RECAP: The Gilded Age Season 3, Episode 5
Several times while watching this week’s episode of HBO’s “The Gilded Age” I uttered aloud, “Oh, the DRAMA…” It’s safe to say that the back half of Season 3 is ramping up the conflict, but not – I think – at the expense of the characters or the show’s tone. It is still a cozy period period piece, but there are some high-stakes plotlines with serious implications both personally and historically, and I for one am delighted to see it.
To be fair, I have always loved “The Gilded Age.” The first season took a bit of time to find its footing, and I think “Downton Abbey” fans were unprepared by the difference in tone. (But it should feel different – this is a show about America hitting its capitalist stride, whereas “Downtown” was about the British landed class confronting the realities of a modern world.) But by Season 3, I feel like the show has identified its key players and pretty much all of them have engaging story arcs at this point. Even my least-favorite characters, Oscar and Gladys, have some juicy plot threads emerging now.
Read on for my take on Season 3, Episode 5, ranked from the plotlines I find most interesting, to the least engaging.
SPOILERS AHEAD
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Bertha & George Russell
In my opinion, the Russells ARE the show at this point; everything revolves around that family, even if that wasn’t the initial intent of the show (Marion was our entrypoint character, but she is a B-lead at best at this point). With Gladys married to the Duke and shipped off to the English countryside, Bertha must address the gossip leaker on their staff (it’s 100 percent her lady’s maid, the French woman), as well as entertain George’s would-be business partners before heading to Newport for the season. (More on that in a bit.) Meanwhile, George is spiraling. He still clearly resents Bertha for forcing Gladys into the marriage, but more than that, his railroad prospects are looking bleak, the economy is tanking, and he is completely overleveraged. When his reliable council Clay tells him that he cannot secure the Chicago part of the transcontinental railroad OR the Arizona section – at least, not without more money that the financially strapped George currently has access to – George fires him on the spot. That was a huge bummer, and I worried it might be the last we saw (and more importantly, heard, given Patrick Page’s rich, resonant voice) of Clay, but he is in the previews for next week, possibly working against the Russells.
Things went from bad to worse for George when Bertha did his bidding to invite Chicago rail heir Alfred Merrick (Paul Alexander Nolan) to dinner in the hopes of charming him into accepting George’s business proposal. Bertha and the very single Merrick have undeniable chemistry, and Merrick’s fawning over Bertha edged right to the line of inappropriate more than once – and George clearly noticed. After dinner, George overplayed his hand with Merrick and botched any potential business deal with him. He decided to take his frustrations out on Bertha, arguing that she practically made him a cuckold at his own dinner table – that was nasty work on George’s part – and simultaneously chastised her for overreaching in certain areas and not doing enough to help him with his business. (When, in fairness to Bertha, he is refusing to inform her of the severity of his troubles.)
The episode ended with George receiving a letter from Gladys (awfully quick for a trans-Atlantic note, unless it was sent via telegraph) confirming his fears: Gladys is miserable in England and is totally out of her depth. Bertha promises to immediately sail to help their daughter, but George viciously tells her that he no longer trusts her, and will not be there when she returns. That was ominous language and a hell of a cliffhanger. I’m glad the first two seasons cemented this power couple so strongly, because they are having a ROUGH season – and they are both at fault. I’m totally invested in this storyline, and in their relationship. But as of now they are in an awful place.
Peggy Scott
I’ve always enjoyed Peggy on this show, even if the early material didn’t do the character or Denee Benton justice. I’m totally engaged by her current romantic entanglement with Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica), who I think is a great match for her, and the looming issues with Dr. Kirkland’s family, specifically his mother, played by Phylicia Rashad. I’m fascinated to see colorism within the African-American community explored, and the prejudices that non-slaves had toward toward freed slaves. Those are stories I have never seen explored on television. This week also saw the return of Peggy’s Season 2 love interest, newspaper publisher T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones), whose interests in Peggy reignited after seeing her at a Negro League baseball game (another interesting historical aspect we have rarely seen explored on TV). As far as we know, Fortune is still married. And after this week, Dr. Kirkland will want to understand the nature of their relationship more. That cannot be good for Peggy. To say nothing about what will happen when Dr. Kirkland – and especially his mother – find out about Peggy’s late son from a previous relationship. This is going to get a whole lot messier before it gets better, but I am desperate to watch it unfold.
Aurora Fane/Mamie Fish/Lena Astor
I’m so glad that Kelli O’Hara and Donna Murphy were finally made regular cast on this show; Murphy’s Astor in particular is always a highlight whenever she’s on screen, and O’Hara has been given a great – if out-of-nowhere – arc this season, as she faces the realities of being a divorced woman in polite society in the late 19th Century. This week the storyline kicked up considerably when Aurora attended Mrs. Fish’s opening event for the Newport season, only to be asked to leave almost immediately when Mrs. Astor arrived because, per Mrs. Astor’s rules, women of good standing do not associated with divorced women. The situation became more complicated when Mrs. Fish – in a surprisingly forward moment – pointed out that Lena had better change her mind on exiling divorced women quickly, as her own daughter seems poised for the Big D any day now. Lena of course refuses to acknowledge the realities of her daughter’s very public indiscretions, and we now have a game of society chicken not unlike last season’s wonderful opera war. Speaking of, Aurora’s treatment at the event gave us a much-needed humanizing moment for Bertha, who finds the rules around divorced women appalling, and also allowed Marion to score points with her future in-law by taking care of Aurora in an uncomfortable moment. A good scene all around. It’s genuinely so interesting to see how something as commonplace as divorce literally ruined people’s lives just over a century ago. I’m glad they’re exploring this.
Gladys Russell/The Duke
Gladys has arrived in England to the sprawling estate of the Duke of Buckingham, and is immediately made to feel like she doesn’t belong thanks to the Duke’s battleaxe of a sister, Lady Sara (Hattie Morahan). Props to Morahan for really digging into the brutal British rigidity of Lady Sara; she’s got a stick so far up her ass she could be a puppet. I dislike the character intensely, which means her acting is compelling! The Duke makes a few lame attempts at defending his new bride, but it is plain that Lady Sara rules this house, and she has no interest in making Gladys feel welcome. Gladys finds the smallest bit of solace in her lady’s maid from home, Adelheid, making the journey with her, but then Adelheid is sacked for having the audacity to have fashion sense in the House of Beige. This causes Gladys to send a plea for help back home, and the previews for next week show Bertha to the rescue. I generally am not a Gladys fan – she’s a drip, though I did feel for her by the end of last week’s wedding episode – but I am giddy at the prospect of mother and daughter joining forces to smash the British ice queen.
Larry Russell/Marion Brook/Oscar van Rhijn/”Maud Beaton”
Larry was quite busy this episode, finally getting engaged to Marion (I like the two of them together much more than I like them separately), being coerced by his father to take a month-long trip to Arizona for a hail-mary pass to save the railroad deal, and then taking Jack the clockmaker to – I am guessing – a gentleman’s club. It was referred to as The Haymarket, and featured women boxing, gambling, and escorts aggressively working the room. If someplace like that still exists in New York, please let me know. While at The Haymarket – and not, it should be noted, at the steakhouse Delmonico’s, where he informed his brand-new fiancee he was going – he spies none other than the con artist formerly known as Maud Beaton, now working the room as an escort. This is quite literally, “And then there’s Maud.”
Larry informs Oscar about this discovery, and Oscar mentions it to his former love and now business partner John Adams, who gives Oscar very good advice: Yes, Maude left Oscar and his mother penniless after pulling her scheme, but Oscar was also essentially scamming her with his marriage proposal, seeing as he’s gay and would never give her what she wanted out of a husband. John’s advice to let it be is good advice. But Oscar, being the worst, is clearly not going to listen to that, as the teaser for next week shows him confronting “Maud.” It also indicates that he blows up Larry’s spot by telling Marion where he really was, and given Marion’s intense trust issues following the whole Mr. Raikes affair, that’s going to be a huge problem for Larry. Especially since he’ll be gone for a whole month. (Oh, Larry also asked for the metallurgy reports on the Arizona mines that George keeps telling him are “worthless.” The “worthless” mines have come up so often at this point that you can bet that will play out in a big way in the final act of the season.)
Ada Brook
In what I hope will be the beginning of the resolution for Aunt Ada’s mourning period, Ada follows up with the medium Madame Dashkova, played with surprising subtlety from the usually gonzo Andrea Martin. Is Madame Dashkova a fraud who is playing Ada? Probably, but spiritualism and the paranormal were very much becoming a trend at this point in American society, and it’s cool to see this explored here. More than that, Ada seemed to get some kind of closure from the abrupt death of the Reverend Luke Forte (I love when Cynthia Nixon says his name), and by the end of the episode seemed ready to start moving on with her life. But she was also lying to Agnes about what she was doing and where she had been, so that’s not going to go well.
Agnes van Rhijn/Jack/Bannister/etc.
I do like Jack, and I think the clock story arc has been interesting. But at this point the, “How will the house react to Jack now being super wealthy?” question has been going on for two episodes, and Agnes and Ada still don’t know just how rich he is. I’m not sure where they’re going here, but it’s taking too long to get there, in my opinion. But again, I enjoy Jack, and I certainly find the Van Rhijn servant contingent more interesting than the Russell servants.
Mrs. Bruce/Borden
Speaking of which, the only two likable members of the Russell house continue their “I was secretly married and now they are either dead or crazy” story arc, which is also moving far too slowly for my tastes. I thought the scene with Mrs. Bruce confessing that she was married and her husband is in a mental institution was genuinely moving, but I’m not sure what the scenes we got this week accomplished. Borden told her he loved her, and she said she “appreciated” that. Um, thanks? I guess? I like them as both characters and actors but this arc is not holding my attention.
Next up: Bertha arrives in England for a full-scale bitch-off, Oscar confronts “Maude,” Marion begins her paranoia meltdown, and George’s fortunes seemingly go from bad to worse thanks to J.P. Morgan.
