ITV
How Might Doctor Thorne Kill Off Louis?
There's no question it's going to happen in the season finale. But let's rank the methods, from most likely (and therefore most plausible) to least likely (and therefore most fun).
Ever since we learned, back in Episode 1, that Mary Thorne was in line to inherit the sizable estate of Sir Roger Scatcherd in the event that Scatcherd's son Louis should die before his thirtieth birthday, we all knew one thing pretty much for sure: Scatcherd's son Louis absolutely will die before his thirtieth birthday. After all, Mary is kind and virtuous and was, back in that first episode, being denied the chance to marry Frank Gresham, the man she loves, due to her relative penury, when what the Greshams need most is to marry money and rescue their estate from its crushing debts. Then we actually met Louis, an undeniable shitbag, and our certitude that his passing would absolutely clear the way for Mary to inherit loads of cash, buy her way back in with Frank's money-grubbing mother, and live happily ever after was complete.
We don't see much of Louis in this third episode, but what we do see -- from his vague threats against Mary to his pointed threats against the Greshams to his drunken appearance just before the pivotal dinner party that will, we assume, open the season finale -- very effectively prime the viewer for his necessarily imminent demise. But if the fact of Louis's death is, surely, not remotely in question, the cause is. Here, we offer some possibilities, ranked from very likely/most plausible to very unlikely/most enjoyable to imagine.
- Louis Drinks Himself To Death
Louis might be a bit young to die this way -- particularly since it took at least thirty more years for booze to kill his father -- but then again, (a) Sir Roger was in prison for many of those years, so liquor was presumably harder to come by then, and (b) I can imagine that Louis has been working much more diligently at the project of destroying his liver than he has at any other pursuit in his life.
- Louis Gets Killed By Jonah
I don't want to profile anyone based on their looks, by which I mean their lackadaisical attitude toward shaving.
But this dude is a sketch pad. If Jonah should decide he's not going to get much out of Louis in the long term and that he should grab what he can while he can, maybe he ends up robbing Louis, and when Louis walks in and interrupts him, Jonah stabs him and flees into the night.
- Louis Chokes On Dinner At The Greshams', And No One Saves His Life
Louis probably has horrible table manners. It's not hard to imagine him taking a very large bite of crusty bread that gets stuck in his throat, and that if he was sufficiently obnoxious before and during dinner -- which seems a reasonable assumption -- no one would feel like coming to his aid (including Doctor Thorne).
- Louis Challenges Frank To A Duel, And Loses
Louis seems pretty committed to his uncorroborated view that Mary misled him in her attentions and made him fall in love with her. Once he hears she and Frank are actually engaged, he might flip out for real -- and given that he's drunk all the time, he's probably not great at duelling.
- Louis Gets Confronted By Someone's Aggrieved Male Relative, And Loses
We don't know much about what Louis got up to living on his own in London. Maybe, to bring the story full circle, he got someone's unwed sister pregnant and ends up manslaughtered in the village street.
- Louis Gets Inappropriate On A Balcony, And Gets Pushed Off To His Death
I'm not sure Mary would be so careless as to let herself end up in a one-on-one situation with Louis after the bitter verbal assault with which he followed his failed proposal at the end of the last episode. But if he tricked her somehow and tried to make unwanted advances a little too close to the edge and had to be pushed off her, maybe he suffers a fatal fall. Some might be troubled by the idea that the sweet, angelic Mary would be turned into an accidental murerer, except under those circumstances, and since it's him.
- Louis Gestures With A Bag Of Gold, Which Bursts And Causes A Fatal Head Injury
Louis has been talking about his superior financial position with regard to the Greshams since virtually the moment of his father's death. It would be deliciously ironic were he to heft an actual bag of money over his own head to make a vulgar point very literal, only for the structural integrity of the bag to fail and shower him in heavy lucre, causing a brain bleed.
- Louis Falls Off His Horse And Gets Trampled
What was the point of that scene in the last episode in which he denigrates Mary's mount but to set up his equine murder?
- Louis Tries To Fuck A Horse And Gets Kicked In The Head
You know he wants to.
- Louis Succumbs To A Case Of Syphilis That Confounds Medical Science
"Louis was so thoroughly corrupted even on a cellular level that he got what is known as 'compound' or 'super-syphilis,'" Doctor Thorne will say. "Oh well."
- Louis Gets Inappropriate With Miss Oriel And Prince Harry Violates The Rules Of Spacetime To Bayonet Him To Death
(This one depends on your knowing that Cressida Bonas, who plays Miss Oriel, the vicar's sister, has dated Prince Harry on and off for a while. Crack a book, why don't you? Or if not a book, at least a Hello!.)
- Louis Gets Inappropriate With Miss Dunstable, Who Shoots Him In The Head
...What? You think she wasn't packing heat when she crossed the Atlantic? She's American!