Even in a fantasy world like Downton Tabby, sometimes shocking, sickening, horrible things happen, just like in real life. This week, a wonderful house party is ruined when someone brings an Australian.
The Australian, Yelli Munchkin, performs Dvorak until Mary cries, Tom gets drunk and Mrs. Patmore has a heart attack, but then she goes somewhere quiet and shuts the door and it goes away.
Another catty visitor says Yelli sounds like "a cat on a bonfire" which is pretty insensitive to a roomful of cats, and also inaccurate, because unlike an opera recital, a cat on a bonfire would be bad, but it would last a couple of minutes, tops.
Meanwhile, Lord Grimalkin is giving Lady Etcetera's new suitor the stink-eye, until he eventually doesn't, and refusing to let riffraff eat upstairs, until he eventually does. You wonder if Lord Grimalkin ever gets tired of giving in all the time. When telemarketing comes to England, the Grimalkins are finished.
Laizy the kitchen maid still loves Jimmy (either the tall footcat or the other one) who loves the other kitchen maid, who loves someone else. Because all cats are alike in the dark, but not as alike as the four characters in this storyline. This leads to Jimmy getting his head stuck in a can of anchovies, so he can't serve dinner, and another cat fills in for him, I'm gonna say Molesy.
Lady Minxy is still very sad about that time Matthmew got killed by a car. And little things make her think of him, like that time he was briefly paralyzed for life, and how he used to love to sit on the gramophone. She's wooed by a handsome new suitor, Lord Glinglgglhmm, who gives her tax advice so sexy and wise she can hardly wait to share it with Lord Grimalkin, so he can say no and then eventually yes.
Lord Grimalkin hasn't lost the family fortune in a couple of hours, so he gets in a card game with some poker-playing dogs.
And flirty Ednaw, the maid with the crush on Irish Tom, gives him some whisky and has her way with him, because there's nothing offensive about that stereotype at all.
Quotes:
Korat:
"Bobcat, a world famous singer is in our house. A great artist, honored by the King. But you felt it beneath your dignity to eat with her? Am I the only member of this family who lives in the 20th Century? You will have her next to you on the kitchen floor at dinner, and you will like it!"
Lord Grimalkin:
"Never! No! Not! No! No way! I'm putting my paw down! Oh, alright."
Lord Grimalkin: (discovering that he and Dame Yelli share a taste in milk):
"This is going to be a lot less insufferable than I thought."
Lady Yelli:
"You haven't heard me sing yet."
Miserobel: (The Late Matthmew's Mother)
"But you see what it comes down to, in the end, is this nice Lord Glinglgglhmm and Sir Yawn over there, and him, and him, and you...you're all alive. My son's dead."
Lady Minxy:
"Why are you in this season?"
Lord Grimalkin: "Not every cat can be Oscar Wilde."
Dowager:
"You're telling me."