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** Anthony Strallan does this with Edith, claiming that not only is he [[May-December Romance|too old for her]] but {{spoiler|that he couldn't let someone so young and lovely spend their life as nursemaid}}.
* [[I Will Wait for You]]: Anna to Bates, Branson to Sybil.
* [[Just Eat Gilligan]]: All things considered, the household would run a lot smoother if those in charge just got rid of Thomas and O'Brien. {{spoiler|And we see this in action in early SeasonSeries 2, when Thomas is fighting on the Western front... but it [[Status Quo Is God|doesn't last]].}}.
* [[Karma Houdini]]: Thomas.
** A bit less so after a genuinely horrendous time in the medical corps.
** O'Brien: she caused {{spoiler|Cora's miscarriage}}, informed Edith about {{spoiler|Kamal Pamuk}} creating a problem that reverberates throughout Mary's life, narced on Bates creating another avenue for the {{spoiler|Pamuk}} scandal to potentially ruin Mary's life, along with hurting Bates and Anna, caused various smaller problems and NOTHING has happened to her. NOTHING!
* [[Killed Off for Real]]: {{spoiler|William. Lavinia. Vera Bates.}}.
* [[Kindly Housekeeper]]: Mrs Hughes.
* [[Kissing Cousins]]: Second cousins Mary and Patrick were informally engaged, though they [[Arranged Marriage|didn't have much say in it]]; Edith was in love with Patrick as well. Mary and Matthew are fourth cousins.
Line 177:
* [[Last-Minute Reprieve]]: Robert running after the car.
* [[Law of Inverse Fertility]]:
** {{spoiler|Cora.}}.
*** Though as soon as she found out she was pregnant, she was genuinely happy and ''really'' wanted the baby.
** Ethel the housemaid.
Line 183:
* [[Left Hanging]]:
** One episode ends with Sybil entering the drawing room and displaying her culottes to her shocked family. It cuts immediately to the credits, and that's the last we ever see or hear of the situation.
** {{spoiler|Patrick Gordon}} just up and disappears into the night.
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: See picture above.
* [[Longing Look]]: Lots: Anna, Bates, Branson, Daisy, Edith, Mary, Matthew, Sybil, William.
Line 189:
* [[Malicious Slander]]:
** Miss O'Brien and Thomas slander Mr. Bates on more than one occasion in an attempt to get him fired.
** Edith {{spoiler|spreads Mary's scandalous affair with Kemal Pamuk, causing Mary to lose favor with potential suitors and leaving her future and reputation in jeopardy. After learning of this, Mary screws up Edith's budding relationship with Sir Anthony.}}.
* [[Manipulative Bastard]]:
** Miss O'Brien, whose [[Zany Scheme|schemes]] include {{spoiler|trying to get Bates fired and to expose Lady Mary's affair with Pamuk}}.
** Lady Edith, who will go to any lengths to discredit Mary in order to marry Matthew and become mistress of Downton.
** Thomas tries to be one but isn't always successful.
** Kemal {{spoiler|in making it impossible for Mary to refuse his sexual advances.}}.
** Vera uses {{spoiler|Lady Mary's secret to get Bates to return to her and takes him for all his [[Unexpected Inheritance|inheritance]]. She even goes so far as using her [[Divorce Requires Death|death]] to frame Bates.}}.
* [[Manly Tears]]: Bates. Robert, {{spoiler|after [[Tear Jerker|Cora's miscarriage]].}}.
** Also Thomas, surprisingly, {{spoiler|after the blinded Lieutenant Courtenay commits suicide.}}.
* [[Marry for Love]]:
** That's what the audience hopes for Mary and {{spoiler|Matthew}}. {{spoiler|[[They Do]]}}.
** Cora reminds Robert that he didn't come to love her until they'd been married a year.
** {{spoiler|Sybil and Branson}} do this.
* [[The Matchmaker]]: The mothers: Violet, Cora, and Isobel.
* [[May-December Romance]]: Anna and Mr. Bates; Edith and Sir Anthony. In the latter case, Sir Anthony gives this as {{spoiler|his reasoning for why Edith shouldn't marry him}}.
* [[Mean Character, Nice Actor]]: The other cast members have said in interviews that Siobhan Finneran, who plays O'Brien, is "one of the nicest people you'll ever meet."
* [[Middle Child Syndrome]]: Edith. Her parents aren't abusive or cruel towards her, but she gets constantly overlooked next to her two sisters (particularly Mary).
* [[Modesty Bedsheet]]: Kemal Pamuk.
* [[Moment Killer]]: Poor Anna and Mr. Bates.
** HEY, WOULD ANYONE LIKE A RIDE ON THIS HAYCART?
** Couldn't taking the trash out have waited one more minute?
** Ethel plonking down at the table effectively kills the nice talk they were having.
** Mary coming to book the motor as Branson and Sybil were having a talk about their future comes to mind.
* [[Morality Pet]]: Cora and Lang for O'Brien, Lieutenant Courtenay for Thomas.
* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Kemal Pamuk. In-universe, too. Turned out to be {{spoiler|a short-lived and creepy [[jerkassJerkass]].}}.
* [[Multigenerational Household]]
* [[My God, What Have I Done?]]: O'Brien first only seems to show moderate guilt when she {{spoiler|''knows that she is the direct cause of her mistress's friggin miscarriage''}}, but the look of this trope is truly visible on her face when she learns that {{spoiler|Cora had never intended to get rid of her and she's now caused them exquisite pain for ''no reason whatsoever''.}}.
* [[My Own Private I Do]]: {{spoiler|Sybil and Branson try to}} elope to [[wikipedia:Gretna Green|Gretna Green]], but {{spoiler|Mary and Edith chase them down and talk her out of it.}}.
* [[Naive Newcomer]]: Daisy, and to some extent, William.
* [[Nice Hat]]: A lot of fine feathered hats, the Crawley's are aristocrats after all.
Line 229:
* [[Old Retainer]]: Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes.
* [[Oop North]]: The working-class characters tend to have local Yorkshire accents, with the middle- and upper-class characters having southern English accents.
* [[Opera Gloves]]: The various actresses wear these throughout the series in scenes where they're dressed in formal outfits, starting from episodeEpisode 1 where Cora is seen putting on a pair of long black gloves while dressing for dinner. (Very much [[Truth in Television]], as properly dressed men and women of the middle and upper classes were expected to wear gloves as accessories to almost everything except bathing suits and sleepwear during [[The Edwardian Era]].)
* [[Orbital Kiss]]: {{spoiler|Mary and Matthew.}}.
* [[Out with a Bang]]: {{spoiler|Pamuk.}}.
* [[Overprotective Dad]]: Robert, of course.
{{quote|'''Robert''': [[If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...|If you mistreat her]], I will personally have you torn to pieces by wild dogs.}}
* [[Pair the Spares]]: Edith and Sir Anthony were leaning to this direction, {{spoiler|up until Mary spoils it at the garden party. However, he reappears in the Christmas Special so this story may not be over yet}}...}}
* [[Parental Favouritism]]: Poor Edith. Her mother's hard-pressed to finally choke out something about her being "helpful" as she pets and praises her other two daughters, especially Mary. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the parents:
{{quote|'''Robert:''' Poor old Edith, we never seem to talk about her.
'''Cora:''' I'm afraid Edith will be the one to care for us in our old age.
'''Robert:''' What a ghastly prospect. }}
* [[Parody]]: There is an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGXam5nv7rw internet version] of the show, but in a dolls house. With Penguins.
* [[Pet the Dog]]:
** Thomas will appear to an irredeemable, [[The Sociopath|sociopathic]] [[Jerkass]] well on his way to passing the [[Moral Event Horizon]]; but then, occasionally, something will happen to demonstrate his humanity, or his [[Freudian Excuse|Freudian]] [[Armoured Closet Gay|Excuse]] will be reinforced, and he'll revert back to [[Jerkass Woobie]]. Damn him.
** See episodeSeries 2 Episode 2.02 for a stellar example; Thomas briefly returns to Downton Abbey after what is implied to be several years at the front, gets in a few choice insults, and leaves to work in the village army hospital without appearing to have changed at all; however, while there, he becomes emotionally attached to a young lieutenant with gas blindness, reading his letters, encouraging him to keep fighting, and very nearly [[Coming Out Story|coming out]] to him after speaking about his own difficult past. When the soldier is due to be transferred against his will to another medical facility, Thomas goes to bat for him against the head of the hospital, and after the man's {{spoiler|suicide}}, is seen sobbing uncontrollably in a store cupboard.
** O'Brien gets a few [[Pet the Dog]] moments when she's the only one to really sympathise with [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]] Lang, as her brother went through the same thing.
* [[Pimped-Out Dress]]: And hats. Oh, the hats. Ladies' hats were probably more elaborate in [[The Edwardian Era]] than in any other period before or since. The women's evening gowns are simple in line, but often very heavily decorated. Once again, spot-on; from 1909 or so on, women's dress, particularly formal gowns, moved toward very simple, classic lines reminiscent of the Empire/Regency period as opposed to the elaborate styles of the 1890's and early 1900's. Interestingly and probably not coincidentially, corsets began to fall out of style at this time, to be replace by brassieres and girdles.
Line 248:
* [[Rags to Royalty]]: Matthew Crawley goes from being a Mancunian lawyer to the heir of the Earl of Grantham and his estate. Not that he's thrilled about it at first.
* [[Rear Window Witness]]: Daisy.
* [[Rebellious Princess]]: Though she's not ''quite'' royalty, Lady Sybil is a rebel who is interested in politics, supports women having the vote, wears bloomers, consorts with servants, and {{spoiler|in seriesSeries 2 goes so far as to--''shudder''--actually get a ''job'' as a nurse.}}.
** Not to mention {{spoiler|marrying the ''Irish chauffeur'', which [[Dating What Daddy Hates|her father still hasn't forgiven her for]], even when she's legitimately giving him his first grandchild.}}.
* [[Rescue Romance]]: Played with after Sybil's rescue. Mary assumes that Sybil has a crush on Matthew, but it's Branson who's interested in Sybil.
* [[Reset Button]]: {{spoiler|Matthew's *ahem ahem* is making progress.}}.
* [[Revenge]]: Lady Mary and Lady Edith just seem to chase each other in an endless circle of one-upmanship that increases in cruelty at every new level.
* [[Rich Bitch]]: Mary and Edith, usually to each other.
* [[Riches to Rags]]: {{spoiler|Sybil}} is this by marrying {{spoiler|Branson}}, although it's an usual variation in that it's her choice and she welcomes her new lifestyle.
* [[The Rival]]: Isobel Crawley to Violet Crawley.
* [[Screw the Money, I Have Rules]]:
** Branson {{spoiler|turns down Robert's offer of a bribe to abandon Sybil.}}.
** Ethel, {{spoiler|who refuses to give her baby to Major Bryant's wealthy parents as she believes it's better for him to grow up with a poor but loving mother.}}.
* [[Screw the Rules, I Have Connections]]: Jane has no shame in asking Robert to influence a prestigious grammar school to award her son a place.
* [[Scullery Maid]]: Daisy.
* [[Self-Made Man]]: Matthew and Richard Carlisle. [[Lampshade|Lampshaded]] by Carlisle himself when he explains to Mary that he sees no shame in not being from "old money.".
* [[He Knows Too Much|She Knows Too Much]]: Daisy.
* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: Lang.
* [[Shipper on Deck]]: Carson, Cora, Robert, The Dowager Countess, Rosamund, possibly Branson, even Isobel and Anna, {{spoiler|EVEN LAVINIA AT THE END OF HER LIFE}}... at this point, is there [[Everyone Can See It|anyone who doesn't ship Mary/Matthew]]?
** Maybe Edith. Sir Richard.
** Mary, for her part, ships Anna/Bates rather blatantly.
* [[Shot At Dawn]]: The fate of {{spoiler|Mrs. Patmore's nephew, for cowardice.}}.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** Matthew remarks that "[http://boop.org/jan/justso/cat.htm I am the cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me]" -- a reference to one of [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[Just So Stories]]''.
** In the Christmas Special Mary {{spoiler|compares herself and Matthew to [[Tess of the D'Urbervilles|Tess Durbeyfield and Angel Clare]].}}.
* [[Shown Their Work]]/[[Truth in Television]]:
** There was in fact a real Earl of Grantham. The title was created in 1698, but became extinct upon the Earl's death in 1754, because he had no surviving male heirs.
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* [[Spoiled Sweet]]: Sybil.
* [[Spot of Tea]]: It's just the ticket for when the handsome stranger's sudden death has upset the ladies.
** {{spoiler|Oh, your [[Oops, I Forgot I Was Married|estranged wife]] suddenly appears to ruin any sliver of happiness you might have had. Have some tea.}}.
** Sorry, you'll never {{spoiler|walk again.}}. Tea?
* [[Spousal Privilege]]: {{spoiler|Anna}} is forced onto the sidelines at Bates' trial.
* [[Star-Crossed Lovers]]: {{spoiler|The chauffeur Tom Branson and Lady Sybil.}}.
* [[The Stoic]]: Bates. Except when he [[The Woobie|cries alone in his room]]. So a [[Stoic Woobie]], really.
* [[Succession Crisis]]: Two of the Earl's heirs die on the Titanic.
* [[Suicide, Not Murder]]: This seems to be {{spoiler|Vera's plan, unless Bates really did snap once and for all.}}.
* [[Sunday Evening Drama Series]]
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Let's see, an ambitious redhead that doesn't want to stay in service but go out and make it big. Hmm. Where have we heard that before, Ethel? To be fair, Gwen's ambition ran only to being a secretary. Ethel wants to be a movie star. But, beyond that, yes, there's not much to choose between them.
* [[Tall, Dark and Bishoujo]]: Mary.
* [[Tantrum Throwing]]: Thomas executes a furious [[Trash the Set]] when he discovers his {{spoiler|black market goods are all but worthless.}}.
* [[Team Mom]]: Anna, upstairs and down. And Mrs. Hughes.
* [[Technical Virgin]]: When Kemal Pamuk seduces Mary, he promises her she'll still be a virgin for her husband. God only knows exactly what happens {{spoiler|before he keels over and dies in her bed}}.
Line 302:
** Used in a unique and strictly platonic sense between Thomas and O'Brien. He's attractive, young, gay, and snarky; she's a plain, stern woman in her forties, and it generally seems as if their only interest in each other stems from a mutual desire to cause trouble. However, it's rather sweet when you find out that they have consistently and faithfully stayed in touch with one another during his years at the front, and she appears to genuinely worry over his welfare and displays a great deal of happiness (for her) when he returns safely from the war.
** Notably averted between Mary and Edith; the two oldest Crawley sisters genuinely loathe each other and have no [[They Really Do Love Each Other|Aww, Look!]] moments to soften it.
** The second season does give one moment, when Edith {{spoiler|tells Mary about Matthew being MIA, not out of a desire to hurt her, but because she genuinely believes Mary ought to know.}}. It's not much, but it is something after how much they're been at each other's throats.
* [[They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason|They're Called Personal Issues for a Reason]]
* [[Think Nothing of It]]: Matthew to Sybil.
* [[Throwing Off the Disability]]: {{spoiler|Matthew goes from experiencing confusing tingling feelings to becoming fully erect (what are you sniggering at?) in the course of one episode, barring the occasional [[Hand Wave]] that he'll need to "take things slowly".}}.
* [[Time Skip]]: Several times at regular spaced intervals throughout. The first series begins in 1912 (sinking of the Titanic) while the finale is in 1914. The second series begins two years later in 1916 and ends in 1919.
* [[Tomboy]]: Lady Sybil is less interested in ladylike pursuits than her sisters, dislikes fiddly corsets and skirts, and eventually begins wearing ankle-length culottes instead of a dress.
* [[Tonight Someone Dies]]: The Spanish Flu episode, as hinted in the previous week's [["On the Next..."]] montage. Actually used [[Manipulative Editing]] for the purpose, as the clip of a hand falling limp onto a bed was an entirely innocent gesture by a perfectly recovered {{spoiler|Cora}}.
* [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]: {{spoiler|Lavinia.}}.
* [[Took a Level In Kindness]]: O'Brien. Edith, after caring for the injured soldiers staying at Downton. Mary is also far nicer than at the start of the series.
* [[Train Station Goodbye]]:
** In seasonSeries 2 {{spoiler|between Mary and Matthew. No, she didn't run after the train, but you know she wanted to.}}.
** Not much later, Mary {{spoiler|has a more sedate and business-like one with Sir Richard.}}.
* [[Traveling At the Speed of Plot]]: Matthew's ability to move between Downton and the Western Front in France.
* [[The Unfavourite]]: Edith. Even [[Lampshaded]] in the Comic Relief parody when she is introduced as "Daughter Number Two." Similarily, the ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' parody names the daughters "Hot" (Mary), "Way Hot" (Sybil), and "The Other One" (Edith).
Line 319:
* [[Unresolved Sexual Tension]]
* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: Daisy.
* [[Uptown Girl|Upstairs Girl]]: {{spoiler|Sybil and Branson are married and expecting a child by the Christmas Special.}}.
* [[Wartime Wedding]]: William leaves to fight in WWI and asks {{spoiler|Daisy}} to marry him when the war is over; she doesn't love him and wants to turn him down, but accepts because Mrs Patmore tells her that William should not have to go to war heartbroken. {{spoiler|He is mortally wounded in the trenches, and marries Daisy hours before his death because he wants her to have a widow's pension}}.
* [[Well, Excuse Me, Princess!]]
* [[Wham! Episode]]: The penultimate episode of seriesSeries 2 - where to ''start''? {{spoiler|Richard tries to pay Anna to spy on Mary, Carson finds out and refuses to work for him; Matthew [[Throwing Off the Disability|gets almost total use of his legs back]] over the course of about ten minutes, and Violet wastes no time in trying to set him back up with Mary; Ethel bursts in on dinner to present her lovechild to its grandparents; Bates reveals he bought the rat poison his wife killed herself with; Thomas invests all his money in a black market business and gets screwed over; Sybil elopes with Branson and her sisters chase her down and bring her back to the house}}. ''[Deep breath]''. ''Think'' that about covers it.
* [[Wham! Line]]: Even if you knew this was coming, the last line from the first series changes everything:
{{quote|'''Robert''': I am sorry to announce that we are [[World War One|at war with Germany.]]}}
Line 329:
** Ah, there goes the Earl of Grantham, established all round nice guy, compassionate master and faithful, blissfully wedded husband - wait, Robert, what on earth are you doing with that maid?!
** Branson's dismissal of Sybil's job as a nurse as "serving drinks to a bunch of randy officers" during a fight. [[Word of God|Allen Leech, the actor who plays Branson]], said that there was a scene in which Branson apologizes to Sybil, but [[What Could Have Been|it was cut.]] Branson is also later seen as being quite proud of what Sybil does, and to admire the fact that she chooses to work even when she doesn't have to.
* [[What Were You Thinking?]]: Mary when {{spoiler|she gives in to Kemal Pamuk's seduction}}.
** Sybil when {{spoiler|she goes to a dangerous political meeting where she gets injured.}}.
** Ethel when she {{spoiler|gets involved with Major Bryant.}}. Anna even tried to warn her.
* [[Whole-Plot Reference]]: The flower show conflict is pretty much a straight rerun of the Best Picture-winning 1942 film ''[[Mrs. Miniver]]'' (except that the old man is not killed in a German air raid the same night).
* [[Wide-Eyed Idealist]]: Sybil and Daisy.
* [[Will They or Won't They?]]: Mr. Bates and Anna, Matthew and Mary, Branson and Sybil, {{spoiler|Robert and Jane}}.
** Answers so far, in order: {{spoiler|[[They Do]]... if Bates ever gets out}}, {{spoiler|[[They Do]]}}, {{spoiler|[[They Do]]}}, and {{spoiler|They Don't}}.
* [[World War One]]: The backdrop of seriesSeries 2.
* [[Yank the Dog's Chain]]: Basically all of [[The Chew Toy|Molesley's]] subplots.
* [[You Didn't Ask]]: Bates. Word for word.
* [[You Do Not Have to Say Anything]]: Which may seem anachronistic, [[Older Than They Think|but in fact]] the Judges' Rules on police arrest procedure came out in 1912.
* [[Your Cheating Heart]]: Oh, Robert.
* [[Zany Scheme]]: All of Thomas' schemes to become Lord Grantham's valet, but plotting {{spoiler|to steal and then return his beloved Labrador, Isis, takes the cake.}}.
 
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