And the war for the title is just beginning. The trade of rich young American women united with bankrupt nobles, may have brought pomp to many families in the golden age, but it also brought a lot of unhappiness. And we always anticipated that Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) would do an Alva Vanderbilt when it comes to the chosen one for Gladys (Taissa Farmiga). With the arrival of the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb), this part of the drama begins to unfold, but not without a lot of drama and tears. Unfortunately, if you follow convention, Gladys’ fate really is in Bertha’s hands. The girl’s only hope? The competition will be fierce!

Since the first season, Bertha has made some things clear about her daughter’s life: love is not important, who decides who the young girl should have a relationship with or even marry is just herself, the protective mother who has a social plan in which Gladys It’s an important piece. You know what worries me? So far, George (Morgan Spector) may disagree, but he doesn’t dare confront his wife on the issue. Whether because he has also disliked the two suitors thus far or because he is more afraid of Bertha than he admits, he follows her lead. Does anyone doubt that the promise he made to Gladys – that he would support her unconditionally when she truly fell in love – will come back to haunt him?

Not Archie, not anyone: who did Bertha want for Gladys?

The premiere of The Gilded Age presented Gladys resentful of her mother’s excessive control, who controlled her every step outside the house and sometimes subtly ‘arrested’ her to prevent her from leaving without permission. She couldn’t be at dinners or go to parties because Bertha delayed her entry into society as a debutante. Literally, Gladys is a bird trapped in another’s cage.

Somehow, and even due to repression, we realize that Gladys is impulsive and longs to be able to decide her own life alone, and even with all her control, she had a suitor worthy of her in the first season, a shy Archie Baldwin (Tom Blyth), which did not pass the approval of Bertha (unsurprisingly) or George, who terrified him in the inquiry to judge whether he was worthy of Gladys’ attention.

When asked by George why she even gave Archie a chance, Bertha explained that he wasn’t who she wanted, but that her husband would know what she planned when she identified the right candidate. For those who know the life of Consuelo Vanderbilt, this sentence sent chills down their spines.

Gladys was always used by her mother. When she and Carrie Astor (Amy Forsyth) became best friends precisely because they resented her mother’s interference in matters of the heart (Caroline Astor (Donna Murphy) also disapproved of Carrie’s choice), Bertha encouraged their closeness like crazy, throwing a dance as a debutante for Gladys not because her daughter wanted it, but because it was the best opportunity to welcome her enemy, Caroline, and to show off the house with an unforgettable ball. We may like and root for Bertha, but she is far from defensible.

Turner knows about Bertha’s plans and has always tried to undermine them

Bertha’s greatest current rivalry has not only been with Caroline, but with her former chambermaid, Enid Turner (Kelley Curran), who knows her ex-boss’s every insecurity and intention, always playing against her. She not only tried to seduce George, she charmed Larry (Harry Richardson), but also helped Oscar Van Rhijn (Blake Ritson), who wanted to find a candidate for a sham marriage, to woo the young woman. Ironically, Turner’s role in Gladys’ life is far from over.

Oscar managed to get close to what he wanted, not so much because he won Gladys’ heart, but because he argued with her that, once she was Mrs. Van Rhijn, he would give her complete freedom to live as he wanted. If she wasn’t going to marry for love, she thought, Oscar would do and temporarily accepted the marriage proposal, one that Bertha didn’t even suspect had happened. The one who put the brakes on the skid was George, who vehemently denied the possibility of allowing the union and made a pact with Gladys: when she was really in love, he would defend her to Bertha. Fools!

If Oscar was wrong, it was because he didn’t listen to Turner. She always warned that the couple’s point of contention was always Gladys’ fate. George wants a marriage for love and Bertha doesn’t have heart as a priority. If Oscar had followed Turner’s strategy, he would have won over George first and then increased his chances. He lost the game.

Now that Turner is Mrs. Winterton, she irritated Bertha with several things, but the worst was rubbing it in the face of her ex-boss who was circulating among the British nobility, anticipating the arrival of the Duke of Buckingham in New York, mentioning that she would be his hostess. Is a Duke available for the taking? Bertha wasted no time.

We stopped this week with a victory for our heroine: she managed to achieve the Duke to not only be her guest in Newport, but the reason for a ball and dinner in his honor. Once again we have an ambitious Bertha using people to show off and achieve her goals. Turner promised to spoil them.

From the promo, we see that Turner will have Peter Barnes (Michael Farrell), a friend and employee of the Russells, creating trouble at the Newport dinner. And we see that Gladys will be beautiful, attracting the attention of the Duke of Buckingham. Bertha’s victory? Don’t celebrate yet.

Not only will Turner create something embarrassing, but Bertha will have a competition to match: none other than Caroline Astor will also decide that he is the ideal husband for her daughter, Carrie. It’s not a spoiler if you’ve been paying attention to the promos in which Agnes Van Rhijn (Christina Baranski) is shocked and asks her friend, “You can’t buy a Duke!”, to which she is told, “Oh yes I can.”

That’s right, folks, the war for operas is also the war for nobility and damn the happiness of young women whose ambitious mothers use them like dolls. Lucky for Marian (Louisa Jacobson) Agnes doesn’t get that far.

Larry’s sadness

And he’s mistaken that it’s just Gladys getting upset with her mother. After Bertha interferes in Larry’s romance with widow Susan Blane (Laura Benanti), he will be more than unhappy, he will be resentful of his mother. The images of a sad Larry immediately make me think that Marian could step in as a friendly shoulder, kind of replicating the support he gave her when she was left by Tom Raikes (Thomas Cocquerel) for a richer wife than her. Can I dream?

We already understand that although everything is apparently right and designed in heaven for her to accept the marriage proposal of a perfect Dashiell Montgomery (David Furr), somehow Marian is not excited about the idea. Honestly, how she liked Tom Raikes and doesn’t like Dashiell Montgomery can only be explained in two ways: 1) she’s still traumatized by the breakup with the lawyer interest and 2) she’d secretly already be interested in Larry Yes, I’m obsessive for chipping this couple!

But the road to uniting them will be long. For now, I’m worried about the mirrored plot of La Traviata in the operatic season of The Gilded Age. Susan Blane is not a courtesan, obviously, but an older woman who thought of having fun and ended up falling in love with young Larry, sacrificing her feelings when His family confronts her, especially because a scandal with him interferes in Gladys’ life. If the Russells are linked to a scandal of their heir marrying an older widow, candidates for Gladys’ hand disappear and would never be in the Duke of Buckingham’s league, which is unacceptable to Bertha.

Can we mention that we haven’t even figured out who Pastor Luke Forte (Robert Sean Leonard) is, who has barely arrived in New York and has already asked Ada (Cynthia Nixon) to marry him? There’s something very suspicious about the rush of this novel, unfortunately… We’ll find out more on Sunday!

Pesquisar

Pesquisar