1. Invite a wealthy aristocrat (with a fancy title like Earl or Duke) to dinner — and make sure this invitee has shifty eyes, as if they have a big secret they’re trying to keep from everyone.
2. During dinner, make sure that Lady Edith, the middle sister, is always looking down, covering a half-smile, as if she just farted and she’s surprised it smelled like roses.
3. Lady Sybil has to say “But — Papa!” at least once.
4. There must be at least 17 courses, 28 different bottles of wine and liquor, 80 desserts, and at least one time during the dinner where it is clear to everyone that the servants are this close to fucking it all up.
5. Every fifteen minutes there has to be a prolonged, awkward silence during which Mr. Crawley and Lady Mary eye-fuck each other from across the dining table—while everyone pretends not to notice.
6. Make sure that the servants serving the dinner are going through a personal crisis of their own: they must be having an affair with one of the masters, dying from the Spanish flu, suffering from a panic attack, or about to stage a one-man revolution.
7. One of the daughters of the Earl has to say or do something that is totally out of line, and not following the established convention, so that the Earl of Grantham has to sit them down in his study, look at them with angry “substitute teacher eyes,” and put them back in their place.
8. One of the servants has to say or do something that is totally out of line, and not following the established convention, so that Carson, the butler, has to sit them down in his office, look at them with angry “substitute teacher eyes,” and put them back in their place.
9. The Dowager Countess must be given all the best punch lines at the dinner party (or else she’ll slap everyone with one of her ridiculously large hat feathers.)
10. There must be at least one time during the dinner where Thomas (the footman) and Miss O’Brien (the Countesses’ maid) meet up in a shady corner of Downton Abbey, smoke cigarettes, and talk smack about everyone else until they get so annoyed with each other that they snap at one another—and then dramatically part ways.
11. The dinner must first appear normal and boring, but then must suddenly shift to the most extreme heights of scandal and drama at exactly ten seconds before it ends.
12. Finally: one of the servants must receive an urgent telegram that they deliver to the Earl of Grantham, who then must read the telegram and inform everyone at the dinner party that either:
A. Someone has just died;
B. A war has broken out;
C. A new heir to his fortunate has just been uncovered; Or,
D. One of the servants used to be in a circus—a delightfully endearing revelation that makes everyone laugh heartily. (Oh, the British.)
