What was a WTF storyline for you?
The storyline where Lord Grantham was into that war widow woman, they just dropped it too without resolving anything.
shareI thought any of the episodes with someone trying to blackmail the family were unrealistic. Even though it was the 20th century, I expect that Lord Grantham would have had enough influence with the police to suppress such attempts or be given enough latitude by the police to do it themselves.
It wasn't that long ago that an Earl with a large estate would have been a serious authority over their estate, answerable only to Parliament, superior nobility and possibly the county sheriff. There would have been few limits on their ability to defend their family members on their own property, possibly limited only on the use of violence.
And as you might have noticed, none of the blackmail attempts succeeded in the end. And it was clearly because of the earl's high status within society.
shareWhich is why I had real difficulty with the Vera Bates storyline. In fact, I thought that Lord Grantham would have found out about Lady Mary's indiscretion when Vera Bates threatened to sell the story to papers and especially since his valet didn't want to leave. If Lord Grantham can neutralize Richard Carlisle then in reality Vera Bates would have gotten into serious trouble trying to pull what she did with the aristocracy.
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