The Gilded Age Season 3 viewing thread

Will Alarm clock Jack be in tonight’s episode?

How much $$$$ did Ada inherit from her husband? What family was her husband related too?

Who were his people?

Luke Forte was from a wealthy Boston family who had made their money in textiles. Their plant is still running there. Ada seems quite wealthy.

She seems quite cunty

I enjoy the series, but it needs more sex appeal. I need to see young Larry in a bondage scene.

Of course, Cynth, er, Aunt Ada is boring everyone with her "causes".

Aurora!

WTF was Kelli O'Hara wearing to the opera? No wonder her husband wants a divorce.

R3-Thank you for that information. I had no idea who he was, but I knew there was a fortune somewhere.

Horrible first episode, absolutely true to the last 2 seasons despite all this talk about the new improved Season 3.

There's just so little motivation for anything that happens here. Incredibly insipid.

i was laid waste

Again, way too many characters. Watching Carrie Coon as Bertha after White Lotus makes me appreciate her as an actress even more. She's amazing.

I don't understand how Ada could be so strongly pro-temperance and still allow everyone else in the family to drink alcohol. It's not like it's 2025, and people took a live-and-let-live attitude with their family. If you were pro-temperance and had the authority in the house, you'd make a huge stink over it.

I would like to be spit-roasted by the father and son Russell team.

r14, Oh, but yes...

It's unlikely Mrs. Fane would seriously entertain the prospect of divorcing her husband--it would be much more likely she would make him set up housekeeping elsewhere in the city and she would continue to enjoy his name and his house, given that (as they outlined in this episode) the woman would have to be the one to press charges of adultery to get a divorce, and she has no incentive for doing so.

Alva Vanderbilt did get a divorce around this time from her husband but most biographers agree it was only because she had fallen in love with his wealthy business partner Oliver Belmont, whom she knew would marry her if she were divorced (which is indeed what happened). Although the real William Backhouse Astor was constantly cheating on his wife, Mrs. Astor refused to divorce him given her position in society, and he basically lived on his yacht while she lived in their Fifth Avenue mansion and queened it over society.

I love seeing Nixon, Baranski and Simon Jones working together decades after I saw them in The Real Thing where Nixon played their teen daughter.

Amy indication that Bertha will be taken down a peg or two?

I really hope I see my long overdue The Good Fight reunion with Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald doing some scenes together.

Weird fact: Simon Jones (Bannister, the Van Rhijn butler) was the first to play Arthur Dent in the radio adaptation of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (which preceded the novel), and Douglas Adams, who was a great friend of Jones's, said he wrote the character with Jones in mind.

Jones also played Lord Sebastian's staid brother "Bridey" Marchmain in the famous early 80s TV adaptation of "Brideshead Revisited."

Improved season?!?!?

This first episode was mostly a turd.

Does anyone really give a fuck about the "railroad" plotlines? They're not interesting. We only want to see Railroad Daddy Russell get his hole eaten by one of the many homosexuals on this show.

The Fane Divorce plot is...idiotic. He just decides to announce out of the blue, "Oh, I have another woman and I want to marry her so we have to get a divorce..." Which you didn't do back then....I mean, is HE prepared to be ostracized from society? It doesn't make any gawdamned sense.

I also didn't like the stupid maid girl being mean to Alarm Clock Jack...what a cunt!

As usual, the best parts were Mamie Fish and the Ada vs Agnes stuff.

Yeah, that maid girl can fun fuck off for being mean to Alarm Clock Jack!

And now the chef has a secret problem? One that will impact his burgeoning relationship with the housekeeper no doubt. Zzzzzzzz

Agree about Hot Beard Daddy’s business issues…boring.

But the preview for the rest of the season does look good.

And bow down to Miss Phylicia Rashad who'll be playing....somebody.

James Earl Jones can consider himself lucky he died last year so he didn't have to appear in this shit.

Could they make it any clearer that Alarm Clock Jack's new alarm clock patent is going get derailed by the Russell son's ineptitude?

Alarm Clock Jack should have at least two nude scenes in every episode- even if it lessons Audra's time by a bit.

After all the hype, it was a bit of a snorefest.

Agnes and Marian snarking through the temperance meeting was amusing. Fellowes has the attention span of a fly. I expect temperance will give way to suffrage pretty quickly.

very likely

All of that Christine sniping and Cynthia simpering was unbearable. And don't get me started on Louisa.

Cousin Oscar needs to head out west to San Francisco and become rough trade for horny gold miners.

I love American history, so the "railroad stuff" was interesting to me. And I think it was good to show him dealing with the mine owners, etc. and facing pressures of his own, while his wife is at home consumed by the machinations of high society in NYC and conniving to get the Duke of Buckingham for her daughter. The Russell boy just doesn't seem as attractive to me as he did last year. I think it's his hair. And the smarmy way he is coming on to Louisa.

Poor Poor Clueless Mrs. Fane. And I don't think for a minute her husband is straight. I think he is deep in the closet. DEEP. But apparently according to the trailer Fane is determined to marry and to bring his new wife into society. That's gonna get messy. I want to see "Knowing looks " between him and Oscar. I think Clock Boy is gonna "educate" the Russell boy. Wait for it. And the mean girl servant was an authentic reflection of how a lot of servant class immigrants would feel. "Getting above yourself" was real. Still is today for a lot of people. I'm enjoying the storyline for the Black family. But honestly having Rashad and Audra on t he same set had to be like walking on egg shells. Neither one of them would be easy to handle. Bertha is going to get her comeuppance don't worry. The Astor girl will snare the Duke. The younger set is going to dominate a lot of the plotlines this season.

In the opening scenes I thought the Russell son had grown a mustache (which would be hot), but apparently his valet is just lousy at shaving him

r28, sweetie, he would be LOOKING for rough trade

[quote] I don't understand how Ada could be so strongly pro-temperance and still allow everyone else in the family to drink alcohol.

She’s concerned with working class men drinking. She’s okay with drinking by her own class.

I've really come to despise Cynthia Nixon quite deeply.

R33v oh, I like the dynamic between her and Christine Baranski . And venturing into the whole temperance movement makes sense for her character since she was attracted to and married a clergyman. Hopefully she will calm down before she gets too tedious.

So when the MAGA esque Dr. Lewis refuses to treat the desperately I'll Miss Scott, because she is 'colored" why didn't Agnes threaten him with ruination while he was still there rather than promising to ruin him to Ada and Miriam after left? Seems she could have forced his hand in the moment and gotten Peggy the help she needed.

R35, she seemed unusually flustered, didn't she. But this was a sign of the times.

The irony of it is that Phoenix doesn’t even have a train stop now.

To R20 and R29-I'm interested in what happens when Vanderbilt takes over all the mines& get the land for the railroad he wants to build to LA. I'm wondering what Gilded Age family takes over the mines. Is it WASP family, Gould or whoever or maybe The Guggenheims, who fortune started with copper& silver mines out west. I do love Americana history of the old west& the fortunes that were made. Not my family, we were still in Northern Ireland, drinking, stealing, whoring around, sailors, fucking around with everyone( British, Irish, Scottish, and some female married a Black man). They got thrown out of Northern Ireland in 1898.

r35, if there had been an out and out confrontation between Agnes and the doctor it would have meant Julian Fellowes would have had to write a scene with some genuine conflict and drama. And you should know by now that just isn't going to happen on The Gilded Age.

That whole Fane divorce story line is so lame. Two characters we barely know or care about with NO explanation or back story on why the husband is discontented with his marriage (besides the obvious, the actor seems gay lol).

Did Bobby Steggart really need to come out of retirement to play that limply drawn John Singer Sargent? He barely got his face on camera.

[quote] [R35], if there had been an out and out confrontation between Agnes and the doctor it would have meant Julian Fellowes would have had to write a scene with some genuine conflict and drama. And you should know by now that just isn't going to happen on The Gilded Age.

lol, I see what you did here r35 :) Good observation about the show in general and To your point, I was watching season 2 again to be up to speed on season 3 (my partner LOVES the show so I like to be able to discuss it with him) Anyway, in season 2 when Dr. Lewis tells Ada and Agnes there is nothing more that can be medically done for Robert Sean Leonard's character, Agnes snaps at him "sounds like a clever way of shirking your responsibilities" or something.. which is a funny line and Dr. Lewis gave her a look like " how dare you, you crazy bitch" and you THINK a conflict is about to happen.. and... he's gone..

R40, he is cute though

I thoroughly enjoyed the episode, but agree with some above that Fane suddenly wanting a divorce was a jarring note. Were there earlier hints that he had a mistress that I missed? There was no dramatic groundwork laid for this thst I remember. His girlfriend isn’t the Jeanne Tripplehorn character from last season, is she? I confess to finding the WASP prince who plays Mr. Fane to be wildly handsome and very much my type.

And Ada being a bluestocking seems completely consistent with her character.

I agree. I also like the railroad scenes

Seems like a society doctor in the Gilded Age, like Dr. Lewis, would know a ton of secrets about the high born class . abortions, STD's etc. They would rely on his discretion so maybe that's why she didn't confront him

The railroad scenes are important. Russell acquiring and maintaining and growing his wealth gives depth to the story. As for the Fanes, here was a perfect, "reliable" young couple who seemed to be living just as a wealthy young couple with good bloodlines ought to. Sweet young wife, etc. and then he throws t he proverbial grenade into everything. And she had no clue. In fact, she is having a problem facing it, processing it even as we speak. I wonder who will be shrewd enough to school her on how to fight back. She is so used to being "taken care of," and doing the "right thing." I'm glad that lovely man is finally getting some attention from Julian.

R45 This show is way too tepid to pursue such an intriguing plot turn.

So Alarm Clock Jack has invented something to get men out of bed - I would think with that face he would have better luck with the opposite.