Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Gilded Age’ On HBO, A New Series By Julian Fellowes About The New Rich And 1880s New York Society

Julian Fellowes has been adept at making period dramas watchable by modern audiences, mainly by making the characters less stuffy than you’d expect and giving them plots that aren’t just about following the rules. Are his shows as scandalous and sexy as, say Bridgerton? No, but they have more than enough spice to keep viewers interested. His newest project moves the action from early 20th-century England to late 19th-century New York.

THE GILDED AGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “NEW YORK, 1882. CENTRAL PARK”. Grazing sheep scurry away when a carriage rides through carrying a bust.

The Gist: That bust is destined for a massive mansion being built on 61st Street and 5th Avenue, by railroad tycoon George Russell (Morgan Spector) and his wife Bertha (Carrie Coon). It’s not just huge, it’s ostentatious, designed by an architect that has never built a house in that tony neighborhood before. It’s perfect for entertaining all of Upper Manhattan’s society, which is exactly why Bertha had it built the way it was.

Across the street from this massive edifice are sisters Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon). Ada never married, but the mostly grumpy and stubborn Agnes feels she had no such luck; she had to marry because their brother squandered whatever fortune they have on booze, women and bad investments. They represent old money New York society; their family having been in Manhattan since the late 1600s, when the Dutch were the dominant residents of the island.

In Pennsylvania, Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), learns that her recently-deceased father, Agnes and Ada’s brother, rented their house and basically left her with 30 dollars to her name. Her lawyer, Tom Raikes (Thomas Cocquerel), suggests that she appeal to her aunts in New York and move in with them, despite the fact that they had little to do with her father during most of Marian’s life. Ada receives Marian’s letter and gets her reluctant sister to agree to the arrangement, given that she’s family and has nowhere else to go.

At the train station, Marian gets robbed of her money and train tickets. There, she meets Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), who is returning to Brooklyn after going to college and isn’t enthusiastic about it. Peggy generously fronts her a ticket, and Marian brings her to her aunts’ house when the pier for the Brooklyn ferry washes out. Agnes eventually hires her on as a secretary when she sees Peggy’s fine handwriting skills, much to the consternation of some of the more racist members of the staff — but she has the support of Bannister (Simon Jones), the family’s longtime butler.

Bertha and her teenage daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) go to a fundraising function, where the society women are shocked to see her, mainly because of how George Russell makes his millions — through brute force and intimidation. But they meet Marion there, who takes a liking to them. Marion also eventually meets Bertha’s son Larry (Harry Richardson), who has just graduated from Harvard and had just met Agnes’ son Oscar (Blake Ritson) at a party in Newport.

Though Bertha invites all of Upper Manhattan society to her first big party, and tells her staff to cater for 200, no one shows up. Agnes and Ada refuse to go just on principle. But, with Peggy’s help, Marian sneaks across the street to pop in, long enough to talk to Larry and to see the only other society person to show up, Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara).

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Let’s say that The Gilded Age has the tone of Julian Fellowes’ best known series, Downton Abbey, with some of the spiciness of Bridgerton.

Our Take: Fellowes takes much of the 80-minute first episode setting up all of the players in his tale of 1880s New York society. The show isn’t called The Gilded Age for nothing; robber barons like George Russell represent that era’s new rich, people who have recently come into money via railroad building, stock speculation, oil, or other new avenues of wealth. He not only has to introduce us to the new-money Russells but the old-money Brook/van Rhijn family, but both sets of servants, Marion Brook, Peggy Scott, and the various other members of the enclosed social circle that Bertha is trying to enter.

It’s a lot for 80 minutes, but Fellowes manages to sort it out with his usual combination of smart writing and ace casting. Pairing Nixon and Baranski as sisters who are polar opposites in temperament immediately rounds out their initial characterizations. Baranski is the expert in drollness, and she leans into that as the cynical Agnes, and somehow Nixon looks more vivacious as the ever-positive Ada than she does as Miranda in And Just Like That.

Coon, of course, excels at playing strong characters, as we saw in The Leftovers. Bertha is incredibly resilient, and is determined to break the barriers around the old-money society that’s steadfastly wants to keep her and her husband out. Coon plays that determination perfectly.

We haven’t seen a lot of Jacobson, who plays Marion, but considering her mother (Meryl Streep) and two older sisters (Maime Gummer, Grace Gummer) are all fantastic actors, it stands to reason that Jacobson can handle Fellowes’ world well. And she does, with a radiance that grows as her confidence in herself grows in the first episode.

We also love the chemistry that she has with Benton, who plays Peggy. Because Peggy is Black, their friendship is one that is likely frowned upon in New York society of the time, but Peggy and Marion feed off each other, and it shows in how quickly the two become friends. We also appreciate that, unlike shows like Bridgerton that diversify the cast and don’t address the issues people of color faced even in places like London or New York, we see the overt racism that Peggy sees every single day, even among the staff she’s living with.

We haven’t mentioned the staffs from either house, but they are a big part of the story, especially in the Russell home. Turner (Kelley Curran) is an ambitious maid who seems to have designs on George and a lot of ease about complaining about Bertha to anyone on the staff who will listen. Of the staff members, her character is the most developed, but we suspect we’ll get more from a number of staff members of both houses in coming episodes.

It isn’t until the very end of the episode that things start to get spicy. Peggy, who wants to be a writer — against her father’s wishes — is sure to write about her experiences with the van Rijin family, and George — well, let’s say that George is hiding something about himself that no one in New York society can even wrap their minds around. That hint of spice tells us that The Gilded Age is ramping up to be about a lot more than just politeness, unwritten rules, and new money coming after old money’s territory.

Sex and Skin: None so far, but we’re only one episode in.

Parting Shot: Bertha lies in bed after her failed party. George reassures her that “defeat is not your color.” The invitation that was thrown in the Astors’ fireplace burns. Bertha lies on her side, not crying anymore but angry and ready to do whatever it takes to be a part of New York society.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Taissa Farmiga for playing Gladys, because we generally like her in whatever she’s in, but…

Most Pilot-y Line: Gladys is not “out” in society yet, and a bit naïve, but wishes her mother didn’t treat her like a child anymore. Here’s the problem: Farmiga is 27 years old, and she’s trying to play someone who could be as young as 16. We’re wondering where this story is going that made Fellowes cast her as a teenager, but for right now we’re not seeing it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Like Downtown Abbey before it, The Gilded Age doesn’t spend a lot of time getting bogged down in the mechanics of the era it covers. Fellowes is more interested in the personalities of the people he writes and the situations they find themselves in, and it feels like the show is getting ready to examine just that after a first episode that had a lot of setup.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Gilded Age On HBO Max