From sex talk to Lady Mary's dirty laundry: Downton Abbey's sixth season opener leaves us wanting more

Upstairs, downstairs, mezzanine, gather round because Downton Abbey is back. The British series kicked off Season 6 with the what may be the most British opening of all time. A hunt, horses and hounds, red coats — are you getting goosebumps just at the thought of it? Don’t. Although this opening episode will give fans of Downton Abbey the fix they’ve been craving, it’s nothing spectacular as season premieres go. But it does indeed take us back to the family and characters that we adore and there was a lot going on. So if you’d like to jog your memory or like a neat summary of the episode’s highlights, here they are. Be warned, there are spoilers ahead. [caption id=“attachment_2442410” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Downton Abbey. Twitter @THRGlobal[/caption] Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson talk sex No, really they do. Viewers are immediately thrown into the “Will they? Won’t they?” question about whether the couple that rules Downton’s downstairs will in fact get married or not. Mrs Hughes, it turns out, was only having a bit of a body image crisis (don’t we all?) and had a little fit when she realised that Mr Carson would see her naked, ruing that she was “quite a thing to look at” in her younger days. Ah Mrs Hughes, you’ve captivated us for years now, so go forth and conquer. There was an absolute gem of an exchange between Carson and Mrs Patmore when she tried to relay to him Mrs Hughes’ concerns. CARSON: “I hadn’t fully considered all the aspects of marriage …” CARSON: “I don’t understand what aspects?” Pause. CARSON: “Oh my Lord. You mean …” Pause. PATMORE: “Yes. That is precisely what I mean.” Lady Mary’s past “sins” come calling Remember Lady Mary’s weekend fling with Lord Gillingham last season, conducted because she wanted to be “sure” before she married him only to result in her promptly casting him aside? Well, it seems not all of her actions go unnoticed. A former chambermaid barges through the halls of Downton and lies her way into Mary’s room takes, a bite into the aristocrat’s breakfast toast and then casts it aside, and finally tries to blackmail Lady Mary about her past indiscretion, threatening to leak it to News of the World. That must be some toast. It leaves viewers with a sense of deja vu as Downton follows the same plot line from the first season, when Mary is threatened with having the sordid tale of her bedroom exploits with Turkish diplomat Kemal Pamuk published. Really Downton writers? A little originality please. Lord Grantham eventually comes to the rescue (predictably enough) and asks Mary if she thought of George when she was going about town. But really Mary hardly ever sees George except for during tea time, parenting was much more hands-off back in in 1925. The blackmailer eventually ends up only getting £50. She also signs a confession — which makes this plot line very unnecessary and not worth even that 45-minute journey. The Bates’ and Mr Green murder trial finally comes to an end The long-winding drama concerning the death of Lord Gillingham’s valet, Mr Green, and prime murder suspects Anna and Mr Bates finally comes to an end. They’ve only been dragging this for about two seasons. We finally know, amid a bit of a personal crisis for Anna (she and Bates have been trying to have a baby unsuccessfully), that neither Anna nor Bates killed the valet. Apparently Green had insulted a woman who pushed him over. Finally, she confesses. It’s strangely anticlimactic a resolution after all _Downton Abbe_y has put Anna, Bates and us through. But at least Anna is off the hook. Meanwhile, Bates comes out looking like a winner after a beautiful scene between him and Anna where she tells him about miscarriages. The times are catching up with Downton It’s 1925 and Downton is still recovering from World War I. “Neither you nor I can hold back time,” says Lord Grantham to Carson when it comes to Downton’s wage woes. Of course they will have to downsize. Daisy has a massive crisis at the auction of a nearby estate and starts screaming bloody murder at the new owner for serving her father-in-law with a notice, leaving us with the sinking feeling that perhaps it will be Downton’s turn next. However, the episode ends with popping of some Veuve Clicquot and dancing in the kitchen. So no need to bring out the sad violins yet. There’s also a power struggle between Isobel Crawley and her cousin, the Dowager, over the administration of the local hospital, a stand off between Lady Edith and Lady Mary and impending nuptials of Mrs Hughes and Carson. Now to see if this episode is an indicator of a lacklustre season or if Downton Abbey just made sure expectations were low enough to be surpassed grandly in the coming episodes.