Okay, I rewatched the first episode of Downton Abbey to figure out what Gilded Age is missing, and the answer is LIFE. We’re stuck in a stuffy, stultifying drama. Downton is active, dynamic, and full of light. Gilded Age is like you’re beating the dust out of an old throw pillow.
That’s not to say there aren’t positives. Like, this week, we went on a little trip! Everyone (mostly) goes to Newport to be rich instead of being rich in New York. Variety is the spice of life! This trip is all about romantic relationships and who’s into who, but the only couple with any real chemistry is Bertha and George Russell, and we only get to see them make out in the conservatory for like THREE SECONDS. Look, if you’re going to have socially repressed characters in high society, we’re going to need to see them bang against a wall at some point. The alternative is intense and soulful staring in parlors à la Mr. Darcy.
Gladys and Larry Russell are in Newport to please their mother and to help Larry lean into his nepo-baby architecture career. Marian is going because she’s being paired up with a Morgan, and she invites Oscar because he’s sad his empty marriage to Gladys didn’t work out after George nixed it. Four for you, George, although I’m still concerned Gladys is going to end up a weeping Consuelo Vanderbilt at the altar. All these Newport visitors are going to a tennis match and then to Ward McAllister’s big party.
Staying home are Agnes and Ada, who have Robert Sean Leonard over for tea. The romantic pairings on this show are so obvious that I want the characters to protest. Literally, Ada has spoken to this man once before, and now everyone’s like, So you’re a woman, he’s a man, seems perfect. Was there nothing better for Robert Sean Leonard and Cynthia Nixon to do in this episode?
Peggy is back on 61st Street! Her dynamic with Agnes is the best because they both act like actual humans and not like your drama teacher in a community-theater production of Lady Windermere’s Fan. Agnes promises that Racist Armstrong will have to be less racist this time. Given the nickname I just now invented for her, it doesn’t look promising. Agnes does tell Armstrong that if she doesn’t treat Peggy with courtesy and respect, Agnes will get a new maid. When Armstrong argues, Agnes says, “I see you have mistaken this for a discussion.” NICE.
Armstrong is immediately racist and terrible to Peggy on multiple occasions. Damnit, Armstrong. Peggy is unnecessarily gracious in return and finally tells Armstrong that while Peggy does not have any quarrel with her (WHY?), “You do not want one with me.” Correct! Armstrong, what the fuck are you doing? Are you somehow doubting you’ll get fired? There’s no ladymaids’s union, and if there were, you wouldn’t have a case! I guess we’re all waiting for some inevitable moment of reckoning between Armstrong and Peggy where Armstrong tells Peggy some Defining Moment from her past about why she’s racist, as opposed to her just being shitty and choosing not to self-examine. Dammit, Armstrong.
The show is still trying to make Marian and cousin (ew) Dashiell happen. I mean. Sure. He saves her from having to talk more to that Morgan guy, who is very drunk. Meghan Trainor’s “NO” hadn’t come out yet, so Marian isn’t sure how to deal with the situation. They dance at McAllister’s fun party. Oscar meets a new lady named Maud Beaton, who has been living in Paris. She has a paid companion, and I really hope that’s code for gay. Then she and Oscar can be gay married, but not in the way you’d normally think! Also, I could then quote, “Could Oscar and Angela be having a gay affair?”
I’ve gone this long without discussing the weirdly star-filled but musically barren Broadway cast. When we met Larry’s potential new employer in Newport, I YELPED, turned to my wife, and said, “WHO ELSE DO YOU THINK SHOWED UP?” She guessed Idina Menzel (incorrect, but fair) and then correctly said Laura Benanti. Another Tony winner to add to the list! Laura Benanti, or “the Benans,” as probably no one else calls her, was literally the first topic my wife and I talked about on Tinder. Here, she plays a love-starved widow ready to sex up her new architect. And sex him up she does! Larry, to his credit (?), is very honest about this with his mother, and when Bertha questions why he’s doing it, he says he doesn’t want to visit sex workers, and he can’t bang the never-married ladies he knows. Okay, I get it, Larry, and if Laura Benanti was very obviously staring at me like she wanted to bone me, I’d probably get onboard (in this scenario, I, too, am a 20-something, unmarried, nepo-baby architect). But also there’s basically no way this ends well.
Bertha is still doing some behind-the-scenes wheeling-and-dealing about the new opera house. Ward McAllister wants her to meet the new young wife of an old rich guy because they might want to buy a box at the Metropolitan Opera. This is exactly why I’m giving the episode four stars. Bertha and George are at Ward’s party, and they meet the new couple in which the wife is BERTHA’S FIRED LADYMAID. The lady who hit on George, and it seemed like he was maybe going to sleep with her at the end of last season. I hate this … but also I am very into it.
Things to Gossip About at Mrs. Astor’s Next Ball
• Bertha Russell might be allowed in now, but we’re definitely not inviting the former ladymaid, at least not without some sizable donations on her part.
• Larry Russell and that widow who’d probably be good in The Sound of Music are definitely banging.
• I want to point out that at the tennis match, Laura Benanti is dressed like she’s attending the Ascot opening day from My Fair Lady, and there’s no way she did not also say this to someone during filming.
• Speaking of tennis-match fashion, Gladys’s hat is insane. It looks like the flower garland they present the winner of a horse race but with shredded carrots coming out the top of it, or maybe some kelp forest or a sea sponge. I honestly don’t know what she talked about while she was wearing it. It’s the best hat of all time. If someone handed it to me, I would shriek with delight. I hope the hat designer said “Yes, YES!” when they realized they could just jam some orange wires into the top. Fashion!
• Why does no one talk about barouches anymore when the word is so fun to say? Can we blame the Russells?