Lord Grantham.
In the final episode of this series, evil predatory gay valet, Thomas, is facing having to leave Downton Abbey in disgrace after trying to force himself on Jimmy, an unwilling straight man.
Cause that's what Them Gays do.
Ah well, at least Julian Fellowes didn't have young Mr Barrow "do the decent thing" and commit suicide - dat's progress, dudes!
Update: Sorry, this was a load of sour old balls. See comments below for more informed and thoughtful comments...
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Did you watch it? He got saved. In a bizarre and a-historical re-imagining of gay experience, everyone from Mrs Hughes the Housekeeper to Lord Grantham himself rallied to save Thomas ("We all knew he was like that"; "It's not worth destroying a man's life over") from dismissal and disgrace.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that was a bit sloppy - thanks for pulling me up on it.
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He didn't force himself on the straight man, either (not as such). The scene itself was kind of beautiful and gentle (Thomas is a stone-faced character who hides himself behind this hardness for protection - but his vulnerability comes out completely once the straight dude comes on the scene) There's an old croan in it who has it in for Thomas and instigated the whole thing. She knew the "straight dude" was uncomfortable with Thomas' attraction because he told her, but she started telling Thomas that he was in fact actually interested in him. She kept on intimating this slyly to Thomas. Then, one night after the two young men had a friendly chat about their lives they went to their separate rooms for the night, but Thomas couldn't sleep as he now thought the other dude liked him too and so after plucking up the courage he went into his room while he was sleeping and placed a gentle kiss on his lips, just as he woke up.
ReplyDeleteThe problem was, the straight dude's roommate came in at that moment, saw everything and all hell broke loose.
Thomas was told he'd have to leave immediately by the head servant dude (he was understanding but felt he had no choice).
The old crone forced the straight dude to demand that Thomas would not be given a reference so he could never work in England again, but even though the majority of the staff new this was wrong they had no choice because the old croan had made the straight dude say he'd go to the police if they didn't get rid of him with no references (the straight dude didn't want to take it this far at all, it was all the old croan's plotting).
Anyway, one of the older wiser valets worked out what was going on and managed to blackmail the old croan into convincing straight dude to recant and ask them to give him a reference.
The other servant who discovered them originally was a bit naive and disgusted by it all and after hearing of this he phoned the police who arrived during the final scene, a cricket match between the whole cast.
Lord Grantham, after finding out about it all beforehand - hence the above quote - sorted it all out. He kept Thomas on in a better job than he had before and then gave the straight dude a promotion too (to butter him up) - he then convinced the naive dude who'd phoned the police to recant his accusation and to say he was drunk and it was all a misunderstanding.
It was a happy ending and it was kind of handled quite well, really.
PS - I'm not entirely sure the straight dude is all that straight, actually. All the girls fancy him but he's never shown an ounce of interest in any of them. I wonder if they weren't discovered they may have kissed mutually. It's true he did express discomfort at Thomas' advances afterwards to the old croan, but that may have also been a protective measure or even internalised homophobia.
After last week's episode i was pissed off too as I thought it was going to be exactly as you describe: tragic invert discovered after trying it on with a straight dude and kicked out for ever, but I'm glad the final episode treated the whole thing in such a way.
Sorry, that was me in crabby mode - and probably had more to do with my loathing of Julian Fellowes than what actually happened in the programme.
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Another great line from Carson "The world can be a shocking place, Alfred, but you are a man and must learn to take it on the chin."
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