As always with Downton-related materials, this promo is a little bootleg, recorded off a television in the U.K. and enhanced with laughter from the bootlegger in question. (He laughs at a Dowager Countess line, though, so who can blame him.) Anyway, a new Downton trailer! With Shirley MacLaine! Saying actual words! Or, saying one line and then exiting a car, while the rest of the house carps about how American she is. Also on deck: Branson, who has returned from Irish exile to drop some truth on Matthew (“You won’t be happy with anyone else while Lady Mary walks the earth”); Bates, who is somehow still both in jail and on this show; and the estate accountant, who has the unhappy task of informing Lord Grantham that Downton is out of money. This last point probably explains why Mary and Matthew are fighting, again. (Confidential to Mary: Just get over the money stuff; it’s 1920, and being aristocratic and broke is cool now.) Season three of Downton airs in September on ITV and January 2013 in PBS, so, you have a month to secure your British visa.
