Spoiler alert, as always.

It's strange why some stories pop up, and are resolved the following week, while other stories seem to linger on interminably.

In fact, some plots don't even last a week.  They planted something in Bates' prison bed — this could be a turn of events that effects the whole rest of the season, you think.  Nope.  Bates outwitted the guards (who, for some reason, don't bother to inspect Bates himself).  Oh, well.  That was a semi-exciting three minutes.

Mrs. Hughes has a possible illness — nope, she's fine.  It was kind of like when the cook, Mrs. Petitfore (or whatever) had eye trouble.  An illness — bam! it's fine.

On the other hand, Bates being in prison — well, that story line is going to last forever it seems.

The interesting story about Grantham family down-sizing was swept off our plate this week, too.  I thought that was too juicy to let go, but it's gone.  It would have been interesting to see the family squeeze into increasingly smaller homes over the years, each time having fewer and fewer servants, turning the show into a post-Victorian Survivor (what servant must be let go this week?).  Julian Fellowes could have dragged that one out forever.  But nope.  The family's continued stay at the Abbey seems a certaintly now.

But I guess the big news is that, for the third time in a row, we've failed to see a Grantham girl get married.  Ironically, we saw more of Edith's wedding than we did of Mary or Sybil… and Edith ended up not getting married!  The episode as a whole made me feel like we were watching the backstory to Edith becoming a villian — just as a young Bruce Wayne  witnessing his parents' murder compelled him to become Batman, perhaps Lady Edith's jilting at the altar will turn her into… oh, who knows?  Mopegirl, no doubt.

It was actually a bad week for female gingers whose name begins with "E".  Former housemaid Ethel is now a woman of ill-repute, and apparently we're going to have to worry — again — about where her huge-headed baby ends up.   My money's on Mrs. Crawley.

And with Daisy felling for William 2.0, one gets the feeling that we've been here before, amIright?