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troperville

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tools

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toys

• The Dowager Countess has some of the funniest lines in the show.
  "What is a week-end?"
  • And, of course, nearly falling over in the swivel-chair:
  Lady Grantham: Good heavens, what am I sitting on!?
  Matthew Crawley: A swivel-chair.
  Lady Grantham: Another modern brainwave?
  Matthew Crawley: Hardly. They were invented by Thomas Jefferson.
  Lady Grantham: Why does every day involve a fight with an American?
  • Right after Matthew and Sir Richard have a fight, following Mary ending the engagement, and deciding to leave Downton Abbey first thing in the morning:
  Sir Richard: (to Lady Grantham) I doubt we'll meet again.
  Lady Grantham: Do you promise?
  • Let's not forget this gem, after Pamuk's death:
  Lady Grantham: Of course it would happen to a foreigner. It's typical. No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else's house - especially somebody they didn't even know.
• The Dowager Countess' mini-rivalry with Mrs. Crawley is almost too much fun to watch. Their constant one-upping of each other often provides much-needed comic relief in an otherwise very dramatic series.
  Violet: You are quite wonderful the way you see room for improvement wherever you look. I never knew such reforming zeal.
  Isobel: I take that as a compliment.
  Violet: I must have said it wrong.
• Mr. Carson's reveal of his shameful past as a stage performer, which to him seems to be on the same level as murdering someone.
  • That said, Carson's stuffy nature can become so hilarious that it's an inside joke among some of Downton's residents. Among one of his more memorable moments is his epic rivalry with the new telephone.
• O'Brien hazing Ethel.
  • YMMV on that.