Ooooh, Bertha’s in troub-bleeee! For the first time maybe ever, it appears that Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) may have gone too far in her quest for power and status and actually made her husband George (Morgan Spector) mad. Will he stay mad? Will he stand up for his daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga)? That’s all TBD, but Bertha and the Duke’s need for lawyers hammering out a marriage contract is a far cry from gleeful puppy love with Billy Carlton.
This week’s episode of The Gilded Age begins with everyone in the Russell manse in a panic because they’ve just realized that Gladys has run away from home. After last week’s fight with Bertha, she fled – to the Carlton’s home, it turns out – but someone has to wake up Bertha to tell her the news, and that someone is her son, Larry (Harry Richardson). Larry is pissed, but not at Gladys, he’s mad that his mother has driven Gladys to this. “You’re blaming me? How will that help find your sister?” Bertha scoffs. Hilariously, Bertha’s first thought when she heard that Gladys has run away is not about Gladys’ safety, it’s whether or not she eloped. First thought, only thought, that’s Bertha!
The Carltons have been nice enough to send Bertha a message letting her know that Gladys has taken refuge at their home, but to Bertha, Gladys may as well be in a ditch somewhere in the Five Points. When Bertha arrives at their home, her chilly nature is enough to bring a draft throughout the Carlton’s home. She snaps at Gladys to get in the carriage, and rejects all offers of hospitality and warmth from Mrs. Carlton. Seeing Bertha’s disdain for her family, Mrs. Carlton says, “I hesitate to pull rank but my great-grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence.” This means nothing to Bertha, who has a whole Duke waiting in the wings.
Across the street from the Russells, there’s another mother on a mission: Dorothy Scott (Audra McDonald), mother to bedridden Peggy (Deneé Benton), has traveled from Brooklyn to see her ill daughter and bring their family doctor to care for her. Despite Agnes van Rhijn’s best efforts to get her own doctor to care for Peggy, it turns out that even wealthy, white New York liberals can’t insulate themselves from racism in 1885. ‘Cause their racist doctor refused to see Peggy, remember? So the Scotts, along with the handsome Dr. Kirkland (of the Costco Kirkland’s I presume) arrive to tend to Peggy. An argument ensues over whether the Scotts should enter the van Rhijn’s home through the servant quarters (Mr. Scott refuses to do so). Hilariously, the one person who’s been watching and judging is Miss Armstrong (Debra Monk), the racist ladies maid, who flees to the kitchen to tell everyone after the Scotts and Dr. Kirkland enter, “There were two colored men in the hall! I’ve seen it all now!” The Civil War was only 20 years ago and Armstrong here is already in a rush to make America great again.
That’s not the only racial tension in the van Rhijn house though. When Agnes apologizes to the Scotts for the fact that her doctor refused to care for Peggy, Arthur Scott bluntly tells her, “You’re a wise woman. You know how the world works,” and while Agnes and Ada do indeed know that people are racist, it doesn’t stop them from insisting to the Scotts that their father was a patron of the colored institute in Philadelphia, so they definitely aren’t. (This is the 19th century equivalent of “But I have Black friends.”)
Last week, George Russell cut his trip in Arizona to buy up copper mines and the land surrounding them short because he heard there might be a run on the bank. This week, George has returned and he alone has, apparently, bailed out the Metropolitan National Bank. George has a meeting with J.P. Morgan (Bill Camp) – who is grateful that George stepped in to save the bank and, as a result, much of Morgan’s fortune – and so George asks Morgan for a favor to invest in his coast-to-coast railroad. Morgan is skeptical. “This will be a feat to rival Moses parting the Red Sea,” he tells George. But he also knows an investment opportunity when he sees one. If you’re going to have a capitalist pig investing in your product, it may as well be J.P. Morgan!
But George doesn’t get to celebrate going into business with J.P. for long, because his family in disarray because of Bertha’s Duke shenanigans. SOMEONE (Bertha) has planted a story in the newspaper that Gladys and the Duke of Buckingham are engaged. Bertha denies that it was her, weakly telling her family ,”People gossip and they print it!” But they all know she’s the gossip. George is still campaigning for Gladys to marry whoever she wants, but Bertha privately tells him she’s doing this for Gladys’ future kids with the Duke. “When they have children, they will be among the highest-ranking people on earth.” You have to remember, this was a time when wealth-hoarding oligarchs were super popular. George does see Bertha’s point, to an extent, and tries to persuade Gladys that this marriage will open doors for her and propel her beyond just The 400 to some upper echelon that doesn’t exist yet. To her credit, none of that appeals to Gladys and she hopes that Billy will ask George for his permission to propose before things can go any further with the Duke.
Over at the Fain’s broken home, Aurora (Kelli O’Hara) is still trying to keep her life from falling apart after her husband Charles (Ward Horton) has expressed his desire to get a divorce. Charles has been stepping out on Aurora, and if cheating wasn’t enough, he’s being a real dick about it. “Don’t you care at all?” she weeps, explaining that her whole world is about to get blown up, but the answer is no, he does not care about her losing her social standing, and in fact he just seems annoyed by her. Charles, seriously, what did Aurora ever do to deserve this? You guys were my Gilded Age Ken and Barbie, and now Ken is going full toxic mojo dojo casa house.
Ada Forte, still on that temperance kick, has drawn up a contract that she’d like her staff to sign, promising that they’ll abstain from alcohol. “It’s their choice,” Ada tells Agnes, who scoffs at the contract. “As long as it is,” Marian (Louisa Jacobson) adds. I give Marian a lot of grief for being boring but I appreciate her sauciness this season when it comes to Ada’s misguided new cause.
“I have a beer most evenings, is that unreasonable?!” Mrs. Bauer, the cook, asks the rest of the staff who are all similarly worried that they will be forced into teetotaling. (Always the contrarian, Armstrong declares that she has already signed the pledge.) Beyond the fact that the pledge is asking these people to do something they very much don’t want to do, it’s creating even more friction between Ada and Agnes. The pair are still at odds over who is the boss of the house, and while they bicker in front of Bannister and their guest, Aurora, it’s Aurora who finally puts an end to their fighting. “Things have changed. Mrs. Forte is the head of the household now. Mrs. Forte will give the orders from now on,” she definitively declares.
Larry Russell is having a real moment this week, first fighting for his sister Gladys’s right to free will, then offering to buy a suit for Jack, the clockmaker who works at the van Rhijn/Forte house. But he’s also taking charge of his romance with Marian Brook when he comes to the Forte house to see Jack, and then grabs Marian for a passionate makeout sesh in a cab outside. Larry is about as free love as a person can get in the 1880s, having once had a passionate affair with the Widow Blane last summer (hot widow!) and now recklessly, publicly making out with Marian, a woman with two broken engagements. It’s hard to read Larry though. On the one hand, he comes across as a good guy – he tells Marian he’s in love with her! He helps Jack buy a smart suit and doles out fashion advice! But on the other… is he a disaster waiting to happen? I can’t help but feel like somehow he’s going to mess things up for Jack… or Marian… or both.
At Aurora’s charity party, Mrs. Carlton, a glutton for punishment, approaches Bertha Russell to express remorse for the way their relationship got started. Mrs. Carlton really just wants her boy Billy to be happy and assumes Bertha is a normal, sane person, so she expresses excitement at the idea of their children getting engaged. To which Bertha responds, “I do not know how many times I have to tell you this, Mrs. Carlton, but Gladys will not marry your son… If you keep this up, Mr. Russell will see that Billy never gets another job and we will disinherit Gladys.”
“You’d do that to your own child? What sort of a person are you?” Mrs. Carlton asks Bertha.
“As a rule, I’m the sort of a person who gets what she wants,” Bertha says. Somehow, that fact has eluded Mrs. Carlton. I mean, the woman was around for the Opera Wars, how could she not have realized this about Bertha sooner? Bertha – and George, by association – prove so intimidating that Billy, who had been set to ask for permission to propose, chickens out. (Mrs. Carlton, on the other hand, tells Billy it was a “lucky escape.”)
Also heartbroken is Aurora Fain, because her terrible husband Charles arrives to her party with his new girlfriend, Mrs. Lipton. Aurora had made excuses for Charles when Mrs. Astor asked after him, telling her that Charles was ill, but here he is, having made a full recovery with a new woman on his arm. Mrs. Astor immediately catches on to what’s happening and crisply tells Aurora, “I hope you don’t catch your husband’s… chill.”
When Aurora confronts Charles about bringing his mistress into their house, he cruelly tells her, “Get used to it… we’ll be seen all over town, wherever you go.” Seriously, why is he like this now?
George Russell is still not sure he’s fully on board with Bertha’s plans for Gladys, but during a bedroom conversation, she seems to convince him ever so slightly that her scheme to marry Gladys off to the Duke is a worthy cause. Not only does she claim that it will empower Gladys (“I don’t expect you to understand this because you’re not a woman,” Bertha says, putting him in check) but then when he asks when he’ll get a say in Gladys’s life, Bertha replies, “The day I’m in your boardroom giving you my ideas on the railroads and the steel mills. Until that day, I won’t question your business if you don’t question mine.” That’s checkmate.
At last, the Duke is finally arriving from England and the Russells have planned a celebratory welcome meal. Larry has invited Marian, who’s about to witness the chaos of the Russell household in full effect, but before the Duke can arrive, Billy Carlton pays an unexpected visit to Gladys to tell her he doesn’t have the strength to keep their relationship going. “Our love is no longer practical,” he tells her. “That plain truth is, Gladys, I’m not the man you need me to be.” Gladys is heartbroken, but she has no time to mourn because the Duke is here. With tears in her eyes, she and the rest of the family welcome him – and his lawyer – to the home.
“You brought a lawyer?” George asks, shocked, before turning to Bertha to ask, “Why has he brought a lawyer? What did you promise him?”
As Bertha walks off to entertain the Duke, George and Gladys seem to be in shock, but George – remember, this is a man who just single-handedly prevented financial collapse of a major bank – tells his daughter “I’ll take care of it.”
If George was on the fence about his wife’s scheme to marry their daughter off, the arrival of this lawyer has made it clear that he’s not about to let Bertha sell Gladys’ happiness off to the highest bidder.
Honorable Mentions from The Gilded Age Season 3 Episode 2:
- “My wife is dead.” Chef Josh Borden, super casual widower.
- Oscar van Rhijn’s Eeyore vibes are killing me. At least he has his ex-boyfriend John Adams who has offered him moral and financial support to get him back on his feet.
- Speaking of Oscar, Agnes’s story about Oscar’s bout with typhoid as a child was delivered as dramatically as Quint’s survival story about the USS Indianapolis in Jaws, and it certainly made the Scotts warm to her.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
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