Doing this made me realize there are so many songs from Debut and vault tracks that I have barely listened to, so I left them out. It was interesting to break it down song by song and see if I was right about my overall album ranking. I'm surprised how well Lover performs here, since I usually consider it one of my least favourites.
Thanks to the Instagram algorithm for knowing exactly who to bring this meme to
ETA I know it's because she's a woman LOL but I was expecting her to do, I don't know, something that wasn't objectively the right move by any measure. I was expecting the misogynists to have a little more of a leg to stand on. But now, they just don't like seeing a woman being mean to a man. And while I'm at it, Rava was also right about everything she said and did in the last two episodes. And Kendall is the worst.
I mean, disclaimer, obviously we hate everyone, including Shiv. But a couple days ago I saw a post about finishing the show and the first sentence was just "I HATE SHIV!!!!!" which is WILD to me.
Of course all the siblings are acting in self-interest 99% of the time, and of course I think there was a large degree of self-interest in Shiv choosing to vote for the deal. She knew Tom well enough to know that he would be kinder to her than either of them had been to each other up to this point if got the upper hand, so she had no less to gain from him being CEO than Ken being CEO, and Tom would be more competent at it. And, if him offering his hand to her in the car is any indication, she was right.
So yeah, her decision was self-interested. But it was also objectively the right move for the company. Any confidence I had in Kendall was absolutely obliterated by his meltdown in the last twenty minutes. As soon as he faced a little bit of pushback, any argument in his favour that was grounded in logic or reason went out the window and it became about him being daddy's special boy and not knowing what to do with his life otherwise. Although I think he would have been a better CEO than Rome or Shiv (though still not a very good one overall), it was never about that. It was always about his ego and the promise Logan made to him when he was seven. He was like a child crying about not getting what they wanted for Christmas. And if there was any hope in hell of changing Shiv's mind, he blew it. And rightfully so.
Plus, I do think Shiv was genuinely troubled by the decision. She wasn't plotting to sabotage Ken the whole time they were crowning him king; if that were the case she would have delivered her vote swiftly and with Machiavellian coldness. She didn't. I think it actually was hard for her, because she did feel a degree of loyalty to Ken and to the idea of a family business. But in the end she made the decision that was right for both her and the company.
Don't get me wrong, I do feel sympathy for Kendall. I think he's pathetic and I don't relate to him or empathize with him the way some people do, but it sucks to have been promised the world at seven years old and to realize you're never going to have it. It sucks that he was strung along by his dad for decades. Being the oldest child is a lot of pressure in any family, and certainly in this one especially. But none of that changes the fact that he was just not cut out for it. I thought it was really powerful when he said, in his eulogy at Logan's funeral "my God, I hope it's in me." Because it wasn't. It just wasn't in him.
Jumping on the bandwagon! This ranking is relative and honestly none of her albums are lower than a B for me if I was actually grading them. But this is how it shapes up on a relative scale.
I am really not a mainstream pop person as you can see 🙈
"Haven't you ever made a mistake, Mrs. Hughes?" "Not one this big!"
The correct answer is all of the above
So I posted a character tier list back in January, when I had just finished the movies. I was looking at it yesterday and I realised how much I would change after several rewatches of the first three seasons, and one of the second three. I am shocked at where I initially ranked some of these characters, so here's my new list! My old list is the second picture.
Explanation of some of the moves
Tom: this is the biggest one. I have no idea what I was thinking about him the first time I watched the show. When his politics are good, his personality is shit, and when his personality gets better, his politics become shit. I hate the way he speaks to Sybil. I think I had a bit of recency bias after finishing the series the first time, because Mary is my favourite and I really liked the way he got on with her in the later seasons. I still think he was a force for good in the family and on the estate, and I liked the way he was with most of the characters other than Sybil. I don't dislike him, but I certainly don't love him.
William: He feels like a bit of an unsung hero to me. He's such a sweet and honourable young man, and I just like what he brought to the ensemble.
Edith: I dislike her a lot less than I did the first time. I'm definitely "a Mary" in my family and, somewhat, in life in general, and holy crap did Edith ever trigger me. Let me tell you, JF certainly captured sibling and birth order dynamics well with those two! And then I think the fact that she has so many defenders triggered me even more and made me like her even less. I still don't particularly like her, but I'm more sympathetic to her position than I was the first time. Perhaps somewhat oddly, this came about after dabbling in fanfiction and trying to put myself in her shoes a bit. Edith is a case of "I may not think your perception of things is based in reality but I can acknowledge that it feels very real to you."
Mrs. Bird: The only thing I remembered about her when I made my first list was her throwing a tantrum over working with Ethel. I completely forgot how nice she was before that, and how she helped run a soup kitchen for the returning soldiers.
Richard Carlisle: moved from loathe to demon because of how often he puts his hands on women. I can't stand this guy.
Lavinia: Can't believe I was indifferent towards her! I like her a lot now, although I put her in "well enough" rather than "very much" because after a few watches I noticed that she's a bit pick me/male centered, and that type of behaviour irritates me.
>I'm don't know how feminine they are
girl stfu and mind your own hair. Worrying about Mary's is not going to make Matthew you like you more.
>I'll die if I can't be with him!
Okay no you won't, no man is worth that. Lavinia needed feminism, and some friends who cared about her. Ironically, if she wasn't so desperate to be with him she may have lived!
On the other hand, I think we would all crash out a little if our fiance was visibly in love with his cousin, so I don't know that I can blame her for being this way. She deserved so much better.
Jane: "Dislike" feels too strong. Robert was in a position of significant power over her. I just don't judge her as harshly as I first did.
A lot has stayed the same, though. I'd still watch twelve seasons of The Mary, Matthew, and Violet Show. Robert is still an idiot. Anna, Sybil, and Isobel remain favourites. I'm still an outlier in far preferring Denker to Spratt.
I also had to change some of the categories to add more nuance. A/B/C tier is just not enough for these characters! The plot of Downton is so silly and soapy at times, but I think the characters are wonderfully complex.
I'd love to hear if anyone else had any drastic changes of opinion on certain characters after a rewatch!
What do you think Edith's true intentions with Matthew were when he first arrived?
I took her words and actions at face value and figured she genuinely liked him. But apparently not everyone agrees. I was discussing this with my friend and she thinks Edith had her sights on swiping not even Matthew the person away from Mary, but - much more importantly - the title and the estate as well. She would go so far as to say it wasn't about Matthew at all.
...I thought I was a huge Edith hater, but compared to some people out there (my friend included) I'm barely even an Edith disliker 😂
So do you think she genuinely liked Matthew?
Or that part Matthew's allure, or perhaps even all of it, was in taking something that was supposed to be Mary's - in this case, Matthew himself?
Or was it even more than that, and Matthew was merely a tool to take the big prize from Mary, the only thing she really cared about at that point: being Countess of Grantham and mistress of Downton?
I am by no means a defender of Edith but I think that's a bit much. I don't think Edith had any particular interest in titles, or in the estate itself. Her jealousy came more from a desire for love and attention than for status.
I would say it was probably some combination of the first two. Edith gave her heart away easily, and if she could fall for Anthony Strallan, she could CERTAINLY fall for Matthew. She fell for anyone who looked her way, and Matthew was handsome and charming on top of being kind to her. It's easy to believe that she genuinely liked him.
But I would bet the fact that he was supposed to be for Mary made him even more desirable. Her longing for love and attention is not unrelated to her feeling of being second to Mary, so I'm not sure of the extent to which those two things can even be disentangled.
I also wonder if there's something to be said for Patrick in all of this. Edith was so unimpressed by the shallowness of Mary's grief over his death, and probably believed that Mary never deserved him, never saw him as she did. So maybe that shaped her feelings and actions towards Matthew as well; maybe she wanted to get in there before, in her eyes, her cold-hearted sister could stake a claim on another man she wouldn't truly care about.
I got an AI warning that this post may violate Rule 10 but I don't think it does; this is about Edith and the motivation behind her actions. Mary may play a role in that but it's not Mary vs Edith.
Every nerd who reads every single plaque in a museum, or structures their holidays around visiting historical locations, felt so seen by Matthew in this scene...
and all of our friends and family members who've ever been dragged along by us probably felt seen by Edith who just wants to go home 😂