening dies and leaves The Paradise to Katherine, who has married someone else. That seson hasn't aired yet in the US (as far as I've been able to find, anyway!)

Now I understand. I was confused because I have seen the second series online. It will air on TV in the US soon, I think.

Couldn't live without Downton Abbey. Love it. :)

Jeez - reading yesterday's posts today I realized I must have gotten in work mode(did insurance appeals for orthopedic surgeons) and got all OT - sorry about that! Gosh. I must have had too much caffeine from Diet Coke. I'm sorry I got so het up!

And I agree that if she wasn't not telling about her rape for love and worry about her loved one who barely escaped the noose once already, Anna would still not tell because of the very reasons the actress and Amanda articulated and would try to protect her reputation and that of the house for the very reasons stated. I'm kind of ashamed to admit it but, you know, some part of me isn't/wasn't all that sure Bates didn't kill his wife. He's so mysterious and inscrutable, I wouldn't put a lot past him. And I'm only partially kidding when I say she needed killin' if ever a character needed it! ;)

I saw on Twitter that Donnie Wahlberg had tweeted earlier today that Blue Bloods was going to be very emotional tonight!

Jeanie, thanks for explaining about Mary and Mathew.

What is Blue Bloods? I would love to hear about more great programming like DA. I haven't been so hooked on a show in years. Any recommendations? Thanks!

Oh, and I agree with you about Bates. As much as I love the character it seems as though he wanted her to be dead and I don't really remember hearing him deny killing her.

Wow, just caught up on my D.A. and saw that Bates now KNOWS about what happened to Anna and from the way he is acting, she was right to fear his finding out about what happened to her. He's deathly angry! I just can't believe the writer of D.A. is going to allow him to go to jail again for murder for killing that swine if he ever does find out he's the one! Surely something else will happen to that guy, he'll leave the country or somebody else will do him in before Bates gets his chance at him. Or maybe they will be in a big crowd and the other guy will attack Bates with a knife or something and if Bates then kills him, it will be self-defense. But, oh, Bates sure has murder in his eyes!

And I could just shake Lady Mary sometimes!

I heard tonight's D.A. is the final episode of this round. Is that right?!?!?

:eek: :D ;) I don't dare to join in....!!!!! :D Enjoy!!!! Sally x

Just saw it.....ahhh.

Now, there's only 10 months to wait until the next one! Might as well be year to wait. People have babies in less time than than it will take to see our next new episode!

Sally, you've got to get to work and get Julian Fellowes and that cast working on new epi's right now so we can have them by fall. Sick Harry on them or anything!

just watched the last episode of the season, to me it was a double dose of sadness since I did not know it was going to end so soon, so I was caught by surprise. just 8 episodes, that is only two months of watching.

I don't like the Anna-Mr Bates line right now, I believe that with some talking to and getting the police involved that a better justice could not have been served and that Mr Bates could have been convinced by The Duke, Anna, and the head of the servants (forgot his name) to let the guy receive his punishment from the law. After all Anna has the Crowly's on her side and Tony, the employer is smitten by Mary. I think that story line diminished Mr. Bates I bet next season is Edith's season and she will become more feisty and outspoken. I could wring Mary's neck when she said, rather tartly, I would rather sleep on the roof than bunk with Edith, such disdain for her sister is so catty, But LOL this is a TV show

I hope Bates isn't a serial killer along with being a very talented forger! haha. Just kidding but he's just so dang mysterious acting. Why did he go to London, why was he so worried about those ticket stubs in his coat and why won't he tell Anna why he went? He knows she loves him more than her own self and that he's worrying her by keeping mum on the subject. I too agree that maybe something could have been done through the police but the Crawley's didn't keep him from being sentenced to the death chamber the first time, so who can blame Anna for not wanting to chance his life again. It appears she knows him very well but of course the writer is probably just playing it that way to keep us tense and involved.

Mary does get tiresome in her coldness that she wears like a mantle.

Yes, I am so addicted to this show as well! A friend told me about it, and we wound up watching all (ALL !!!) of season one in one day!

Let me know what you think.