‘The Gilded Age’ season 3 finale recap: the winners and losers
We count the wins and losses from the social season
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WE’VE MADE IT TO the season three finale of The Gilded Age, folks.
With the handful of storylines coming to a wrap – spanning upstairs-downstairs and white and Black elite society – we’re going to be counting the wins and losses. First up: Dr Kirkland and Peggy finally get engaged despite his disapproving mother. Larian also gets back together, only now we, the audience, are left with a serious case of commitment issue whiplash. Agnes has a new job. Gladys and Hector are expecting. But the loss, well, you’ll have to read on.
Below, we recap the happenings of our favourite late-19th-century New Yorkers.
Read last week’s recap on The Gilded Age here.
A win: Dr Kirkland saves George
Picking up where we left off last episode, George has just been shot in his office and is rushed home in a carriage. The robber baron and his associates didn’t want to alert the police; maybe the attention would bring their nefarious dealings to light. Obviously, it was Richard Clay, the businessman George just defeated. Stretched out on the table, the Russells’ family doctor won’t be able to make it in time, so Bannister goes back to the Van Rhijn/Fortes and fetches Dr Kirkland, who was visiting Peggy late in the night. “I should let you know he’s coloured,” he tells a panicked Bertha. To hell with it, get him here ASAP.
Dr Kirkland saves George, who remains in a stable condition as his family doctor arrives, astounded that a coloured doctor could perform such an act. The racism is water off a duck’s back for Dr Kirkland. Later, in Newport where George is recovering, he passes a thick envelope of cash to the doctor, thanking him. It would be a burden for him not to accept, George reasons. The doctor’s mother hears about how her son saved “a man of industry” and what the heroic act would do in socially elevating the family – resenting his parochial mother even more.
A win: Dr Kirkland proposes to Peggy
More on that late-night meeting, Dr Kirkland meets up with Peggy at hers in Brooklyn. After his mother told him about Peggy’s out-of-wedlock child and how he was given up for adoption, and later died of scarlet fever. She tells him that it’s all true. Though her past is immaterial to him; if anything, he’s resenting his mother more for not letting Peggy tell him in her own time. He briefly breaks off their courtship, with Peggy left crying on her staircase and her mother consoling her.
Meanwhile, as Mrs Kirkland is prepping for her ball in Newport, she visits her vendeuse, who is in the middle of a fitting with Mrs Scott, Peggy’s mother. Mrs Kirkland is taken aback as Mrs Scott has her fitting: Why would she need it, if she and her daughter are now uninvited from her ball? I’ve been waiting for the showdown between Audra McDonald (Mrs Scott) and Phylicia Rashad all season. Incandescent with rage, Mrs Scott quotes Mrs Kirkland’s favourite thing: the Bible. “For all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God,” she says. “Dorothy, let’s lower the temperature,” her cousin says. Let’s not!
Mr Kirkland also has a word with his wife, telling her that she’s “not the final judge of character.” As she tries to defend herself, he snaps, “Woman! You are not above reproach.” Period. Leaving the room and waiting outside alone without her husband, Mr Kirkland pulls his son aside and gives him permission to go to Peggy. With Mrs Kirkland defeated, Dr Kirkland makes the ultimate gesture of proposing to Peggy during his mother’s ball in the middle of the ballroom.
A win: Agnes gets a new job, and Ada is officially head of the table
Remember that woman from the New York Heritage Society who keeps badgering Agnes? Well, turns out she’s been trying to get Agnes on the society’s board as Vice President. But I don’t have any money of my own, Agnes says. Doesn’t matter; her Livingston lineage makes her appointment more of a figurehead and adds her Mayflower cred to the society. Agnes’ role at home and in society has been in flux the whole season, so a job of some kind gives her renewed purpose. Like a cat, someone just needed to stroke her ego a little.
She’s also a little bit more forgiving towards her sister’s new role as head of the house. At dinner, she moves from her regular chair at the head of the table and sits next to Marian. With a new order established, Ada feels more confident to move on in life without her late husband Luke.
A win: Bertha’s Newport ball
Since Larry and Marian broke off their engagement, the Russell heir has been cynical about everything. He’s been especially unforgiving towards his mother and her ball, undermining her social prowess. Earlier, though, Bertha had a change of heart towards Marian after watching her assist Dr Kirkland in saving her husband. It seems Marian is not some feeble debutante, but a committed and formidable match for her son – she finally sees him the way he does. More on that later.
After consulting Ward McAllister about how her Newport ball will make her the new society supreme as the mother of a duchess, Bertha calls in her last meeting with Mrs Astor. Bertha plans to lift the social ban on divorced women, so she’ll be inviting Aurora Fane and Mrs Astor’s daughter, Charlotte. Because of the supplanting, Mrs Astor will no longer be attending while still shunning her daughter.
As the guests filter into the ball, or what Bertha calls her “display of illumination”, Charlotte arrives alone. But Mrs Astor surprisingly turns up, her presence still making the room pause. Indeed, as she’s greeted by Bertha with the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham by her side, Mrs Astor can’t compete with that. Charlotte’s shocked to see her mother, asking her about the change of heart. You’re not a disappointment, Mrs Astor tells Charlotte.
A win: Gladys is preggers
Coming to Newport from Sidmouth, Gladys is reunited with her former lady’s maid, Adelheid, at her parents’ place. The dollar princess seems especially lighter . . . if not glowing. Later in the episode, walking in on her mother who’s in tears (more on that later), Gladys announces she’s with child. The news spins Bertha’s mood into a 180. You might be wondering, then, when this child could’ve been conceived. Remember, Gladys and Hector consummated their marriage on the ship to Sidmouth, so it stands to reason the child came about on the way back.
A win: Larian make up
Between Marian not wanting to get with Larry, and then Larry not wanting to get with Marian, Larian is giving me whiplash. Larry returns home from the club after his father’s operation. Marian is covered in blood and sits with him on their grand staircase to comfort him. (Lots of comforting on a flight of stairs this episode, huh?) “You know my story,” she tells him, while he’s upset that she didn’t let him explain himself. Anyway, after Bertha tells Marian that she approves if she were to ever get back with her son, Marian goes to her ball and gets back together with Larry. All’s well that ends well, Larian dance the night away.
A win: Oscar gets a new beard
Oscar seems to be a bit more chipper after inheriting John Adams’s Hudson Valley ‘cottage’. The only thing he needs now is a new beard. In comes the newly widowed Mrs Winterton attending Bertha’s ball. Remember that the two were previously linked back when she was Bertha’s lady’s maid, Oscar would pay her for intel about the then-bachelorette Gladys Russell. After marrying the much older Mr Winterton, it elevated Mrs Winterton to one Bertha’s adversaries for a time, threatening to reveal her that the former lady’s maid walked into George’s bedroom one night naked. Bertha now receives Mrs Wintertwon at her ball, saying how one day they might be friends.
Anyway, Oscar approaches the widow with a proposal: let’s get married and be a couple in the city, but live separate lives in Hudson Valley. Mrs Winterton also inherited her late husband’s estate nearby. She accepts, but I think this new match might just give Agnes a stroke.
A loss: George is leaving Bertha
George has been in recovery throughout the episode, but he eventually turns up for Bertha’s ball. Everything seems to be going back to the way things were for Bertha. Gladys is here with her duke husband; Larry is back with Marian; she’s unimpeachably conquered society. The next morning, George is preparing to head back to the city. Turns out his brush with mortality and his time away has given him perspective that he no longer wants to be with Bertha.
George no longer wants to be with someone who puts society before her own family; he still can’t forgive himself for not fighting harder for Gladys to marry for love. George leaves the room before Gladys can announce to both of them that she’s having a baby. As he rides away in his carriage, the camera sweeps into the window as Bertha watches her husband walk out on her. In Gilded Age society, a divorce cliffhanger is deadlier than a bullet.
As we await season four, and you’re wondering how to fill that bustle-sized hole in your weekly schedule, we curated the best period dramas to watch after The Gilded Age here.
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