WARNING: LONG DOWNTON ABBEY POST...if you don't watch the show, just skip this post.
Garance, I was a little confused with the Bates jail storyline too.
It almost seemed like they left out part of the story. When I started the episode where he and Anna were walking and looking at the houses available on the estate, I first thought one of them was surely having a dream, then when it wasn;'t that, I checked my DVD to see if I had skipped an episode. very strange.
here is what I found by Googling:
John Bates is comforted by his wife's determination to not give up on setting him free, and he himself maintains his innocence. But he spends a lot of time in prison, which is made all the more difficult because he is confined in close quarters with characters that are described as "undesirable." His cellmate
Craig planted drugs in Bates's bed, intending to frame him. Fortunately, another prisoner,
Dent, who hated Craig, warned him in time. But this put him on bad terms with the guards, which cut off all correspondence between him and Anna.
Dent later told him that Craig and one of the guards,
Durrant, were working together selling drugs. After Bates successfully got Craig on bad terms with the guards by putting the drugs in his bed, his and Anna's letters were finally deliveres to each of them. Another guard,
Turner, warned Bates that Durrant did not like him and so he became more watchful for an opportunity to deal with Craig.
In 1920, after
Audrey Bartlett gave a testimony that cleared his name, Bates was released from prison, and he returned with Anna to a cottage near Downton. They start painting it, and it was done by the time O'Brien paid a visit. Mrs. Hughes informs Mr. Bates of the situation regarding Thomas and Jimmy, and though he wants Thomas to go he does not want to see anyone's life ruined. Later he alarms Ms. O'Brien when he mentions "her ladyship's soap," indicating he knows she caused Cora's miscarriage back in 1914. He tells this to Anna as well as his disapointment that Thomas was staying on in a higher position than himself.