IN THE ESQUIRE OFFICE, I’ve been The Gilded Age‘s one-man pride parade. Actually, I’ve been the series’ one-man pride parade even in my social life. No one is watching the damned prestige show but me, it seems. (These recaps are a small consolation for unpacking the episodes, albeit one-sided. So, Gilded Age recap readers, if you’ve stuck around this long, hi.)

Coming from the same mind behind Downton Abbey, Baron Julian Fellowes has breathed that same upstairs-downstairs energy into New York’s gilded age society. Though unlike the financially unstable Crawley and their dusty abbey, we’re now dealing with obscenely wealthy families. And since the show started airing in 2022, socioeconomic parallels of the period’s wealth disparity have been made to our current moment. Remember, it was called ‘Gilded Age’; there was rust underneath all that gold.

It started as a classic tale of new versus old money. You had the newly minted Russells, who derived their wealth from railways, moving onto 61st Street to establish themselves amongst the old money clans like the Van Rhijns and Astors. By season three, the Russells are well-heeled as society’s new It family, with its matriarch, Bertha (played by the brilliant Carrie Coon), as society’s supreme.

Indeed, Bertha seems to have it all. She’s now the mother of a duchess; she’s replaced Mrs Astor (the inexorable Donna Murphy) as society’s tastemaker. All the society scheming and curating has left her neglecting her marriage. As the season three ending revealed, Bertha had her comeuppance.

Read our season finale recap on The Gilded Age here.

The Gilded Age season 3 ending, explained

Bertha’s comeuppance

Bertha’s ball in Newport made her the unimpeachable society supreme. With Mrs Astor making a surprise appearance despite disapproving of Bertha lifting the social ban on divorced women, and her duchess daughter back home, Bertha is watching the fruits of her labour pay off in one night. Everything seems to be going for Bertha.

But as the season draws to its conclusion, Bertha walks in on her husband George (played by zaddy Morgan Spector) packing his things. He’s preparing to leave Newport and head back to the city. The robber baron has just spent the episode recovering after being shot by an assassin. He only turned up to the ball last night to show a united front and support his wife’s social triumph.

Only now he reveals how unhappy he’s been, feeling neglected in his marriage with Bertha, who constantly puts society before her loved ones. His resentment has been festering for a while, as he can’t come to forgive himself for not letting his daughter, Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), marry for love. But as the dollar princess spends more time in Sidmouth with her duke husband, things seem to be looking up for Gladys.

Anyway, George rides off in his carriage back to the city, while he leaves his wife half-hanging out the window, dramatically watching him walk out.

What does this mean for Bertha and George in season four?

I wouldn’t peg George to be the philandering billionaire type; he’s too much of a wife guy to betray Bertha in this way. If the ball was anything to go by, Mr and Mrs Russell might keep up appearances socially but led separate lives privately. Divorce would be a no-no for Bertha, who is now society’s newly minted supreme. And George has made his second fortune in copper, thanks to his son Larry (Harry Richardson). An unhappy private life awaits the only two people in the series who actually loved each other.

Peggy and Dr Kirkland get together

Going against what his mother said, Dr Kirkland finally proposed to Peggy. He briefly broke it off with our girl in the season finale after finding out about her past from his mother. But with some words of encouragement from his pastor father, the doctor goes all in with marrying the love of his life. In a grand gesture, he proposes to Peggy during his mother’s Newport ball, parting the crowd right in the middle of dance floor.

What could await the happy couple in season four? Only good things it seems. Now that Peggy’s past is acknowledged, a happy marriage, surely, and maybe a chance for her to be a mother again. There is, of course, Mr. Fortune, Peggy’s former editor at the Globe newspaper and former lover. The last time we saw him was during an altercation with Dr Kirkland at the train station as he was dropping Peggy off to go on assignment to Philadelphia. Mr Fortune will surely be back.

Jack saves Bridget from poverty

A smaller conclusion in The Gilded Age‘s season three finale, but we can’t forget about the downstairs folk. Jack (Ben Ahlers) is well-situated in his new digs, only now he finds himself alone in the big house. He’s got his own staff but no one to share the fruits of his new wealth with. He invites Bridget (Taylor Richardson) over for luncheon, wearing her new dress she’s been eyeing. She finally has an excuse to wear it.

The two have been sort of romantically linked, having gone on a date in season one. But Bridget wasn’t reciprocating those feelings. As she revealed to the Van Rhijn/Forte chef, Bauer, that she was sexually assaulted by her father.

But Jack’s new wealth has given him more confidence in pursuing Bridget, who can promise a happy and safe life upstairs this time. As he tells her with a hint of kink at luncheon, she’s “a guest of the master”.

Oscar gets a new beard

Since Oscar (Blake Ritson) inherited his ex-beau’s Hudson Valley ‘cottage’, the moustachioed financier has a pep in his step. Realising that he still lives in a time when his sexuality is illegal, he now needs a new beard to cover up why such a wealthy man is single.

In enters the widowed Mrs Winterton (Kelley Curran), who used to be Bertha’s lady’s maid. Oscar and Mrs Winterton go way back: he used to pay her in exchange for intel about the appealing bachelorette Gladys Russell. After marrying Mr Winterton, the former lady’s maid came head-to-head with her former employer, threatening to reveal how she walked into George’s room naked one night, insinuating infidelity.

Anyway, the two are a match made in scheming heaven. Oscar proposes that they play at being a couple only in the city, but will live separate lives in their Hudson Valley homes. He’s forgetting about one thing, though: his mother, Agnes (the incomparable Christine Baranski). The matriarch finally found peace in the season finale with a new job and moving aside for her sister, Ada (the great Cynthia Nixon), as head of the family. In season four, prepare for Agnes to have a stroke. Prepare your obituaries!

Larian is exhausting

Between Marian wanting to break it off with Larry, and then Larry not wanting to be with Marian, the couple reeks of commitment issues. The back and forth is giving me whiplash.

Anyway, after witnessing Marian assist Dr Kirkland in saving George, Bertha now longer sees her son’s girlfriend as a feeble debutante. I guess this adds a feather to the couple’s cap; if Larry’s disapproving mother says yes to the union, you might as well get married, no?

The two make up at Bertha’s ball as they dance their problems away. Expect another lavish wedding in season four, but the tension won’t be at the altar, like what we saw at Gladys’s wedding. It’ll be in the first row between the unhappily married Bertha and George.

---

Related:

6 period dramas to watch after ‘The Gilded Age’

All of the JFK Jr outfits from the set of Ryan Murphy’s ‘American Love Story’