What we hadn’t expected, in so cosy and predictable a drama as Downton, is not one but too scenes of sexual exploitation: the first and more horrific, as Nigel Harman’s Green brutally asserted himself against Anna, and the second, as conniving Edna first made Branson woozy with whiskey, then chose to invite herself into his room for some master-servant relations.

Neither of these scenes was what you’d call pleasant, though they were a necessary jolt to the programme’s increasingly predictable formula. But to some viewers, inevitably, they will have felt like a betrayal of the programme’s promise of comfort viewing – or, at the least, as final proof that Downton has crossed the invisible boundary that separates chocolate box period drama from pure soap.

The other dominant storyline of the episode – the card shark who tries to fleece Lord Grantham and Gregson, and the parallel card-playing that goes on below stairs – is a fit metaphor here. For one night only, Downton has returned to the more cynical character relationships of Series 1, when Thomas and O’Brien were at their most conniving.  There are wild cards at work: interlopers who seek to trump and ace some of our most beloved Downton favourites.

But if the card shark storyline reaches a happy conclusion – and one that may have allowed Gregson a way in with Lord Grantham – there is no such joy for Bates and Anna.

And so, just when we thought we knew where Downton was going, writer Julian Fellowes throws all his cards up in the air.

We can’t criticise him for this. Drama has to challenge and provoke, and if we have any objection at all to the depiction of sex as a weapon in the power struggle between or among masters and servants – well, that’s Strindberg’s Miss Julie out of the window; so too Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, let alone all the Greek myths that hinge on a moment of divine rape…

And yet, and yet… Where this does strike a sour note with us is the feeling that it misjudges the mood of the times. The battle for feminism versus the appalling ease with which threats of rape or death can be made against women online – that was the news story of the summer. Seen in that context, it feels more unacceptable than ever that television drama should normalise images of women as victims of domestic and sexual violence – not just once every now and again, but week in, week out.

Truthfully, we didn’t want any of the Downton characters to join the ranks of battered and assaulted women on television, nor are we wholly comfortable with the idea of rape being used as a plot point to separate an established and well-loved couple. The image of a woman being savagely hit is never going to qualify as entertainment, and will rightly always seem out of place in a period drama on ITV on a Sunday night.

Undeniably, it benefits the drama, in the short term, to destabilise the viewing experience for the audience. Whether in the long-term, it will be to Downton’s benefit, however, or whether it can in any way be considered an edifying or instructive experience for the viewer remains to be seen.

Aired at 9pm on Sunday 6 October 2013 on ITV.

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