The Gilded Age recap: Dreams and fireworks burst in this season’s penultimate episode
The Van Rhijn household is put through the emotional ringer in “Wonders Never Cease”
TV Reviews Gilded Age
Big Hat Hive! Our days of excessive headwear, extravagant parties, and extreme frivolousness are numbered, as we’re already on the penultimate episode of The Gilded Age season two. And the TV gods have dished up a doozy this week, one seasoned with deception, destitution, and—eek!—even death.
But let’s get to the celebratory stuff first: the President—Chester A. Arthur, that is—is coming to Manhattan for the unveiling of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the whole town is abuzz in patriotic preparations. Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) will be helping Mrs. Roebling with the official opening party, she tells Bertha (Carrie Coon), but that’s not all: She’s finally secured the Russells that coveted box at the Academy of Music.
It’s clearly an act of bribery, though: “Now, can we put this Metropolitan business to rest?” she asks Mrs. Russell. Bertha, of course, has to discuss it with her hot husband (Morgan Spector) first, who hotly reminds her that if she stays with the Met, she will be its Mrs. Astor; she will reign supreme. “You make a good case,” she tells him, to which he quips: “It’s your case, I’m just repeating it.” Hot. Bertha sticks to her guns, though, later telling Mrs. Astor at Aurora’s tea that she “can’t change horses now.” The latter calls her “deluded” and angrily storms out.
There’s also celebrations happening over at the Van Rhijn residence, a luncheon for the engagement of Marian (Louisa Jacobson) and Dashiell (David Furr), where Agnes (Christine Baranski) is all too happy to start wedding planning and offering up Oscar (Blake Ritson) to walk his cousin down the aisle. However, the recent diagnosis and escalating illness of Reverend Luke (Robert Sean Leonard) casts a pall over the party, as the rector collapses in the middle of the shindig. It’s settled, Agnes declares: Ada (Cynthia Nixon) and her hot priest are moving into her house, while Bannister goes to fetch a doctor. Alas, the doc says that further care is out of his hands—all they can do now is pray. Ada is distraught and so is this writer!
There’s better news coming from downstairs at the Van Rhijn household: Bannister (Simon Jones) invited his friend Mr. Schubert, the secretary of New York City’s watchmakers’ association, to check out Jack Trotter’s clock invention. He’s impressed by the new wheel and fast-tracks Jack’s (Ben Ahlers) membership to the watchmakers’ society, which means the patent office will now officially consider his application. Hooray for horology!
Similarly good news hits the staff across the street. Watson’s daughter Flora (Rebecca Haden) finally arrives at Chateau Russell to tie up that whole West Coast storyline for her father (Michael Cerveris). It seems her husband was offering up that San Francisco proposition completely without her knowledge, and she’s come to not only tell Watson that she doesn’t want him to leave New York, but that she wants him to remain in her life. He can have an apartment and see his grandchildren and “be a retired banker called Collier, exactly who you are.” “I am to have a life after all!” he declares to Church and the rest of the Russell staff. Hooray for harmony!
Speaking of harmony, things may seem harmonious over at Hot Beard’s mill, with George and labor leader (Darren Goldstein) shaking hands and posing for photos now that the workers’ strike has been called off, but it’s all a farce. All of the safety measures and medical care and raised wages that Mr. Russell approved for the workers in his “spirit of moderate compromise” was really just a ruse to get the pressure off him and have the laborers warring with each other instead. “My moment of tenderness turns out to have been my trump card,” he proclaims. However, now it seems like Hot Beard has another battle brewing, with the other railroad bosses fuming that he gave into the union’s demands.
But that’s not the only bout of deception this week. After assuring Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara) that things were still chugging along nicely with Maud Beaton (Nicole Brydon Bloom), so much so that he planned to propose to the heiress at the Brooklyn Bridge bash, Oscar comes to the horrifying discovery that Ms. Maud is actually a world-class scammer. After Mr. Russell tells him that Maud’s railroad company, into which Oscar just invested a hefty chunk of his family’s fortune, doesn’t actually exist, Oscar goes ransacking the city to find her.
No, she’s not in Newport taking care of her sick aunt like she said—in fact, she’s completely vanished, with the railroad office empty and her “home” address occupied by someone else entirely. He’s been bamboozled! Maud Beaton took him for a ride! Needless to say, Oscar is having a full-blown breakdown, showing up at Aurora’s house crying, “She’s deceived all of us. She’s deceived me!” (Shout out to Mrs. Fish joyfully approving of said freakout with a “This is really thrilling!”)
And, sadly, the Van Rhijns have even more to cry about. A clergyman has been sent for, seemingly to offer up last rites to Reverend Luke. Yes, they’re really killing off Robert Sean Leonard! Sad! Though Ada tells him that she’ll be fine when he goes (“Being loved by you has made me strong”), she’s utterly devastated when she wakes up to find her husband cold in the bed next to her. HBO just ain’t giving Cynthia Nixon a break this year.
Our big finale piece this week is, of course, the Brooklyn Bridge shindig and the arrival of the President, who, in a shrewd chess move, is introduced to the Duke of Buckingham by one Mrs. Astor, much to Bertha’s displeasure. There’s plenty of other notable moments at the firework-filled festivities, from Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) finally giving Mrs. Roebling (Liz Wisan) the public kudos she deserves for her management of the bridge’s construction to Borden/Baudin ( Douglas Sills) sweetly stealing Mrs. Bruce (Celia Keenan-Bolger) up to the roof to catch the stunning firework display.
However, those skyward explosions have nothing on Christine Baranski’s face when Oscar informs Agnes about the Maud Beaton mess and the loss of the entire Van Rhijn fortune. “Go and get our money back!” she bellows. Maud, you’re in danger, girl.
Stray observations
- Peggy (Denée Benton), Dorothy (Audra McDonald), and the Black teachers have surmised that they’re going to need white help to get the school board to care about their plight—not just white pupils enrolling in the school but also white educators. Peggy ropes in Marian to talk to her fellow teachers, and they manage to convince several Irish instructors—themselves no stranger to prejudice—to join the cause. They now might just have a shot against the education board, a hope Peggy and T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones) toast to before that simmering tension between them threatens to boil over. But Mama Scott has already caught on about what’s going on between her daughter and her married editor: “I hope that’s the extent of it because I raised you better than that,” she warns.
- “Are you alright Mrs. Armstrong? You said something nice!” Jack Trotter asks the perennially grouchy maid after she gives a compliment to Bauer’s cooking. “I give praise when it is dessert,” she retorts. Mood.
Stream The Gilded Age now on Hulu.
38 Comments
I thought for sure that he was going to jump off the bridge with the fire works going off in the background. But I guess that would have been too over the top for The Gilded Age.
A scammer running off with all the money? That feels somewhat inspired by the famous swindler Ferdinand Ward, often called The Young Napoleon. Among the notable clients he screwed were the cartoonist Thomas Nast and former President Grant and his son. He also skipped town and it took a while for him to be caught and sentenced to ten years in prison, served six because of course he did.Amusing aside, Geoffrey C Ward, a name you will recognize from several Ken Burns documentaries, is his great grandson.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Ward
In the show’s official podcast, it’s acknowledged that Maud Beaton is based on several women con artists of that era, in particular, Cassie Chadwick, who scammed millions out of American bankers by claiming to be the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Chadwick
Oh wow I never heard of Chadwick. I must look her up in detail.
Someone suggested it last week, but maybe we are setting up a scenario where the pastor unexpectedly leaves Ada money after his passing, and Agnes now has to bend the knee to her sister!
In other news, they are reallllly slow-walking the Marion-Larry relationship. We know that’s where this is heading.
Loved the butler’s daughter coming downstairs to re-engage in his life. Very sweet.
Agnes is set in her ways but she’s also pragmatic. Her opinion of the Reverend changed after he married Ada, it would change again if the Reverend’s estate ends up saving the Van Rhijn townhouse. I think it’s more likely that Larry and Marion will end up together, and Agnes will force herself to permit the “new people” to join her family because money.
And then Bertha gets Agnes’ box at the Academy and has her cake and eats it too.
that was super interesting, thanks for that
Okay, so I guess Oscar is just totally reckless with money, but… isn’t he a banker? Even if he didn’t go to great lenghts to vet the supposed company he was investing in, you’d think he’d at least limit his exposure by knowing that something that seems to good to be true probably is, and only invest a portion of their money. I’m not sure the show really properly set this up.
isn’t he a banker?
I guess the argument could be, is he a banker, or is he a “banker” due to his heritage.A true banker would know those things you said, but a “banker” in title only would be ignorant to them
Fair point.
He was never really a GOOD banker though, right?
I think he’s just super lost without Adams and was desperate to get a marriage going. But also…he’s just not, like, good? At this? At everything really.
I’m super excited to see how things go for the next two eps. This has been a great season. Trying to convince my wife to rewatch Downton Abbey (for her, first time for me!)
Yeah, he seemed have some healthy skepticism about the whole concept in the last episode — I certainly didn’t think he was plunking down his entire fortune. Honestly, I thought he was in on something with Maud and the two of them were going to expose some shady biz. This felt like a misstep. But now I want to go back to the early episodes where she was introduced in Newport, because I sort of remember Aurora or someone else being vague about who she was and where she came from, but I thought it was slightly scandalous rather than just unknown. Wasn’t she supposedly someone’s illegitimate child?
I was honestly hoping Oscar was going to save Maud from underhandedness at the company. I was also rooting for the marriage. I don’t think Oscar is bad, just surviving as he must, as a gay man of the time. No excuse for that behavior in most Western countries now, but even in the 80s, it could be seen as necessary for the time.
I think the setup overwhelmed his not so great banking skills. Maude’s accomplice did the classic big payout paired with a sense of scarcity. Oscar is so determined to establish himself independently that he completely overlooks obvious signs of a scam.
Guaranteed the reverend was secretly wealthy, thus now giving Ada the upper hand in that household.
and that would be quite a twist!
OMG! What a twist that’d be!I figured the show would find a quick way to be rid of Reverend Forte since the sisterly bond between Agnes and Ada is the overarching love story for them both. But it’d be great to see Ada with money and in a position to save the family. And it’d be so Downton Abbey of the show. Julian Fellowes may not know many tricks, but he knows his handful very, very well.
And it’d be so Downton Abbey of the show. Julian Fellowes may not know many tricks, but he knows his handful very, very well.That will explain the future Gilded Age recaps where Robert Sean Leonard’s character is referred to as “Reverend Swire” and/or “Reverend Lavinia”.
I still would have liked to have seen Ada and the Reverend get at least a full year together. It was too silly.
Mama Scott is the voice of reason on this show and I’m here for it. They need their own spinoff.
Mama Scott and Mrs. Bruce. Just out here talking all the sense and commanding all the respect. Get those ladies an advice column or something.
The no patent unless membership to some exclusive group is a fine example of the systemic issues that screwed poor people for centuries. If this was factual then the watchmaker would just steal the design and screw over the young guy. The make peace with the union from last week’s episode seemed too anachronistic even for this fictional show. Good to see they pulled it back a bit. People today forget or do not know that strikes were once violent deadly affairs.
Another example being the Olympic games, which were conceived and existed for many decades as a venue solely for amateur athletes. Anyone who made money from athletic pursuits was ineligible. The reason ostensibly was to keep the sport “pure” but it was really a way to exclude poorer people who couldn’t afford to pursue athletics purely as a leisurely activity. And if you look at those early Olympians, they’re rife with lords and barons and scions of wealth or nobility.
Jim Thorpe approves of your comment.
Boy did I feel vindicated for taking an IP Law class recently. Also yeah. Realistically that strike ends like Homestead with the Pinkertons shooting a dozen dead.
One thing I questioned was I don’t think Irish/Catholics were considered “white” in this era… The Irish teacher saying “other whites will follow” seemed off.
Yep. Still the era of dirty papist immigrant thinking. Know Nothings weren’t that removed time wise in the 1880s.
Irish were called, “N*****s turned inside-out.”
I think it was “I give praise when it is deserved” which is savage, but I like the dessert angle too.
Poor Ada, what next? She hires Mary Mallon for a cook? Books passage on the Titanic? Goes off to spend the summer with Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
Becomes friends with William McKinley, puts all money into Wall Street, goes to the LA Times headquarters in 1911, has a niece join Western Electric in 1915, invests in the PS General Slocum and buys a shirt from the Triangle Shirt waist Factory. Also meets a lovely local named Albert Fish…
I’m going to be devastated if Jack Trotter’s invention is stolen from him by someone in the patent office or the Horological Society.
I was just wanted to thank the reviewer here, these have been great to read after, thanks.
“I give praise when it is dessert,” she retorts. Mood.Pretty sure it’s give praise when it’s deserved, not dessert.
Kudos to everyone who called Oscar getting scammed by Maud Beaton. (Every time I hear her name I think it’s Mavis Beacon, the typing course). I didn’t see it and I’m usually pretty good at sussing out this kind of scam on the tv shows, usually because the writing telegraphs it from a mile away. Guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. His family’s ENTIRE fortune? JFC Oscar, you didn’t even love her, she’s your rebound from Gladys. I’m giggling when Dashiell asks Marian where Oscar is is, and she replies “he’s been held up”. Yeah just not with a gun pointed at him. When the daughter of Russell’s valet showed up, I remembered how easy it is to change your name and start a new life or scam people back before the Internet. So he’s leaving the Russells? Anyone else recognize Michael Cerveris from “Fringe”? He played that strange man from the future or wherever who showed up at all the big Fringe events. Luke dying is just so heartbreaking.
This damn opera house better open next episode. I hope Maude gets caught, not because I want justice for dumb old Oscar but because I’d be curious to see her as her natural self. Maude is smart. Even if Oscar confronts her I imagine all she’d need to do is threaten him with exposure.
“I give praise when it is dessert” Are you kidding me with this?!? Not dessert, deserved. Oy!