Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Gilded Age” Season 3, Episode 1.
“The Gilded Age” returned for its third season in the midst of big changes, with a few big twists that are sure to leave New York society talking.
The Season 3 premiere, titled “Who Is in Charge Here?,” followed as the Russell and Van Rhijn households endured the last snowfall of the season before spring as both families grappled with shifting dynamics. Though preparations for the season ahead, and a contested meeting about the temperance movement orbited the episode’s happenings, it was the relationships between the HBO drama series’ beloved ensemble that took center stage.
“We’ve shown the balls and the operas and the blah, blah, blah, but now this is the men and women dealing with how they feel about each other,” series creator Julian Fellowes told TheWrap. “We are, in a way, using this season to emphasize to the audience these are three-dimensional characters that have their own inner life.”
“In a third season of a show, that’s when you get to dive deeper into the characters and the relationships. We’re no longer establishing it,” co-writer Sonja Warfield added. “I always think of Season 3 of a series as getting to the juicy part.”
An early shock in the premiere came courtesy of Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara), who was surprised by her husband Charles’ (Ward Horton) demand for a divorce — revealing he had met someone else and intended to marry her.
Aurora rejected the proposition, knowing that the law requires her to be the one to file and accuse her husband of infidelity to be granted a divorce. Knowing her wishes won’t amount to much, however, she shares the news with Agnes (Christine Baranski), Ada (Cynthia Nixon) and Marian (Louisa Jacobson). They sympathize with her plight, knowing divorce would ruin her standing in society — though Agnes did not necessarily deny she’d also blackball her niece-in-law and friend should her marriage end.
“Divorce was the great life changer from the end of the 19th century onwards, until, I suppose you can say that by the sort of 80s, 90s, it was no longer a social disadvantage,” Fellowes said. “Up to the period we’re dealing with it was ruinous. It was an incredible hurdle to get through.”
As Aurora begins this challenging journey, Ada and Agnes dealt with their own dynamic shift. After Oscar (Blake Ritson) lost the Van Rhijn fortune after benign swindled last season, Agnes found herself reluctantly ceding control of thehousehold to Ada — who returned home after the death of her short-lived husband Luke Forte (Robert Sean Leonard) with a new fortune.
But Agnes was not ready to give up her standing at the home, making for uncomfortable discussions with the house’s staff — unaware of which master’s orders to follow. That drama took a backseat, however, after Peggy (Denée Benton) became ill and requesting immediate attention. Agnes recruited her doctor to help, but he refused to treat a patient of color, so the family called upon Peggy’s parents to help.
Across the street, tensions rose at the Russell household as Bertha (Carrie Coon) and Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) sparred over her romantic entanglements. Bertha wants to save Gladys for a potential engagement with a Duke Hector, who viewers first met in Season 2. But Gladys resisted having been secretly seeing the son of a businessman behind her mother’s back. The fight should not bode well upon George’s (Morgan Spector) return to town from Arizona, having previously pledged Gladys would be allowed to marry for love when the time came.
The sparring reached a tense high when Gladys packed her bags and fled the house in the episode’s final moments.
“All of the characters are at a crossroads and dealing with where these relationships are going to take them, whether they’re going to end or begin and move into different phases of their lives,” Warfield said. “We set that forward momentum and hopefully we deliver.”
“That’s the key factor, but that’s for the audience to tell us,” Fellowes added.
“The Gilded Age” airs Sundays on HBO and Max.
