After Vanity Fair posted these exceedingly clever Downton Abbey Valentines last week, designed by Dallas-based comic artist Chad Thomas, they partnered up with Chad for a sporting way to end Season Two: trading cards! Click to view, and check back Monday for a finale recap. (To see all of our recaps of Season 2, from the premiere through Episode 6, go here.)

MARY
Known for: Offing bureaucrats with her sexual wiles, great skin.

Quote: “That’s like asking the fox to spare the chicken.” (On refraining from teasing Edith.)

Season 3 prediction: Noxema, newly available in Yorkshire, signs her as its public face.

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I’ve exchanged most of the MQ pictures with HQ versions. Check them out! A HUGE thank you goes to ddunhams

• Photos > Events & Public Appearances > 2012 > Mulberry: Arrivals – LFW Autumn/Winter 2012

• Photos > Events & Public Appearances > 2012 > Mulberry: Front Row – LFW Autumn/Winter 2012

• Photos > Events & Public Appearances > 2012 > Mulberry: Dinner – LFW Autumn/Winter 2012

TV Fanatic: The season two finale of Downton Abbey concluded with just about everything we could have wished for. I don’t know if at the time they expected it to be the series finale, but we will indeed be blessed with a third.
While a lot happened, there wasn’t much to analyze here. Everything was just there to soak in and enjoy.

Entertainment Weekly: The second season of Downton Abbey came to a somewhat merry, certainly satisfying conclusion on Sunday night by wrapping up some subplots and leaving others dangling, tantalizingly. Abbey is, at bottom, a work of pastiche. Creator-writer Julian Fellowes is using literary models that have worked for a long time, freshening them with his vivid characterization and (most of the time) crisply precise dialogue. What Fellowes has done so cannily is to render the servant-master relationship in two distinct modes: His models are Charles Dickens melodrama downstairs, and Anthony Powell archness upstairs.

HitFix: As I wrote back in January, I had a very mixed reaction to Downton season 1, where I loved most everything to do with Mr. Bates and the rest of the servants downstairs and rolled my eyes at most of what was happening upstairs with Lord and Lady Grantham. My reaction to season 2 was equally mixed, and yet weirdly backwards: I took much greater enjoyment out of what was going on with the lords and ladies than I had a year ago (though parts of their stories annoyed me) and suddenly began viewing anything to do with Bates and his Anna as the chore I had to get through to get to the rest.
On the whole, I would say Downton season 2 got more right than it got wrong. But it got enough wrong that a lot of fans I know who couldn’t find fault with season 1 are now very nervous about what the next year will bring.

TV Guide: On Masterpiece Classic’s always eventful and endlessly enjoyable Downton Abbey, we’ve (mostly) survived World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic during this full but fleeting second season. In the great British tradition of leaving us wanting more — if my mailbag is any indication, much more — the series comes to a satisfying, if typically overstuffed, end for now with a two-hour holiday themed episode.

The Guardian: In some ways, Downton season two has been even more enjoyable because it is so (unintentionally?) funny. Even die-hard fans – and I still include myself in this category – have struggled to keep a straight face through 99% of this season.
In the early episodes there was some debate about the season’s success. Some still argued (dementedly, in my view) that Downton was just the same as it had always been. But in recent weeks – and certainly since the ludicrous arrival and almost immediate disappearance of Bandaged Patrick, Who Might be the Rightful Heir if Only We Could Be Bothered to Flesh Out This Part of the Script – these voices have gone quiet.
Personally I am torn between feeling utter betrayal and total delight about season two. Which strikes me as a very Downton place to be. Could it be that it is actually better because it is worse?

David Boreanaz has a cushy job on the long-running Fox series “Bones.” But if his tweets are to be believed, he’s already angling for his next TV gig.
Boreanaz is a huge fan of the Golden Globe-winning British costume drama “Downton Abbey” and tweeted that he is ready to join the cast as the cowboy “from the Middle West” described by Lord Granthan (Hugh Bonneville) as a possible antidote to his scandal-plagued daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), who contemplated fleeing to America in Sunday night’s season finale.
The “Bones” star addressed series creator Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for writing “Gosford Park,” in his tweet.

“I’d like to be the American cowboy who shakes things up at ‘Downton Abbey.’ I’m open for a visit Mr. Fellowes.”

Also tweeting about the show were Anderson Cooper and comic Patton Oswalt, who wrote of Emmy winner Dame Maggie Smith, “If the Dowager Countess were a judge of ‘American Idol,’ there’d be nine suicides in the first round of auditions.”

The GLAMOUR Women of the Year Awards is the hottest event on the London calendar. Kristen Stewart, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Kim Kardashian, Kings of Leon, and Bridesmaid stars Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy were just some of the A-listers who partied with us last year – and now we’re gearing up for another star-studded soirée. We’re thrilled to once again be teaming up with the stunning and stylish Pandora jewellery. The event takes place in London on May 29 – so we need your votes now! Just tick your favourite category (or nominate someone else, if you prefer). Anyone who has voted is in with a chance to win a pair of tickets to the 2012 ceremony! What are you waiting for?

 

VOTE HERE  FOR MICHELLE

vogue.co.uk is listing Michelle Dockery as “best dressed”.

From New York to London, see the best dressed Fashion Week attendees.

FEBRUARY 19 2012 – Michelle Dockery wore a Mulberry spring/summer 2012 shift dress to attend the brand’s London Fashion Week dinner

We also know from the Mulberry blog, that Michelle is a proud owner of the brand new “Del Rey” in Sparkle Croc Print

I’ve added 166 screencaps of Michelle at the Late Show with David Letterman !

• Photos > Interviews & Tv Appearances > 2012 > The Late Show with David Letterman

Michelle joined Ms Gillian Anderson for the famous Mulberry Fashion Dinner

• Photos > Events & Public Appearances > 2012 > Mulberry: Dinner – LFW Autumn/Winter 2012

I’ve added a bunch of HQ pictures from last night (Mulberry Fashion Show) to the gallery, also some more pics of Michelle arriving TOGETHER with a very handsome Tom Hiddleston ! Holy Moly! Do you guys think they’re dating? We think they’d make a gorgeous couple!

• Photos > Events & Public Appearances > 2012 > Mulberry: Arrivals – LFW Autumn/Winter 2012

• Photos > Events & Public Appearances > 2012 > Mulberry: Front Row – LFW Autumn/Winter 2012

Check out this video from the LFW, shot at the Mulberry show, that Michelle attended – together with Tom Hiddleston!

DOWNTON ABBEY
as Lady Mary Crawley
pre-production Season 3
Official • ImdB • Photos

ANNA KARENINA
as Princess Myagkaya
post-production 2012
Official • ImdB • Photos

HENRY IV, Part 1
as Lady Percy
filming (2012)
Official • ImdB • Photos