Downton’s Dowager Countess vs The Gilded Age’s New York dame

Once upon a time, oh, not too long ago, women did not have true-crime murder shows to enjoy. And so, all the venom they stored up through a lifetime of vaguely smiling and nodding while people were outrageously stupid around them had nowhere to go … until they hit a certain age. Once the husband was out of the way (RIP) and social condemnation held no fears, the vipers would break out of their shells and start to give poisonous little nips.

Anyway, that’s our theory behind why the old widow brigade like Violet Crawley (Dame Maggie Smith) from Downton Abbey, and rich aunt Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) in The Gilded Age are so deliciously vicious. It’s all those years of repressing the things they wish they could have said, coupled with the ability to now say them as subtly or directly as they choose.

But place these two vipers in the same pit, and whose bite will be more deadly? Agnes and Violet can already skin a man alive with a mere tilt of their heads and a certain expression that has the full blast furnace effect of a side-eye from God. And then they go off and say things that really stick, as if they’re seared onto the bottom of your grubby little soul. (It helps to have the ultimate secret old lady, Julian Fellowes – who created both series – writing for you!).

On mourning

Agnes (The Gilded Age Season 1, episode 1): “It wasn’t worth an uncomfortable day of travel to make sure Henry was dead.”

Agnes had to marry a nasty piece of work after her brother Henry squandered the entire family’s considerable fortune. Henry might have been her beloved niece Marian’s poor, dead papa, but to Agnes’s mind both the poor and dead part are entirely on him, so she skipped the funeral.

Violet (Downton Abbey Season 1, episode 3): “Last night, he looked so well. Of course, it would happen to a foreigner. No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house, especially someone they didn’t even know.”

Turkish diplomat Mr Pamuk has died at Downton … while in bed with Violet’s granddaughter, Lady Mary. Mary is secretly tying herself in knots while her grandmother tuts about the rudeness of dying in a stranger’s house. Mind how you die, dear!

On making a fuss

Agnes (Season1, episode 4) “You survived a civil war, yet you collapse because a lap dog is missing? Pull yourself together, for heaven’s sake.”

Agnes berates her sister Ada, whose dog Pumpkin has run off. When Ada wrings her hands over him being stolen, Agnes retorts that the only way someone would pay money for that dog is if they weren’t familiar with the breed. And when Ada rejoices over Pumpkin’s return, Agnes just as unsympathetically warns her not to squeeze her dog so hard because “He’ll take off again. I would.”

Violet (Season 3, episode 3): “You must keep busy. You’re a woman with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do.”

Violet advises her granddaughter Edith, who’s just been ditched at the altar.

And an honourable mention goes to Violet’s ultimate “stop whinging about your love life” quote: “Don’t be defeatist, dear, it’s very middle class.” (Season 2, episode 8, to poor Edith again).

On psychology and self-reflection

Violet (Season 6, episode 1): “All this endless thinking. It’s very overrated. I blame the war. Before 1914, nobody thought about anything at all.”

Agnes (Season 1, episode 4): “‘Self-destructive’? You’ve been reading those German books again. I’ve warned you before: just stick to Louisa May Alcott.”

Both women are replying to someone who’s trying to understand a family member’s behaviour on a deeper level. Is there a point to the exercise? No. No thoughts. Head empty.

On scandalous youths

Violet (Season 5, episode 3): “In my day, a lady was incapable of feeling physical attraction until she had been instructed to do so by her mama.”

Violet says this to her granddaughter Lady Mary who has, rather scandalously, in Violet’s words, “been seduced”.

Agnes (Season 1, episode 7): “How do you know? Have you been leading a double life?”

Agnes sets her virgin spinster sister Ada straight when Ada defends Agnes’s son Oscar, who seems to have seduced a servant, claiming that he was just “sowing his wild oats”, and “these things happen”.

On enthusiasm

Agnes (Season 1, episode 4): “I haven’t been thrilled since 1865.”

Violet (Season 3, episode 3): “At my age, one must ration one’s excitement.”

Honestly, these are delightful even without context.

This is just the tippy top of the trash-talking iceberg. Plunge into Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age, all episodes streaming on Showmax, for more moments that’ll curl your hair, water your crops and expunge your enemies into dust.