‘Downton Abbey’ season 5, episode 8 review (PBS): What happened to Anna and Bates this time?

Can you imagine having to sit on tonight’s “Downton Abbey” episode for a month’s time? That is precisely what viewers had to do in Great Britain when Sunday night’s episode first aired. It was sort of their finale before the Christmas Special, though we’re considering next week’s installment the true end of the entire season.

Since we like to focus or US reviews on just one topic (read our full take on this episode from when it first aired here), let us focus here on what is the most shocking but also controversial story of the night (spoilers ahead!): The arrest of Anna for the death of Mr. Green. When you saw Bates basically be cleared for the death of the man, you may have started to get your hopes up that storyline was coming to a close. However, it’s like someone shouted “not so fast” while cackling at the same time. Clearly, there is more still to explore here in the minds of the producers.

With that being said, is there really? We contend that this was not a moment we needed, since we’ve already explored the story of one of the characters in jail. It was almost like Julian Fellowes decided that he wanted to find another way to devastate these two super-beloved characters. We didn’t really need to see this moment, since at this point we’d rather see them deal with more ordinary struggles, such as trying to figure out if they want to start a family.

No doubt, this does create a good cliffhanger for the next new episode, but with this story, the producers really are setting a bad example for what the police system in Britain was like in that time period. After all, it feels like people are just being accused almost left and right for this (or at least strong questioned).

If there a silver lining, maybe this story gives Joanne Froggatt gets more awards consideration thanks to all of this.

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