So much drama, so many tears! But how delicious! Nothing more natural from a period in history where women needed to get married to maintain themselves and define themselves as a person, so we have already opened the second episode of The Gilded Age with Bertha (Carrie Coon) and Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) screaming about the subject. And it’s up to George (Morgan Spector) to try to placate them both. He succeeds, of course, by promising Gladys that he will support her when she really falls in love, warning that he will dismiss Oscar Van Rhijn (Blake Ritson) with grace. An understatement, of course, because the conversation between the two is hard and fast: they will not accept the marriage proposal and the story must end there.

Oscar is one of the girls of the season: he ‘needs’ to get married and in his desperation, he is making it clearer than not that it is just a convenience for him. Queen dead, queen set, he already has another candidate in mind, thanks to the help of his cousin, Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara). But we’ll get there.

As was traditional at the time, high society spent their summers in Newport, Rhode Island, with mansions modeled after those in the south of France. The distance between the cities is 290 km and today by car it’s a 3h30 trip (I’ve done it many times) so it’s surprising how Bertha is in New York and Newport in such a short time and so often, but we’ll let it pass.

The opera war was in the background in this episode, Caroline Astor (Donna Murphy) has already activated Agnes (Christina Baranski) to create a strategy that will be explored next week. Ada (Cynthia Nixon) is openly excited about new pastor Matthew Forte (Sean Patrick Leonard), something Marian (Louisa Jacobson) approves of. The Brooks Van Rhijn family dynamics are one of the positive points of the season, with the fraternal friendship between cousins Oscar, Aurora, and Marian working perfectly. Agnes and Marian are obviously always at each other’s throats, but it is a fact that within a year Marian has already understood most of the rules of society. She may not like them, but she knows she will have to follow them.

The Watson (Michael Cerveris) subplot is in the works as well. His son-in-law, Mr. MCneil (Christopher Denham) goes to the Russells’ mansion after him, but, although George doesn’t even suspect the truth at the moment, the valet opens his heart to Church (Jack Gilpin) and they both know that to avoid Flora (Rebecca Haden) being “exposed”, it is most likely that Watson will have to leave the Russells staff.

And, speaking of staff, pay attention to the narrative of John’s (Ben Ahlers) broken clock, it will be important later on. At the Van Rhijn house, Armstrong (Debra Monk) continues to be racist, well, nasty to Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), even with Agnes’ advance warning that the secretary is back and that if Peggy is treated badly, she still will always have her boss’s preference, not Armstrong. For now, it seems that the housekeeper insists on defying Agnes and is gratuitously rude to Peggy, but nothing is reaching Agnes’ ears. Yet.

But the most exciting thing about the episode wasn’t the trivia. Here we have a clear evolution in what we hope will happen, which is the union of Larry and Marian. For the moment, he fell in love with the easier romance with widow Susan Blane (Laura Benanti) – something that immediately worried Bertha. In fact, he’s more aware of Marian’s movements than she is of his, and the way the writers make them look at each other in the crowd is cute. However, traumatized by having my #tedbecca denied in Ted Lasso (the series cleverly played with fans’ romantic expectations of seeing Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) united with Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) and at the same time keeping the two as best friends) I’m afraid that if they become “just friends” we’ll be watching ships.

George laughed at Bertha’s immediate concern about Larry and Susan, after all, she is “twice his age”, which, in itself, would have been scandalous at that time, even more so being a widow. For the male universe, the sexual freedom of a young man with a woman who is no longer a virgin is “better than looking for prostitutes”. I don’t know if I was more shocked to hear this from Larry than it was so explicit in the series, but there’s room for a lot of tears there. Susan is clearly needy, practically melting for Larry the moment she sees him and unceremoniously surrounding him, especially if he’s trying to get close to the virginal Marian. In fact, Susan’s jealousy over Marian is the series’ best response to the romance we truly want.

The part about Marian’s crushes fighting over her was the highlight of the episode. She comments to Gladys and then to Larry that she knows that her expectations of escaping a marriage of convenience are low, especially since she may be responsive to Agnes, but depends on her aunt and a future husband to survive. Aurora tries to introduce her cousin to a candidate that Agnes approves of (without even meeting him, but because he has an acceptable surname) and unfortunately, he is an inconvenient drunk. The comic relief of the situation was welcome, and only Marian has yet to realize the shadow that Dashiell Montgomery (David Furr) has been. The two of them ‘bump into’ each other all the time, and as in this case it is convenient for her to escape the wrong crush, she is getting involved without realizing it, especially at the ball where they dance together. A party of strong emotions, of course, and not just for Marian, but for Bertha and George.

In War of the Operas, Bertha is warned by Ward MacAllister (Nathan Lane) that he is “neutral”, but still helps her to have more supporters for the opening of the Metropolitan Opera House. The more people from “old” New York help her by buying boxes, the greater her advantage in battle. Therefore, he recommends that Bertha befriend and convince young Mrs. Winterton to support the “new” New Yorkers. Neither Ward nor Bertha knows much about who this new Mrs. Winterton is as she is much younger than her husband, who had been widowed shortly before meeting her and married almost immediately. Because we knew more than both of them and it closed a great episode with Turner’s triumphant entry (which had already been anticipated) left the Russells bewildered. Us too!

Depending on Turner (Kelley Curran) obviously bodes ill for Bertha and the former chambermaid will use her to her advantage both to torment the family she hates and to gain space with Caroline Astor. Can she do it?

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