(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
A near-death experience isn’t the most shocking moment in The Gilded Age’s Season 3 finale. No, that will be George Russell (Morgan Spector) surviving a gunshot wound and then dropping a bigger bombshell on Bertha (Carrie Coon): He is unsure whether their marriage has a future.
I gasped.
Whether society’s elite will show up to a party is no longer the highest stake that The Gilded Age has to offer. Of course, Bertha is still concerned everyone will snub her lavish bash now that she has opened up the guest list to divorcées, but creator Julian Fellowes has also stuffed the second half of this season with many jaw-dropping twists and turns. Namely, a runaway carriage that killed John Adams (Claybourne Elder) a few weeks ago, and George getting shot in the safe confines of his office.
Like Bertha, I assumed that George’s brush with mortality would shift his perspective toward forgiveness. Instead, Railroad Daddy’s examination of his defining partnership has led him to wonder if they should continue as man and wife. Bertha is dumbfounded, whereas I can’t help but think that George is a hypocrite.
For the second time this year, Coon’s performance in an HBO finale leaves me in tears. Here, the Emmy-nominated actress cranks up the melodrama when George reveals that playing happy families at Bertha’s party was purely for business. Who is the ruthless one when it comes to using personal relationships for gain? It sure as s— isn’t Bertha in this episode.
Given that George has been seething at Bertha for ‘forcing’ him to walk their daughter down the aisle after Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) and the Duke of Buckingham’s (Ben Lamb) mid-season wedding, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that they have hit a breaking point. Still, like Bertha, I figured Gladys being visibly happy in her union with Hector would be enough for George to reconsider. It is not.
Gut-punch is the best descriptor when Bertha doubles over dramatically in response to George’s uncertainty about their union, serving the exact level of distress a concluding moment like this deserves.
It is another tour de force from Coon and Spector, who dig their teeth into this final disagreement that is sprinkled with regret, compliments, and an unresolved air. The entire season has been lacking the horny factor, but at least when this pair tear strips off each other, the heat remains. Now, if only they can return to pulling each other’s clothes off in Season 4.
We are a long way from the couple who instantly got turned on from the other’s relentless pursuit of success. In the past, George getting one over on former secretary Richard Clay (Patrick Page) would have been a turn-on. In the penultimate episode, George lingers at the office, which is where the shooting unfolds.
George’s arrival home in the opening scene of the finale is fraught. For a brief moment, The Gilded Age turns into an episode of The Knick with Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica) performing emergency surgery in the Russells’ dining room. It is touch and go, with Bertha killing it as the weeping wife begging for her husband’s life to be saved. Considering Fellowes’ fondness for tragic romantic pairings, there was part of me that thought George’s days might be numbered. But the real heartbreak is saved for the climax.
After beginning the season thinking that Bertha’s main goal was defined by self-interest, I now understand that her long-term vision was to see Gladys thrive. Bertha goes about this horribly, but she is not alone in playing this ambitious game using his family as pawns.
After the wedding, George asked his wife to utilize her connections and charm as part of his ongoing efforts to acquire a railway line connecting the coasts. The robber baron then ordered their son, Larry (Harry Richardson), to drop everything to travel to Arizona to secure assets. During this biz trip, Larry’s engagement to Marian (Louisa Jacobson) fell apart. Yet, Larry blames his mother for meddling—she didn’t.
George can’t admit that winning in society and business are intrinsically linked, calling on Bertha when he needs her and failing to do the same in return. Or, when he does concede in the case of the duke, George can’t help but hold it against his wife. Yes, I started the season wondering if Bertha was a monster, but like Gladys, I can change my mind based on how events have panned out.
Far from me to say that George doesn’t raise valid points, but his lack of accountability is galling. George is more than happy to use Bertha’s rise to the top when he needs to spin a story, including Bertha’s latest crowning moment. Each season concludes with triumph for Bertha as she climbs up the ladder from new money trash to a social leader. Season 3 continues this tradition after a scandal-plagued Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) asks Bertha to host the Newport ball in her place. You can tell Bertha is concerned about George’s recovery because her offer to cancel the party is sincere.
But George insists it go ahead to keep news of his shooting out of the newspapers because word of this incident could jeopardize his current deal. Bertha instantly agrees to be the dutiful wife and hostess, ensuring the illuminations and guest list are all anyone will talk about. Furthermore, inviting divorced women like Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara) is not a diversion tactic but a way to use her power to challenge conventions by scrapping a rule that punishes those who have done nothing wrong. Bertha is taking a calculated but significant risk.
A recent conversation with the newly exiled Ward McAllister (Nathan Lane) reveals Bertha’s keen insight into the limitations of her social maven status, while underscoring how much she misjudges her marriage. “Nothing is more perilous than to overestimate your own power,” says Bertha.
By setting up Gladys with the duke, Bertha found a way to free Gladys from the cage of being a woman in the 1880s. To make it happen, Bertha took away Gladys’ autonomy. Oops! Bertha has flown too close to the sun to fulfill this matchmaking dream. George has already left Newport when Gladys tells her mother she is pregnant with the duke’s baby, all Bertha can do is smile through her pain as she quickly turns to wipe away tears. The landscape shifts from a waking nightmare to a dream scenario, but it is a hollow victory without her husband there to share in the celebration.
George has already been revived once by medical intervention, but can Bertha fix their marriage? More importantly, should she even try? Perhaps only when Bertha is unavailable to fulfill his requests will George realize that, in the family business, it is his wife who is his most valuable partner.
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