‘The Gilded Age’ Finale Proved That Tom Raikes is a Loser

The Gilded Age‘s first season came to a spectacular end last night with Marion (Louisa Jacobson) finally learning what I’ve known from the beginning: Tom Raikes (Thomas Coquerel) sucks. The Doylestown lawyer is a schemer, not a dreamer. He’s what the kids today would call a “clout-chaser,” obsessed with networking his way into bigger parties with “better” people than the friends he has today. While it’s tragic that Marion was naive enough not to see it — or listen to Aunt Agnes (Christine Baranski)!!! — I, for one, am so relieved that The Gilded Age doubled down on this storyline. I could not take a second season where I was bullied into believed Mr. Raikes was some kind of noble romantic hero. The Gilded Age‘s Season 1 finale at least did that one thing right.

The Gilded Age is Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes’s love letter to the most decadent chapter in American history. In the 1880s, industry was booming, money was flowing, and a new wave of tycoons took over New York society. The robber barons pumped their enormous wealth into New York City, building massive mansions and establishing many of the city’s most iconic sites. It was also a time of scandal and sensuality. HBO’s The Gilded Age is a perfectly opulent soap opera that delights in showing off the obscene wealth and petty squabbles of the time.

In the first episode of The Gilded Age, Marion Brook is stunned to discover that her father has left her nothing but debt in his will. She is persuaded to move to New York City to live with her wealthy aunts, Agnes and Ada (Cynthia Nixon). Fretting over her departure? Her father’s smitten lawyer, Mr. Raikes.

For most of The Gilded Age‘s run, the show has positioned Mr. Raikes’s interest in Marion as charming. He is, after all, an attractive young man who is clearly smitten with the grieving maiden. This was actually my problem with him from the jump. When we first meet both Raikes and Marion, he’s breaking the news about her father’s financial ruin. She is mourning. And he is flirting with her. For me, hitting on a grieving woman when you’re supposed to be delivering serious legal news is kind of a red flag! Like, read the room, Raikes. Marion is at her most vulnerable and you’re flirting with her? Stop it. Even Sex and the City‘s Harry Goldenblatt waited until his work divorcing Charlotte York from Trey MacDougal was done before he tried to officially make a move. (He schmutzed on her divorce papers, but he was trying to be professional!)

I was increasingly creeped out by the way Raikes just quits everything in his life and moves to New York City to chase Marion. They spoke, what? Twice? And he decides to uproot his whole world to live and work in the big city? Just for her? The problem is it becomes increasingly clear that he either feels entitled to Marion or he’s just using her to make connections. Both are bad!

So when the clues started stacking up that Raikes was just looking for the richest bride he could nab, I felt sadly vindicated. When he jilts Marion on the day they were supposed to elope, I was relieved. I was tired of playing along with Julian Fellowes, humoring the writer’s rose-tinted view of Mr. Raikes. I couldn’t take another stolen stroll where we were supposed to be happy that Marion was turning her back on her own social opportunities to fawn over a middle class creep.

Now I am free to say it: I hate Tom Raikes. And now The Gilded Age does, too.

Where to stream The Gilded Age