This is a recap. There are major spoilers here.
As the episode opens, a telegram arrives for Edith. Molesly takes it upstairs, where everyone is having breakfast, and delivers it to her. She opens it and looks stricken. After breakfast, Robert tells Cora that the telegram was from the editor at Gregson’s paper, and that he’s coming with news. Robert assumes this will be confirmation of Gregson’s death, and it will be very hard for Edith to hear.
Downstairs, Mrs. Patmore tells Hughes that she’s going to visit a cottage she’s thinking about buying and wonders if Hughes will come along with her. Both wonder if Carson might want to come along as well.
Edith is silent as everyone gathers and Robert announces he will have drawings soon of the houses they are planning to build on the estate. Mary tells everyone that there’s going to be a point-to-point race at Canningford Grange on Saturday, and Lord Gillingham and Charles Blake will be there. Rose is excited, as Canningford is the home of Atticus Aldridge’s parents. Later, everyone makes plans to attend and have a picnic, and Blake and Gillingham are invited to stay at Downton.
Bates has gone back to his cottage looking for something Anna forgot. He rifles through drawers and finds Lady Mary’s contraception, which Anna has hidden there.
Violet has gone to York with her new maid, and visits Prince Kuragin. She tells him that she might soon have news of what happened to his wife, but he doesn’t seem very excited about that. He tells Violet that he loved her from the moment he saw her, and if his wife is dead, plans to ask her to run away with him. For her part, Violet tells him all of that was in the past and they shouldn’t think of it anymore.
Back at Downton, Robert and Edith have finished talking with the messenger, and Robert tells Cora that Gregson is definitey dead, killed by Hitler’s thugs during the Beer Hall Putsch. Edith has inherited Gregson’s publishing company. Cora wants to know how Edith’s taking it and Robert says she wants time alone and is taking a walk.
Predictably, she is taking that walk down to the Drewe’s, where Mrs. Drewe refuses to let her in to see Marigold. Edith explains the situation with Gregson to Mr. Drewe, but he only says he’s working on his wife, but she still can’t see Marigold (why they don’t just tell the wife the truth is a mystery). He says to give it time, to which Edith replies she doesn’t have time.
Back at the house, Bates and Anna commiserate about poor Edith, but he’s angry, and she can tell. He tells her he found the contraception. They argue and she storms away.
At bedtime, Cora visits Robert where he has been sleeping in his dressing room, and asks him to come back. She repeats that nothing happened with Bricker, but Robert is angry that she let Bricker get so close at all. She tells him that if he’s never let a flirtation get to far than to stay away, but if he has she expects him to come back. Perhaps remembering the maid from season two that he ACTUALLY KISSED, he leaves his bed presumably to go back to Cora’s.
The next day, Willis and Vyner have returned and this time they want to question Baxter because they’ve had a letter (probably from Thomas) saying she knows something about the Bates. She says she knows nothing, but they remind her of her criminal past, and how she can go back to jail if she does not cooperate. She says she knows only that there was an incident with Green, and possibly a trip to London, but does not know what happened or who made the trip. They seem satisfied with that and leave. Mrs. Hughes, who has heard now for the first time about Baxter’s past, asks if Lady Grantham knows. When told she does, Hughes says there will be no more mention of it.
After the interview, Thomas draws Baxter aside and shows her a nasty rash on his hip and asks for her help. She takes him to Dr. Clarkson, along with everything with which he’s been injecting himself. At Dr. Clarkson’s, he says in so many words that this, along with electro-shock treatment, has been an effort to become like normal men, i.e. not gay. Clarkson tells him the rash is because the needles have not been sterilized and he should be fine as long as he stops. He tells Thomas that there’s no cure, and he should learn to live with his situation and make the best life for himself possible.
Patmore has taken Hughes and Carson to see her cottage. She likes what she sees and plans to buy it. This leaves Carson to muse on his own retirement and that of Mrs. Hughes, who says she’s not sure she’ll live long enough to retire.
That night at dinner, to which Atticus has been invited, Mary reveals a surprise: she’s cut her hair into a bob. Everyone makes a fuss, until Edith can’t take it any more and wonders why Mary would look for so much attention on the day after Edith’s found out the love of her life is dead. She’s also angry that everyone is planning a picnic in such circumstances, and says she won’t go. After she storms out, everyone agrees that she needs time alone.
Back at the cottage, Bates confronts Anna about the contraceptives, revealing he’s come to the conclusion that she doesn’t want his baby because she thinks he’s a murderer. He tells her that he always knew about Green, and had planned to kill him, even going so far as buying the ticket to London, but didn’t go through with it because he’d hang and didn’t want to do that to Anna. She’s relieved and happy to know this. He says the ticket he bought, which would be untorn, is the key to proving his innocence, (but of course Mary, assuming the opposite, burned that ticket, though they don’t know this).
On Saturday, everyone goes to Canningford Grange for the race, where they find Gillingham, Blake, and Mabel Lane Fox. Mabel seems to have come around to Blake’s plan, and is trying to win Gillingham back. All are invited to spend the night at Downton.
Back at Downton, Tom finds Edith writing a letter and she confesses that she’s leaving, but won’t say where she’s going or why. She says she can’t stay if she’s ever going to be happy. She goes immediately from there to the Drewe’s, where she plans to take Marigold. Mrs. Drewe is distraught and refuses to accept it, even when shown proof that Edith is Marigold’s mother. But eventually she tearfully comes around and says goodbye to Marigold.
Violet and Isobel watch the race, and Isobel tells Violet she’s accepting Lord Merton’s proposal. Gillingham, Blake, Mabel, and Mary are all racing and Mary is the first woman across the finish line.
After the race, Atticus introduces his parents, and Cora invites them to dinner the next day at Downton.
When everyone returns home, they find that Edith has gone. Violet immediately realizes where she has gone and goes to the Drewe’s finding at that she was right, and that Edith has taken Marigold. The Drewes tell her that they have no idea where she has gone, but promise to keep Edith’s secret.
Carson and Hughes talk about Lady Edith, but Carson changes the subject. He wonders if he and Hughes should invest in a property together, once which will provide income in their retirement. Mrs. Hughes laughs off the idea, but her face reveals that she’s thinking about it.
In London, Edith checks herself and Marigold into a hotel, promising the girl that it’s time to celebrate.
Downton Abbey airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on KIXE Channel 9.
Chad Grayson has been a gas station attendant, sold video games over the phone, and even was the person who cuts the mold off the cheese in the cheese factory, but spent most of his career as a middle school Language Arts and History teacher. He is now a full-time stay at home dad and writer. You can find him on twitter at @chadgrayson and on his blog at cegrayson.wordpress.com.
