{"id":50157,"date":"2022-02-15T17:59:05","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T17:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=50157"},"modified":"2022-02-17T14:03:36","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T14:03:36","slug":"gilded-age-valentines-day-recap-american-downton","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/gilded-age-valentines-day-recap-american-downton\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Gilded Age\u2019: A Very Gilded Valentine\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Audra
Audra McDonald and Den\u00e9e Benton in The Gilded Age<\/i> (Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa\/HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, yesterday was St. Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a>, but if you were hoping for a super extra romantic very-special-episode of Lord Julian Fellowes\u2019s The Gilded Age<\/em><\/a> you may have been slightly disappointed. I\u2019m not sure there was a single smooch between lovers in whom we\u2019re invested, but there was a skin-crawlingly icky scene of attempted cross-class seduction gone awry!<\/p>\n

\"Den\u00e9e
Den\u00e9e Benton in The Gilded Age<\/i> (Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa\/HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Peggy and (probably not) T. Thomas Fortune <\/strong><\/p>\n

After an excruciating shopping trip with Marian, during which she\u2019s given the stink eye by every white patron and clerk in Bloomingdale Brothers, Peggy has her meeting with editor T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones) who wants her to write for The New York Globe<\/em>. After last week\u2019s<\/a> disappointment with The Advocate<\/em>, she\u2019s psyched to be working at a trailblazing Black newspaper. Also, it turns out T. Thomas Fortune is a babe! Ugh, I got really excited about this potential couple, thinking back to how Lady Edith had that ultimately tragic love affair with her newspaper editor on Downton Abbey<\/em>. Because in a Julian Fellowes show, you don\u2019t just have a career; you also have to have workplace romantic entanglements!<\/p>\n

Except then I discovered that the real T. Thomas Fortune<\/a> was in fact married in by the time the events of The Gilded Age <\/em>take place. I mean, I don\u2019t know how committed historical accuracy this show is going to be, but I\u2019m not sure Fellowes is the kind of writer who would create an ahistorical affair for a real-life figure. But then, Mr. Fortune isn\u2019t wearing a wedding ring in his scene with Peggy\u2014I went back and checked\u2014and it just seems cruel to have cast an actor as gorgeous as Jones and not<\/em> make him a romantic interest for Peggy.<\/p>\n

\"Morgan
Morgan Spector and Kelley Curran in The Gilded Age<\/i> (Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa\/HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

George and Turner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, god, this<\/em>. So, for the past few episodes, Bertha\u2019s maid Turner (Kelley Curran) has been scheming and sneering and making it clear that she somehow thinks she can seduce George and, I guess, become the mistress of Russell Manor? I mean, this is America after all, and we supposedly have upward mobility. Well, in this week\u2019s episode, she finally makes her move. And oh, god, does she move! George is fast asleep in his own room\u2014he and Bertha sleep apart most of the time like, I guess, normal wealthy married people did back then?\u2014and Turner literally slips into his bed naked<\/em> and starts molesting him! And ugh<\/em>, the whole thing is so gross! Not only is this basically sexual assault, but the dialogue is also like something out of a supermarket romance novel. \u201cI can make a sanctuary for you,\u201d she says as she spreads her legs<\/em>, \u201ca temple to your greatness.\u201d And this was the moment that I knew that Julian Fellowes has never had a sexual experience with another human person.<\/p>\n

But anyway, George is like, \u201cNo thanks!\u201d And he kicks Turner out of his room, but decides not to have her sacked because that would make too much sense and how else are we going to get more downstairs scheming and intrigue?<\/p>\n

I will say, though, that this whole gross scene was kinda<\/em> worth it to get to see Morgan Spector with his shirt off. Turns out George is an MMA fighter type five alarm hottie under all his waistcoats and cravats.<\/p>\n

\"Christine
Christine Baranski, Blake Ritson, Cynthia Nixon and Louisa Jacobson in The Gilded Age<\/i> (Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa\/HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oscar and Gladys<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019d hoped we were done with this, but I was wrong. Now that everyone knows the Russells aren\u2019t going to be ruined because of whatever was going on with George and the aldermen and the railroad\u2014something to do with shorting stocks, I think, and then that guy shot himself last week\u2014Oscar has resumed his dismaying pursuit of the virginal young Gladys.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Gladys is getting all restless and rebellious because her mother won\u2019t let her do anything<\/em>. Bertha refuses to let her come out into New York society until she can guarantee that New York society will have Gladys, and she\u2019s so overprotective that she fires Gladys\u2019s governess for letting her talk to boys! All of which is having the somewhat predictable opposite effect of making Gladys more<\/em> rebellious and frustrated, and will surely have her on a fast track to an ill-considered elopement, probably with Oscar.<\/p>\n

\"Cynthia
Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski in The Gilded Age<\/i> (Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa\/HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ada and Nobody \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sweet vague Aunt Ada (Cynthia Nixon<\/a>) spends the first half of this episode in hysterics over the loss of her cute little dog. But it\u2019s cool, cause he was just across the street at the Russells\u2019 McMansion, and the van Rhijns\u2019 butler Bannister (Simon Jones) goes and gets him and also gets to critique how the Russell staff does their job, which makes for riveting<\/em> television.<\/p>\n

But back to Ada: later, we get a little more backstory about her tragic love life. Apparently, there was a man who wanted to marry her when she was young, but he didn\u2019t live up to her father\u2019s standards. Marian, in typically clueless Marian fashion, is like, \u201cWell, maybe you wouldn\u2019t be so miserable and pathetic now if you had just married him anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ada is having none<\/em> of that bullsh*t! She\u2019s like, \u201cExcuse me? Do not come into my house and question my<\/em> life choices!\u201d You tell her Ada!<\/p>\n

\"Louisa
Louisa Jacobson in The Gilded Age<\/i> (Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa\/HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marian and Mr. Raikes<\/strong><\/p>\n

F*cking Marian! When she\u2019s not obliviously insulting Ada and Peggy and Peggy\u2019s comfortably middle-class parents\u2014she literally shows up at their lovely Brooklyn brownstone with used shoes thinking they might need them\u2014she\u2019s getting friendly with the disreputable Mrs. Chamberlain (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and dithering over Mr. Raikes\u2019s proposal. She\u2019s clearly into Mr. Raikes, and everyone keeps asking what she would do if her aunts\u2019 disapproval weren\u2019t an issue. And I guess she\u2019s looking at Ada on the one hand and thinking she doesn\u2019t want to end up a lonely spinster (her<\/em> read on Ada, not mine<\/em>). And on the other, there\u2019s Mrs. Chamberlain, who seemed to have a lovely marriage and is now comfortably positioned economically but is a social outcast. At the moment, these seem to be the two paths before her vis-\u00e1-vis<\/em> Mr. Raikes.<\/p>\n

But then at the opera, she encounters both Mrs. Russell and Mr. Raikes, and it seems like maybe a third way might be coming into focus, both for Marian and for society at large. Here we have the nouveau riche<\/em> Bertha finally making inroads into New York society, and the promising Mr. Raikes doing the same in the hopes of impressing Ada and Agnes. Perhaps marrying \u201cbeneath her station\u201d won\u2019t mean being a pariah after all!<\/p>\n

But then, as Bertha points out, all that social climbing Mr. Raikes needs to do costs money. It\u2019s hard to say exactly what Marian is thinking as she gazes at him from her box. It\u2019s possible she\u2019s realizing that this nice man could ruin himself in pursuit of her. Or she\u2019s wondering about the lengths to which he\u2019ll go to become the kind of man who can give her the life New York society expects of a woman in her position. In an age of robber barons like George Russell, it\u2019s easy to imagine that upward climb changing Mr. Raikes significantly.<\/p>\n

Read more Gilded Age<\/em> Relationship Recaps:<\/strong><\/p>\n