The Gilded Age 3, the review of the third season of the series

It seems that Julian Fellowes has received the notes, more or less benevolent, of the spectators who complained that in The Gilded Age It didn’t happen much. The third season of its elegant and composed soap work set in the late nineteenth century New York – which will debut on Sky and Now on June 23 – is enriched with multiple scandals, more strong emotions and even death and chaos. But Fellowes did not take too much hand in the search for the twists: The Gilded Age remains mostly a pleasant and rewarding entertainment.

As to shake us from habit and tired expectations, Fellowes opens the season in a completely unexpected place: the wild west. A wagon advances quickly through the immense orange desert expanse of the Arizona, very far from the lacquered order of the Upper East Side. But it is precisely here that most of the money is produced before being hijacked in New York. At least, this is the path that follows most of that earned by George Russell (Morgan Spector), the magnate of the railways whose family of new rich is at the center of the series. While the railways extend to unite the American coasts, men like Russell take the enormous opportunity to build an empire, putting all their fortunes into play.

In the sumptuous New York houses there is no trace of the dust and the danger that all that pomp. While her husband bets his destiny in the wild West, Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) turns the gaze to the east, towards that English aristocracy that she and her circle seek with such determination to imitate. With a cunning move he made a sort of agreement behind the scenes (or rather, a work of opera) to marry his daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) with a British Duke looking for an injection of liquidity. Bertha, a woman of humble origins, is convinced that linking her family to the English nobility is the definitive step to consecrate the Russell as real cosmopolitan, cleaning their new money with the prestige of the ancient tradition.

But Gladys has no intention of marrying anything he barely knows. She is in love with a boy of good family, affectionate and devoted, who, however, Bertha considers absolutely unsuitable for the ambitions of the Russell. Also his son Larry (Harry Richardson) goes where the heart brings him: he fell in love not of a rich debutant with care with his mother, but of the much more modest Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), his neighbor. In the meantime, Marian’s aunts have seen their fate reverses: the spinster who became widowed Ada (Cynthia nixon) is now the one with the money, while the imperious sister Agnes (Christine Baranski) ended up on the pavement, after a scammer has robbed their unreliable son Oscar (Blake Ritons) of the entire luck. (Should you ever leave the management of the wallet to gays?). This reversal of the home hierarchy generates many of the most intriguing tensions of the season.

Also Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), Secretary of Agnes and Marian’s friend, enters the game of couples. He meets a pretender for height: a fascinating doctor, coming from an influential family, but is forced to deal with the opposition of his mother, played with regal severity from Phylician Rashad. The conflict culminates in a memorable comparison with Dorothy, Peggy’s mother (Audra McDonald), thus bringing together two legendary interpreters of A Raisin in the Sun. In general, it is a great season for the characters belonging to the black elite, with the love story of Peggy at the center of the narrative.

The Gilded Age represents marriage as the safest way to the construction of a dynasty, as it has been for centuries. But Julian Fellowes maintains the gaze aimed at the thrill of change, which becomes more and more intense. Divorce becomes a burning theme: a woman risks exclusion from the salotti well, unless that company let herself be shaken, perhaps with the help of one or two bold activists. Other social taboos are questioned and reconsidered, in particular in some scenes in which the characters face with curiosity and a certain delicacy the theme of homosexuality. The new century advances in step to these now almost anachronistic figures, and perhaps the old codes, combined marriages and social convictions included, will no longer be sufficient.

But the real cultural change is still far away, and so The Gilded Age remains largely anchored to tradition, at least for the characters of high society. Under the axes of the floors, however, in the kitchens of the basement, things move faster. Last season, Jack (Well ahlers), the Agnes vallery, had obtained the patent for a new type of alarm clock. That small entrepreneurial path continues in the third season, with a sweet and melancholy narrative arc. Julian Fellowes perhaps has a questionable idea of ​​poverty – both here and in Downton Abbey, tends to paint it as an almost serene condition, made of order and acceptance of its role in society – but still manages to build a credible and complex evolution for Jack.

The new season also embraces darker tones, with two shocking scenes that interrupt the typical composure of the series. One is an absurd accident, the other an unprecedented act of violence in the works of Fellowes. Both episodes, however melodramatic, forcefully alter the narrative rhythm, reminding us that death can also affect in The Gilded Age, revealing a dimension for a long time ignored by its characters. After all, we are in America: violence is part of the country’s own fabric.

But do not fear: the season is still based above all on sumptuous parties, refined lunches, stolen looks full of desire or tenderness. It is a world of elaborate hats, subgonne, corsets, impeccable suits and carefully carved hairstyles. And it is primarily a world of rigid behavioral codes, in which Fellowes captures the real tragedy of all those limitations, those suffocated loves, those beaten social doors, but also glimpses a certain beauty. His loyalty to rigid conventions has always made his television series fascinating metanarrative study objects. We discover the moral principles of Fellowes, its fixations, even a certain austere moralism, just as we observe those of the society of the time. The third season suggests that Fellowes is also changing, slowly opening up to a wider world view and all the new possibilities that this brings with it. Cities change. Also the writers.