In The Gilded Age, Agnes Van Rhijn is all about following and maintaining tradition and the order of things. The word “new” is offensive to her in every sense, one of the most complex lessons she tries to teach her niece, Marian.

Throughout the second season, we saw that Marian made every effort to follow her aunt Agnes’ advice – almost marrying without love – but the biggest twist came in the final episode. Oscar, Agnes’ only son, fell into a scam and lost almost all of the Van Rhijn fortune. More than the shame of now being “poor”, the only alternative for the matriarch played by Christina Baranski was to sell the house and start living very simply. Marian, who worked as a hobby against her will, declined to get married to support herself and will have to become a teacher. But then the unexpected was just around the corner.

One of the season’s biggest challenges for Agnes was having to deal with the fact that Ada (Cynthia Nixon), although obedient and grateful, always had her own voice and defied Agnes’s order not to entertain romantic ideas with Pastor Luke Forte. The two fell in love and married faster than the speed of light, much to the despair of the ever-clinging Agnes. Trying everything from bribery to breaking up, she did everything to prevent the union but ended up giving in and witnessing her sister’s great happiness. Just when everything was heading towards a new constancy, Luke died suddenly.

To Agnes’s credit, she embraced her brother-in-law before and during his brief suffering, promising to take care of Ada, as she always did. But then came the surprise of bankruptcy and her world was shattered for the first time since she was forced to marry an older, rude man to support herself and Ada. This happened when they were still young, thanks to Marian’s father, who inherited the Brooks fortune, who didn’t save anything for his sisters and lost everything drinking and gambling. Because of this personal sacrifice, Agnes is so strict with everyone she helps, including Marian. Thanks to Oscar’s innocence, just when she was at the age where she needed the fortune, she lost everything.

But The Gilded Age bets on drama with quick solutions. In the same episode, Ada discovers that Luke is a millionaire heir and that he left everything to her. The Van Rhijns are once again financially secure. The difference is that Agnes is no longer in charge of the house. What will this new reality be like for her?

This entire long introduction is important to try to anticipate how we will see Agnes navigate The Gilded Age in the face of a new reality, inside and outside the home. So far, Christine Baranski has been left with catchphrases, moments of softness and empathy with characters who are unexpected for her, such as Peggy Scott, whom she defends and supports even though she is a black, modern woman who is far from what Agnes herself expects for Marian. This apparent incongruity of the character is part of what makes her interesting.

Agnes is a survivor who uses society’s rules to protect herself and her sister, Ada, who is completely dependent on her. There are allusions that Mr. Van Rhijn was abusive and even violent, but Agnes stands firm. Because of this, it seems, she does not accept anything that could risk her fight, so Marian, equally a victim of her father as her aunts were decades before, “needs” to submit.

The fact is that Agnes is tough, but far from being an insensitive woman. She rarely goes out, but she stays informed and, as she warned, “never makes mistakes”. Or almost. She antagonizes the Russells because they represent the new and is certainly against Marian falling in love with Larry.

As fans wait for more information about the third season of The Gilded Age, which will have new faces, one of the main highlights will certainly be how we will have a “new” Agnes Van Rhijn.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Julian Fellowes did not go into details, but warned that “what I like to emphasize is that behind the ballrooms and the clothes and the carriages, these giant men with these huge egos were doing things. They did not share the sentimental vision of our generation,” he explained. “We like to spend about half our day crying about everyone else having a terrible time. There is something about their bluster that I find quite attractive,” he continued.

Yes, Agnes is a practical but conservative woman. Actress Christine Baranski, who also spoke about her character to Deadline, she said that the earthquake began with the shock of Marian’s arrival, welcomed after her father left her literally penniless. “The earth, the world, the ground, was always moving under her feet in a way that she had never been on solid ground since the first episode of the first season, because of the arrival of the neighbors across the street, and then the arrival of her niece,” the actress recalled.

Christine celebrated all the pitfalls Agnes was forced into by others, with no control over her fate. “Agnes is having to somehow rise to the occasion because I love her so much and I accept that,” she continued. “It was a feast for me as an actress, because when you have a character who is so rigid and arrogant, and has such a strong sense of herself and what her world is, and you see so many cracks occurring in her world, it’s funny and sad and very dramatic.”

If you consider Agnes Van Rhijn a role made for Christine Baranski, it’s because it was indeed written for her. The actress, a Downton Abbey fan, approached Julian Fellowes when she heard he was working on what she called “the American version of Downton.” Centered in Gilded Age New York, the series was originally intended as a prequel to Downton Abbey, but later gained independence and is now completely separate.

To the surprise of many, one of the arguments the actress used to be considered was not her awards or talent, but her personal connection to the period in which the story is set. “I said, ‘I’m married to a man, my late husband, he was a Drexel from the Drexel family, and that was, of course, one of the aristocratic families of the Gilded Age of New York.’ I started talking to him about it, and we had a very long conversation. And I didn’t know Julian at that time. Years later, I got a call saying, ‘Julian wrote this show for HBO, and they’re offering it to you.’” she told Deadline.

Even when asked, Christine kept quiet about Agnes’ future in the third season of The Gilded Age. She warned, however, that we can expect “drama.” Oh God! Knowing that Oscar will still be trying to recover the lost money, we can only be thankful that we will have a lot of emotion, right?

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