by Liz Kocan | Decider
After almost two years, The Gilded Age has returned. Last season was filled with historical drama surrounding opera wars and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. This season, we’re getting to learn all about… temperance and the westward expansion of the railroads? This show has officially out-PBS’d PBS.
The season begins with a business trip to Arizona, which is not yet a state but is a crucial spot between Chicago and Los Angeles. It’s 1885, and George Russell (Morgan Spector) and his right-hand man Clay (basso profundo extraordinaire Patrick Page) are in Arizona to procure the land they need to own to build more track — George wants to be the first to offer coast-to-coast travel, for which he’ll charge a premium and get even richer. The problem is that the land they want to buy is not only strategically located, it’s also copper-rich, and the miners who own them know they have leverage when it comes to selling.
It may be hot and dusty in Arizona, but back in New York, an early spring snowstorm has struck, so all the downstairs-types who work at the Russell and van Rhijn homes take to the streets for a snowball fight before eventually heading back in to work. Actually, the van Rhijn home is no longer the van Rhijn home but the Forte home, because Ada Forte (Cynthia Nixon) is now the mistress of the house on account of all that money her dead husband, Robert Sean Leonard, left her at the end of last season.
Now that Ada’s the woman of the house, she’s calling the shots – a bitter pill for her sister Agnes (Christine Baranski) to swallow. And Agnes knows a thing or two about bitter pills, being one herself. Ada has called a meeting of temperance activists together, because nothing solves a nation’s problems like prohibition.
“I’ve been convinced that temperance can bring unique improvements to our society,” Ada tells Agnes when she explains her commitment to the cause. “Alcohol is the scourge of many families.” It’s not lost on me that Cynthia Nixon’s other HBO character, Miranda Hobbs, loves a phony Negroni. It’s all coming full circle.
Agnes is dismissive of Ada’s new cause, dismissive of Ada taking up any cause, really, but Ada explains that she finds a purpose in service, just like her husband, the Reverend Luke Forte, did when he was alive. And after months of mourning his death and feeling like she had no purpose, even wishing she was dead, she’s finally feeling alive again. I love that the only way to shut Agnes up is by invoking the most dramatic things possible, in this case, Ada’s wish to end her own life. “I wanted to die… until I discovered teetotaling.” I’m paraphrasing.
Read the rest of the recap HERE.
