‘The Gilded Age’ season 3, episode 1 recap: the circus returns

WITH TWO SEASONS OF not-up-to-much-upstairs-downstairs television under its belt, The Gilded Age returns with more gasps and “My goodness”-es for its third season. But is that all it can cough up? Part of the charm and intrigue of depicting one of the most tumultuous economic epochs in American history is being able to forthrightly hold a mirror up to our own times – and the mirror is wafer-thin at this point.

First, a bit of a recap on season two, which last aired in 2023: Ada Forte (Cynthia Nixon) had the windfall to end all windfalls because Robert Sean Leonard’s Reverend Luke Forte died, leaving her an inheritance big enough to supplant her sister Agnes as ‘lady of the house’. Marian and Larry are finally getting together; Bertha Russell is the new society supreme after her triumph at the Metropolitan Opera and is manoeuvring for her daughter Gladys to become the next duchess of Buckingham.

All aboard the George “Zaddy” Russell train

The opening was surprising on two fronts. One: we’re briefly not in New York City anymore. We’re in the Wild West with resident zaddy, the robber baron George Russell, who is expanding his rail network westward to Texas, Arizona and California. (You can buy a “Rail Me Daddy” T-shirt with George’s face on it on Etsy for $68.) And second: it’s one of the rare scenes filmed on a real, gritty location. The air is dusty, getting into George’s thick curls hair as he meets with unionists to negotiate safer working conditions at a local Saloon.

George plays a firm hand in business, depicted as someone who’s supposed to echo the George Russells of our own time. Concurrently, he’s a heart of mush at home with his wife, the socially ambitious Bertha. The prospective marrying off of their daughter Gladys continues to be a major plot point in the Russell household; he believes, given that Gladys is an heiress, she can marry for love. Bertha wants more status, the kind you can’t necessarily buy – so she has Gladys set for the duke of Buckingham. But with George out of the house and in the Wild West for the majority of the season, the time away might just drive a deeper rift into his marriage.

Ada is the new lady of the house of Van Rhijn, but where does that leave Agnes?

During the last episode of last season, at the 11th hour, the Van Rhijn household found their saving grace: Ada Forte’s late husband, Robert Sean Leonard’s Reverend Luke Forte, was a closet textile heir. Fearing social exile after her son Oscar lost all of her Van Rhijn money in a ponzi scheme, Agnes was relieved to presume her social standing in old money society. Not so fast. The windfall has since made Ada the new lady of the house that even their butler Bannister doesn’t know whose ring to kiss.

What has Ada done with her new wealth so far? Why, but devote her time to charity and temperance, of course. If you’re not familiar, the temperance movement of the 19th century sought to eliminate the excessive drinking of alcohol, which was linked to unhappy households and deviance. Through the reactions of Agnes, Oscar and Marian at the meeting hosted at their house, we’re shown to think of this as a quirk to Ada. (If the two ladies lived long enough, Prohibition was right around the corner in the 1920s.) Agnes has her own quirks, too, like being a closet suffragette, much to the surprise of Ada and Marian.

A woman in crisis

Minor relations to the Van Rhijns include Aurora Fane and her husband Charles. In a marriage ditch of their own, Charles wants her to initiate a divorce with him because he’s found someone else. In that moment, I thought he was going to confess his new person was a him. Quelle horreur, right? If only it were that scandalous. It was actually a widow who he’s gotten close to, one Elsa Lipton. “I knew it was someone shady,” says Aurora. (Gilded Age language is so withering.) She brings this up with her cousins Ada and Agnes, telling them he wants her to relocate herself to socially remote Newport year round, not just for the high-season. We saw how Mrs Chamberlain, an alleged homewrecker, was treated in season one. Aurora fears she won’t be allowed into the same rooms as a divorced woman. Reticent, the Ada and Agnes aren’t quick to offer aid.

Larry and Marian’s 19th century situationship

Would situationships have existed in the late 19th century? Maybe their version was courtship, though that was more innocent. You can say Larry Russell, Gladys’ older brother, and Marian, Agnes and Ada’s niece, have something similar. The imbalance of marriage responsibilities is highlighted between Larry and his sister: with some wiggle room, he can marry for love and she can’t. As Marian pointed out to Peggy, she and Larry have been “good friends” since he moved in across from the Van Rhijns on 61st Street. He’s seen her through her two failed marriage prospects. They’re not keeping it secret either; they only wanted to make the third act of La Traviata. (Why just the last act? They missed out on a lot of bangers.)

If Bertha were to have any reservations about the pairing, Marian now stands to inherit the Forte money once Ada kicks the bucket. (Oscar may also have a slice of the pie, though he’ll have to morally earn it in the eyes of his aunt.) And Marian does come from the Livingston family, a real-life clan who arrived in the North American settlements on the Mayflower back in the 17th century. Covered on both social and financial fronts, I really can’t see anything going wrong for the couple. And please let it be, our girl Marian has been through the marriage ringer.

John Singer Sargent makes a cameo

If you also happen to be in New York City while the show is airing, a neat intersection IRL is happening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibition on the American painter John Singer Sargent’s early career. Known for his portraits of young Gilded Age socialites in America and Europe, it makes sense to bring Sargent into the fold as the portraitist for Gladys’ first sitting as an out woman (not the gay kind, ‘out’ as in socially out, and ready to put a ring on her finger). Bertha drops in on their sitting, praising Sargent and his best works, namely Lady with the Rose (Charlotte Louise Burckhardt) and, of course, the suggestive Madame X. Referencing the two masterworks felt a little heavy-handed and self-gratifying by the writers (which includes Julian Fellows, the man who created Downton Abbey), making it sound like Rose talking about Picasso in Titanic.

Gladys is an out woman

Anyway, Gladys has embraced her new status as a socially mobile young woman as she keeps a secret beau from her mother. The series is banking on its younger cast to add some mettle, and after two seasons of prolonged exposition, season three is where we’re seeing it play out. Gladys’ hand is still promised to the duke of Buckingham, but the heiress is still waiting for daddy Russell to come home to convince Bertha otherwise. Gladys reminds her mother at one point that two seasons ago, Bertha would kill to be in the same room as her beau’s family, presumably a well-to-do old money clan. But given the Russell’s better-off standing now, their pick of the litter has grown narrower with an intent for a socially advantageous union. There’s nothing more shiny to a new money parent than an aristocratic title – the kind of status that’s bred.

Later that night, Bertha confronts her daughter about her secret beau, which she’s hellbent on dissolving before things get serious. Sick of everyone breathing down her neck, Gladys makes a run for it in the dead of night, strangely attired in a pirate hat – totally incognito. Where is she headed? The poor girl doesn’t know the world below 61st street.

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