...while back at Duneagle, Rose models a backless dress, which Susan, in front of Shrimpie and the Dowager Countess, quickly informs her she won't be wearing. Rose begs her father to stick up for her and adds that Princess Mary has a dress just like it, but Susan says she looks like a "slut" (the Dowager Countess notes that's not a word you hear every day up there) and asks the Dowager Countess to take her side. The Dowager Countess, however, confesses that she participated in several fashion atrocities in her day, so she's hardly in a position to criticize. Then Shrimpie ends this part of the discussion by ordering Rose to take the Dowager Countess through to the ballroom. The Dowager Countess relays stories of her first Gillies' Ball (in 1860, don't you know) as Susan tells Shrimpie not to blame her if Rose is the object of ridicule. Shrimpie: "I won't, whatever else I might blame you for." Shrimpie's all grown up, yo. He bellows at her to stop making everyone else so unhappy all the time, which is of course Lord Grantham's cue to stop on the stairs all Un!Comfortable! He walks past and Shrimpie goes with him, leaving Susan to draw a ragged, sad breath...

...while, in the land of more physical beatings, Dr. Clarkson tends to a bloody, battered Thomas as the rest of the Downton crowd looks on in concern. Isobel's voice rings out even more pronounced than usual thanks to the underpass acoustics as she asks if there's any chance of apprehending the culprits, but Alfred replies that he doesn't think so. Mrs. Hughes notes that it's not like Thomas to fight and Thomas' ensuing look at Jimmy James doesn't exactly go unnoticed. Branson asks what they took and Thomas tells him it was every penny he had on him, which luckily didn't amount to much. Dr. Clarkson announces that nothing's broken, so Isobel orders everyone to get Thomas home and Alfred is quick to help carry him out past a guilty-looking Jimmy James. Well, if nothing else, it sure looks like he sobered up in a hurry.