Downton Abbey : If the show continued, what awful things would happen to the Bateses?

Maybe the baby would turn out to be the spawn of Satan, a la The Omen.

Certainly the baby would be falsely imprisoned for murder!

My immediate thought was even worse than that. I thought that the Bates would be falsely imprisoned for murdering the baby. They would be saved when Clarkson figured out that it was crib death.

LOL.

For some reason my reply ended up on this post instead of another.

LoL

Another poster did say on a different thread that the Bateses would name the baby "Norman" and emigrate to the US, where they would buy a motel

Psycho spoiler: That mummified corpse in Norman's cellar certainly dressed and had its hair done just like Anna.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

Maybe they both get accused of a double murder? Like Bonnie and Clyde style? All falsely accused, of course. Then another couple will come forward and confess.

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Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.

I'd go one step further and say they become what we know as the couple "Bonnie and Clyde" today but in all actuality they are secretely THE BATESES and all the murders tied to them are FALSE. Cue incoming sound of world's tiniest violin.

I'd watch that!

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Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.

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Maybe they both get accused of a double murder? Like Bonnie and Clyde style?

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No, no, no! The Bonnie and Clyde/Downton Abbey crossover storyline is reserved for Clyde and Buck Barrow's cousin Thomas, who comes over from Yorkshire to join their crime spree, using his experience as an Army medic to help patch them up after all the shootouts. Then after Buck is killed and his wife Blanche is wounded and captured, Thomas squirrels away all the gang's loot and phones in an anonymous tip to the Texas Rangers and sets Clyde and Bonnie up for an ambush. Then he quietly exchanges the loot for Pounds Sterling, returns to Yorkshire and buys out the Abbey from the Crawleys, whose fortunes have taken a turn for the worse in the Depression.

As another poster has said, it's already been established previously that John and Anna name their son Norman and move to Southern California and open a motel.

I would watch that story.

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Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.

Mrs. Drew attempts to kidnap Marigold from the Downton nursery, but grabs the young Master Bates by mistake. (She IS mentally unstable, you know.) Tension ensues.