‘Downton Abbey’ season 4, episode 5 (PBS) review: Lady Edith, Mary, and surprises

In case you have forgotten thanks to the Super Bowl (which is perfectly understandable), there was actually a new episode of “Downton Abbey” tonight on PBS. But then again, considering the way that the Super Bowl tonight went, you may have been able to tune right over to the new episode in Denver at 9:00 and saved yourself a heck of a lot of trouble.

Now, what happened here was a series of big shockers, but the one that we’re going to focus on mostly here was the stunning revelation that Edith is expecting a child with none other than Micheal Gregson. The twist? She doesn’t know where Michael is. This twist is something that is going to be incredibly shocking to people, but it is also so completely in line with everything that you would expect to see from this show. There are always some depressing moments, but there are a few every year that take the air out of you.

But was this handled really the right way? We don’t think so, and the biggest reason for that is simply that the show decided to go a little too predictable here. Edith already had it bad enough with the departure of her soon-to-be husband, and there really didn’t need the pregnancy to make matters even worse. This is one moment that will reverberate through the rest of the season, while we don’t really feel like the rest (including Rose and Jack Ross) is as substantial when it comes to our main characters.

We gave this episode a B- grade back when we first saw it when it aired in Britain, and we stand by that. It just was not that exciting from start to finish, which is unfortunately a case of most of this season.

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Photo: ITV