So I'm on a bit of a re-watch, started with season 4. I've watched season 1-3 several times, but post Sybil and Matthew's deaths I still watched but only as the episode aired, and never rewatched.
Season 4 is when the whole Mary-Charles-Tony triangle of boredom starts. They really dragged this out until I couldn't possibly care anymore lol. Neither men ever respected anything Mary said, and ignored her every time she said she wasn't ready for another marriage. I remember being annoyed at her indecision back then, now I think she was right to toy with those two idiots.
I still feel sorry for Edith and everything she went through, but wow, I had completely forgotten that she had given her child to two families, took them away from both and basically caused one family to lose their home in the aftermath. The fact that Robert of all people realized how messed up that was, is quite telling. Robert is a fool 98% of the time. But sometimes he does get it right. Speaking of Edith, Mary really was a lot crueler towards her after Matthew's death. Like, unnecessarily cruel. I'm glad she got called out on it a few times. Her remarks when Edith was clearly in distress over the whole Gregson disappearance were awful.
Absolutely love Branson's journey throughout the series and how the entire family loved him so much in the end. I barely made it through those awful scenes with that rude teacher though. I respect what she stood for, but making her unbearably rude every time she was invited to dinner with the family, was...a choice. It made it seem like she wasn't even into Tom that much, but only hung out with him to check out the family and be a completely awful person towards them. Every after Tom had told her several times that he loved that family, she still asked him if he didnt despise them. Girl, he's told you he doesn't! One of the few times I cheered for Robert was when he screamed at her to leave the house and never come back lol.
The less said about Mr Bates the better. Anna deserved better. I cant believe those two started out so strong at the beginning of the show and ended up being so annoying (imho).
Season 5 really was the weakest one. Things dragged so much, entire scenes were basically repeated every episode and even all the great guest actors (Richard E. Grant!!!) couldn't save it. I'm watching episode 3 of season 6 right now.
think my mum was ready to throw me out 
I think it did cause a bit of an uproar, I remember ITV released a statement a couple of days later that basically said 'look, Dan Stevens wanted to leave, and Matthew leaving Mary wouldn't have been believable, so he had to die' 
