‘Dear Matthew,’ lamented Edith at the opening of this two-hour slog of a Christmas special. Just in case we were having too nice a Christmas day, she was reminding us, as we discovered last year, that Downton doesn’t have to follow the same goodwill-to-all-men-plus-slightly-sappy-characters theme that usually abounds in the festive season. Except that this episode did exactly that. I’m trying to think of something that actually happened to move the plot along, but lately Downton seems to have become a series of conversations rather than an actual drama. 

So what were the main things that happened in this episode in which nothing much happened? Last year we found ourselves in the Highlands. This year, Rose’s presentation into society brought most characters down south.

Edith stared into the distance a lot, musing melancholically in a manner reminiscent of Eeyore. This Eeydith did have good reason to be sad though: her baby, the daughter of missing editor, Michael Gregson, was living in Switzerland with adoptive parents, and she’d probably never see her again.

‘Not putting your baby up for adoption’ aside, the other moral of this episode seemed to be ‘don’t leave important and potentially incriminating articles in your pockets’. There was a charity sale on and Bates offered up an old coat. Mrs Hughes went through the pockets just in case, and what did she find? A train ticket from York to London for the date on which Mr Green popped his clogs after ‘falling under a bus’. Mrs Hughes went straight to Mary of course, who didn’t seem the least bit surprised. Bates is a murderer, she pretty much concluded. ‘You say it as if you already knew,’ said Mrs Hughes. Oh come on, Mrs Hughes. LITERALLY EVERYONE KNEW. Even usually-oblivious-to-pretty-much-everything Robert knows that Bates is a little bit shady because a little bit later on he asks him if he knows ‘a man’ who can forge handwriting. Yes, I do know ‘a man’, says Bates nonchalantly, and gets the note done in a jiffy. 

The note was one small part in a tediously complicated and ultimately pointless plot to retrieve a love letter sent by the Prince of Wales to a brunette aristocrat whilst various people were distracted by a game of poker or a trip to the theatre. In the end, the plan failed because the letter-thief had it in his coat pocket all along. Luckily, seasoned criminal Bates worked this out and retrieved the letter at the end of the evening.

Martha Levinson was back, this time with her son, Harold, who essentially spent the whole episode sniggering at every archaic British tradition he came across. He quite liked the food, though. He also took a shine to a brunette aristocrat – a different one this time, although she looked confusingly similar to the Prince of Wales’ brunette. I’m blaming the wine.

The rest of the episode was classic Downton. Thomas did what he does best and lurked in darkened corridors. Eeydith did a bit more melancholy musing before hatching a not entirely failsafe plot to get her baby back to Downton. At the close of the episode, Downstairs went on an all-expenses paid trip to the seaside, apparently for a spot of innuendo bingo. Anna hadn’t let Bates check his coat pockets before it was sold. How could she make it up to him? Apparently, by getting him a ‘penny lick’. In the immortal words of Mr Carson, ‘I don’t know how, but you managed to make that sound a little risqué.’ Quite.