The very finish of the second season of HBO’s The Gilded Age (premiering October 29) incorporates a plot twist each ridiculous and completely predictable. I couldn’t assist however grin as this foolish ultimate scene unfolded, an impact acquainted to any of us who’ve hung out gloopily enamored of The Gilded Age or its predecessor, Downton Abbey. Each collection, from creator Julian Fellowes, are well mannered and straightforward to the purpose of absurdity. But there may be giddy pleasure of their busybody airiness, a soothing order that ignores many issues of those reveals’ eras whereas amiably distracting us from our personal.
The Gilded Age is probably extra cognizant of social ills than its British cousin. Set in Eighteen Eighties New York Metropolis (with some merry jaunts to Newport), the present confronts issues of race extra straight by way of Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), who’s advancing her profession as a reporter for a outstanding Black newspaper when she will get an task that brings her to the perilous south. (Whether or not The Gilded Age handles that storyline with as a lot tact and specificity as is required will probably be a matter of some debate.) The present, by Peggy’s eyes, can also be cautious to level out that the north was not some equitable paradise for individuals of shade.
That stated, the rapid points that Peggy encounters are solved about as rapidly (and, in New York, as genially) as these of her white counterparts. However there may be at the very least some obscure consciousness of the extremity of social distinction between Peggy and her pal Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), the niece of prickly dowager Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and her spinster sister, Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon). On this run of episodes, Marian should battle with nothing extra severe than a part-time job as an artwork trainer (the place she is, in fact, beloved by her college students) and the romantic overtures of a form, good-looking widower.
The hole between Peggy’s world and Marian’s is linked collectively in a single materials manner: the Brooklyn Bridge is nearing completion, a major improvement that represents a metropolis within the heady lurch of progress. To a lesser extent, so does the founding of the Metropolitan Opera, then an upstart, ever-so-slightly extra egalitarian rival to the venerable and unique Academy of Music. Main the Met cost is new-money conniver Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), the ruthlessly formidable spouse of equally ruthless railroad magnate George (Morgan Spector). Whereas we root for these climbers, as a result of they’re in some weird trend the underdogs, The Gilded Age doesn’t ignore the truth that George’s real-world analogs have been largely horrible union busters. A labor battle dominates a lot of George’s time in season two, and whereas he isn’t depicted because the worst form of tycoon, he isn’t proven to be one of the best, both.
On and on Fellowes’s ethical equivocating goes, simply self-aware sufficient to forestall The Gilded Age from being an outright endorsement of aristocratic would possibly. In holding the present gentle, Fellowes is ready to maintain every little thing within the realm of fantasy. No searing social drama is that this, neither is it attempting to be. Within the second season, romances bloom and wither, a duke of England is courted by rival society queens, one household’s monetary place turns into instantly dire, and a member of a family workers invents an alarm clock. It needs to be somewhat boring, all this lo-fi bustling and enterprise. However the spell forged is extra softly narcotic than it’s soporific—it’s stress-free, not tedious.
A forged of New York theater legends helps preserve issues vigorous, all seeming to relish within the likelihood to placed on some fantastic costumes and swan round with old-timey decorum. Nixon is especially affecting this season, as Ada’s life is irrevocably altered by the arrival of a brand new character, one who provides Ada the form of consideration she’s lengthy craved. Fellowes should be quite imply to poor Ada, however Nixon convinces us of her dignity.
That plot line is about as poignant because the season will get. Although I need to admit that one thing like a swell of pure emotion virtually overtook me when watching the sequence by which the Brooklyn Bridge’s opening is introduced with an excellent fireworks present. There all our little dopes are, gazing up on the sky and marveling on the dawning of yet one more new period. (In case you’ll keep in mind, final season’s most shifting scene concerned {the electrical} lighting of a constructing.) Fellowes is terribly good at constructing a way of event like this, capturing a second of awe as small and finite individuals gaze upon time itself, speeding alongside.
That’s season two’s solely really grandiose occasion. Whereas the present’s relentless and over-indicating (in a great way) rating would possibly recommend that every little thing on The Gilded Age is of excessive significance, it truly is simply properly packaged frivolity. The present could fail some HBO commonplace, however it’s nonetheless a welcome respite from the grime and wallow of a lot fancy tv.
The Gilded Age is broader, much less intimate than Downton Abbey—and the way might it not be, with three households concerned, plus the attendant maids and butlers? It nonetheless attracts us into the same coziness, that immersion into faraway lives of both ridiculous consolation or contented penury. Season two does attempt to carry historical past to bear on a few of these individuals—Peggy preventing for buy in a bigoted world, George doing the soiled enterprise of staying wealthy—however for probably the most half, it units everybody twirling round in a diverting dream. Bridges are constructed, operas are sung. And the alarm clock works—with out ever actually waking anybody.
