Now that the election is well and truly
behind us I can return my focus to my first great passion. And just in time for
that one of the best series of the decade so far has returned for its fourth
season. It took nearly two seasons for the rest of America to stop
hate-watching The Gilded Age and acknowledge what I knew from the start:
that it is an unquestioned masterpiece. And fresh from its second consecutive
season of being nominated for Best Drama it has returned just in time to yet
again be at the forefront of end of year award nominations, as well as
discussion for the Emmys.
Much of the first two episodes are about
how subtly the power dynamics that have been at the center of the first three
seasons are shifting. Almost from the debut of the series the Russell family
has been climbing over the power structure of 1880s New York with Bertha,
played by the magnificent Carrie Coon, reaching the pinnacle of society in
Season 2. But there were signs throughout the third season of the cost of her
climb and they exploded in her face when after her biggest triumph her husband
George, between whom cracks in their marriage had been building all season,
finally came to a head and announced a separation.
So much of the first two episodes have
shown Bertha in a position we've never seen her before: powerless. In the
season premiere she watched as her daughter Gladys (Talissa Farmiga) struggled
in a difficult birth of her child and she was essentially regulated to the
sidelines between Gladys' husband and her family. For the first time all the
power she'd had was useless to protect her daughter as she suffered a horrible
complication that ensured that this would be Gladys's only grandson. She
convinced the Duke to withhold the news of it from her daughter but it is
another one of those things she can't control.
It's increasingly clear that George,
played by Morgan Spector who reaches new heights this season, has been focusing
entirely on both his position in the wealthy stratus and finding out who shot
him near the end of last season. For the first time in his life George is
facing an adversary he can't overcome: John D. Rockefeller, a man who holds all
the cards against him and is infinitely more wealthy and powerful then him. It
doesn't help that' he's struggling with an addiction to laudanum (an opium
derived painkiller that was nearly as addictive as morphine) as well as the
very real trauma from the attempt on his life. We learned in the second episode
that the killer was the son of one of the first men to fall victim to George's
rise, a family who he left destitute and caused her husband to commit suicide.
It seems George feels no obvious guilty about what he did to their family but
it's also clear that he wants to handle this through the Pinkertons rather then
the normal authorities. We spend much of the second episode thinking George has
found the killer to inflict revenge and indeed the episode comes to a climax
with him holding a gun at the young man's face preparing to kill him in front
of his mother. And yet George has never been capable of violence in his rise to
the top and that may be true even in his actions. When Bertha learns the truth
and demands he release her, he points out that if this man is found out by the
police he will surely hang and blood will still be on his hands. At the moment
of truth George fires into the wall and orders the family to flee New York
never to be seen again.
It's clear that Bertha is struggling in
her own regard when she returns to New York. She's spent so much time focusing
on reaching the pinnacle of society that she failed to learn a lesson on her
own climb: once you get there, there are going to be people who will try to
push you off. Bertha didn't make a lot of friends on her way to the top and the
fact that she is now forced to cover the separation between her and George –
and few believe her excuses – show that she knows just how shaky the ground is.
At the same time there's a clear sign of
the power dynamics heading across the street to the Van Rijn household. At the
end of the season Agnes (the incomparable Christine Baranski) who'd spent most
of Season 3 struggling with the fact she could no longer control the purse
strings seeding it to her sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon, just as incredible).
However when she found herself President of the Heritage Society, a position
that contains prestige and cache she seized on it. Now she is planning her
biggest plan yet to entertain the President of the United States Grover
Cleveland. Even here there are clear struggles between her and Ada who is not
happy that Agnes wants to spend a fortune. This leads to the usual sparkling
dialogue:
Agnes: We must not pinch any pennies.
Ada: Especially when they're not your
pennies to pinch.
Ada is trying to experience growth in
her own way in society and she is fascinating in politics in a way she wasn't
before. When Peggy tells Ada about Cleveland's behavior towards the South in
the aftermath of Reconstruction (something that was increasingly becoming clear
in the Solid South that had helped given Cleveland a narrow victory in 1884)
Ada makes it clear she knew nothing about this and wants to learn more. This
decision causes her to make a stand of principle and say she won't spend any
more on the dinner.
But Agnes finds money and stature from
an unexpected ally. Last season Oscar (Blake Ritson) formed a political
alliance disguised as a marriage to Edith, the former serving girl at the
Russell household who married to wealth but didn't gain the stature. Now that
the two are married they want to try and reshape New York in their own image. Oscar
is planning an alliance with the Frick family and Edith wants to hold a salon.
Furthermore when Agnes learns the truth and is humiliated she is shocked to
find that Edith has shared the truth with Oscar and that he is fine with it –
and more that Edith wants to be an ally. Edith is now in a position to not just held
the Van Rijn's but attack Bertha, her great adversary and its clear Bertha is
blindsided when she learns about the President's dinner across the street from
her.
As for the younger generation they are
dealing with their own problems. Marian (Louise Jacobson) attends a soiree the
married couple and encounters Larry Russell, for whom the two have been
circling ever since the series began. Going home that night in the midst of a
real-life tropical storm their carriage breaks down and they are forced to stay
overnight in a hotel. At that point both trauma and passion finally lead to
what has been brewing for three seasons and the two consummate their love.
But as a reminder that we are very much
still in the Victorian Era when Marian arises from her night she is ashamed in
a way we can't conceive of today. She stumbles home and can barely look at her
aunts. When she confides to Peggy what happened the night before, she speaks in
the terms of someone who believes – not without merit – that if the truth
emerges her stature in society, which has been shaky after two failed
engagements, will lead to her become a pariah. Jacobson has always been superb
throughout the entire series but she reaches a level that her mother would be
proud of when she talks to Larry, who can't understand what happened because of
how society judges men then (and unfortunately, quite a bit still today) and
how Marian wants little to do with him.
Peggy's fortunes are moving upward, or
at least as much as it could for African-Americans in 1880s New York. She has
managed to get her first book professionally published and its striking to see
how white women judge it and black women do it. When she returns to the Van
Rijn household Agnes, who has always had immense respect for it, showers her
with praise. "Think of what inspiration you will be to other black women.
To other women!" For a woman
who has always been curmudgeonly with her praise even to those she loves this
is the greatest praise Peggy could receive. But when she tries to tell the
story to her soon to be new mother-in-law (Phylicia Rashad is anything but
Claire Huxtable here) she can barely spare two minutes before returning to
wedding planning. More to the point when she is introduced to the Daughters of
Friendship at Newport and she meets many of the other wealthy women of color,
she finds that not only have none of them met female authors, the closest they
have to someone in their structure who writes is someone compiles a cookbook.
Peggy had one of the pure moments of joy
last season when she was proposed to by the doctor she's been serious about for
two season not just in Newport but in full view of his mother, who never
approved and still doesn't. We are very
much aware of how far even black men have to climb in this society in the
second episode when a long-time patient of his has to be sent to Bellevue, but
he can't go in with him because they don't allowed colored doctors.
The Gilded Age has always been especially magnificent
when it shows both how far we have come as a society and the parallels to
today. We see it when George complains about how Cleveland's cabinet is
considering anti-trust legislation (The Sherman Antitrust act is soon to come)
and Larry tries to advocate for the small man and George can't even be bothered
to show sympathy. Marian is working as a Settlement House that provides health
and care for the underprivileged and we're shown a child who is suffering from
work injuries and can't stay to long because he has to work the next day. The
house runner Virginia Saville (always good to see Elizabeth Marvel) tells
Marian not to judge and her family is concerned that she's working in a poor
part of town And on a more personal note
during a night at the Met Larry is pulled away by a colleague of his to watch a
production of The Pirates of Penzance and is told about Gilbert and
Sullivan who have already conquered Britain and are on the verge of making a
similar splash in America that will forever change how the world – and New York
in particular – view musical productions.
All of this backed by some of the most
extraordinary characters actresses in history, who more than justify that old
statement of "There are no all small parts'. Watching just premiere
talents as Kelli O'Hara, Audra McDonald, Debra Monk, Donna Murphy (to mention
just a very, very few!) delivering the kind of dialogue that sparkles with nary
a profanity to be heard. (The Gilded Age is the first TV series with a
TV-14 rating to be nominated for Best Drama since This Is Us and Stranger
Things.) And at this point it has to be on the shortlist of unquestioned
great dramas of the 2020s along with such other classics as Slow Horses, The
Diplomat and The Pitt, all of which have been nominated for Best
Drama with The Gilded Age for the past two seasons.(We're going to have
to wait a few more months to see if Paradise and Yellowjackets can
stick the landing and officially join them on this list but I suspect they'll
be there too.)
As someone who was with The Gilded
Age from the moment it debuted, who considered it a masterpiece when far
too many people considered it more akin to Emily in Paris or …And Just Like
That when it came to how you viewed, who was overjoyed when it made the
Emmys for the first time in 2024 and was thrilled when they kept it in the
ranks for Season 3, I'm overjoyed that critics, audiences, really everyone has
found out what I knew from the start. I will not make the kinds of pre-formed
judgments that so many on this series do about those they consider beneath them
but celebrate as a sign of progress much like what is happening beneath the
surface and increasingly coming to the top in the series itself. And now that
America seems to be approaching at least the possibility of moving out of its
current Gilded Age after last week's elections, I'm just glad I can spend more
of my time indulging the pleasures in life and less on the real world around
me. That's a privilege too, and I'm grateful for it.
My Score: 5 Stars.
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