If you walk away from The Gilded Age season three still saying “Nothing happens,” then I have nothing for you.
I’ve always been a fan of the Julian Fellowes-led series even when it seemed popular online to belittle it. Honestly, I’ve never fully understood all of the criticisms. No, it’s never going to be Succession or Severance. It doesn’t aspire to be. To me, it always fell squarely in the same arena quality-wise as its cousin-across-the-pond Downton Abbey. Both series offered similarly melodramatic plotting, a broad scale of acting choices, and massive quantities of architectural porn. Maybe Downton sounded better to American ears as the melodrama emerged in the Queen’s english.
At any rate, The Gilded Age steadily found its footing across each season, but now, Fellowes and his company have heavily embraced darker emotional territory. Thanks to that, I’m thrilled to proclaim that The Gilded Age season three is easily its best yet.
We open on the American West as Morgan Spector’s patriarch George Russell arrives in Arizona to scoop up land thought to contain worthless copper mines. However, George always has a scheme. This season, he desperately wants to connect the east and west coasts with his railroad, a massive undertaking naturally. As in previous seasons, his ambition threatens the Russell family’s security. Yet, season three smartly draws comparisons between George and wife Bertha (the marvelous Carrie Coon) regarding their endless ambition.
Back in New York, Bertha schemes to marry their daughter Gladys (a more confident Taissa Farmiga) to the Duke of Buckingham. The marriage would secure Gladys’s role as an internationally influential duchess. But does Gladys want such a place in the world? Spoiler alert: definitely not. Yes, Bertha goes to great, almost certainly offensive lengths to foster this arrangement, but the series positions her social plotting against her husband’s robber baron scheming. Are they comparable? Does a woman suffer for having ambition? And the larger question: will their marriage survive dueling ambitions?
That brings me to the broader theme of the season: the institution of marriage approaching the 20th century. As the Russell’s marriage strains, other characters face similar troubles, and the threat of then-scandalous divorce hangs heavily over the proceedings. I’ve already mentioned Gladys’s struggling romantic life, and Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara) discovers her husband Charles (Ward Horton) no longer loves her. Mrs. Astor’s (Donna Murphy) daughter finds herself embroiled in a tabloid-fodder love affair that destroys her marriage. Even Russell head chef Monsieur Baudin (or Josh Borden — still one of the silliest plot twists of the series) finds his path to love blocked by an unfortunate marriage. It’s no wonder that Louisa Jacobson’s Marian Brook holds strong reservations about leaping into a relationship with Larry Russell (Harry Richardson). Not to be left out, Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) has a suitor of her own, but can she overcome both her troubled past and his domineering mother’s (a great Phylicia Rashad) strong reservations?
Those are but a few plots that circulate across a robust season three, a sumptuous feast of melodrama.
And I haven’t even told you about the showdown between Rashad and Tony winner Audra McDonald.
The acting across the board feels more lived-in, more confident than in previous seasons, certainly season one. But the true queen of The Gilded Age remains HBO’s greatest asset, Carrie Coon. She’s absolutely fantastic in this season, expertly carrying Bertha Russell through her ambitious machinations and emotional outbursts. The thematically darker turn the series takes across this season serves the actors well, but Coon and co-star Morgan Spector mine the emotional territory for everything it’s worth. There’s always been something compelling about following a couple willing to push each other forward in their own endeavors, but they find new territory when their individual ambitions collide. Coon centers the entire series with a fierce, at times volcanic, Emmy-worthy performance, and the season’s final shot takes your breath away. To say more would spoil the surprises in store.
The Gilded Age‘s crafts are, of course, spectacular. The Emmy-nominated costumes and the Emmy-winning production design again threaten to overtake the actors. An expanded Newport locale, a Western mining town, a club of ill repute, and a few UK-set scenes offer new, visually stunning landscapes. Additionally, the cinematography stands out as particularly excellent, blending thematic framing and visual splendor in ways I don’t think the series has as confidently achieved before.
If you can’t find something to entertain and enthrall in this new season, then clearly The Gilded Age isn’t for you. For me, it’s a strong series clearly doing its best work yet thanks to a tilt to darker emotional territory.
Bring on season four.
The Gilded Age season three premieres Sunday night, June 22, on HBO and streams on HBO MAX.
