‘The Gilded Age’ Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: Reversal of Fortune

I know a lot of people caught on to Maud Beaton and had their theories about her, but in my naive heart, I did not have “Maud Beaton is a 19th Century scammer” on my Gilded Age bingo card. (If anything, I thought Oscar was the scammer, weaseling his way into her [fake] fortune.) As an aside, if I did have a bingo card for this show, it would definitely include spaces for “Dinner service DRAMA!,” “Aunt Agnes comes up with withering colloquialism for ‘poor people’,” “A butler saves the day,” and “Armstrong’s racially insensitive remarks ruin an otherwise nice moment between servants.”

In this, the penultimate episode of season two, there were several huge moments, including Oscar van Rhijn’s (Blake Ritson) downfall thanks to Maud, which leads to Aunt Agnes (Christine Baranski) learning that her family fortune has been stolen, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, and of course, the tragic death of Reverend Luke Forte (Robert Sean Leonard). Even though he was only with us a short time, his loss will be felt for a long time to come.

Just when we thought that George Russell (Morgan Spector) was turning into a kinder, gentler hot rich guy last week by not allowing his striking steel workers to get shot, we learn that he’s not all that kind and gentle after all. (Still hot and rich tho!) George reveals to his right-hand man Clay that his concessions and the meager raise to the striking men were only given on a temporary contract. Russell explains that “by the time the contract runs out, the craftsmen and the laborers will hate each other, and everyone will hate the Catholic immigrants and the Jews.” Yeah, he said that. George’s plan is for things will go back to the way they were, with all of these workmen simply serving as putty in the hands of the rich masters they serve. The other rich boss men in the industry hate George for giving in, but he tries to explain to them that if he didn’t give in, public sympathy would start to lean in favor of the workers, so best to throw scraps at the laborers to look good.

He’s got a whole thing worked out. “My moment of tenderness turns out to be my trump card,” he proudly says.

Marian (Louisa Jacobson) is still, regrettably, engaged to Cousin Dashiell (David Furr), but on the bright side, Reverend Forte/Uncle Luke collapses at her engagement party which takes the focus off Marian after Aunt Agnes’s attempt to fast-track the wedding. Luke has the “sunken eye” dark circles that every TV character who nears death’s doorstep gets when it’s their final episode, and after his collapse, Agnes insists that her home become a hospice where she and Ada will care for him from now on.

This also gives Agnes an opportunity to show her oft-hidden soft side. As she sits with Luke, she acknowledges to the dying man that he has “given [her] sister a taste of the kind of happiness she had never known… you have changed her life.”

Bertha Russell, who is clearly winning the opera war these days now that she has an English duke attending the Met’s opening night as her guest, is blindsided when Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) invites her at long last to have a box at the Academy. Mrs. Astor knows Bertha’s winning, and a box at the Academy is her Achilles Heel. Bertha says she’ll consider it, but George thinks it’s a bad idea – after all, the Met has become her baby and he knows Mrs. Astor is trying to buy off Bertha. (George knows about buying people off, as it’s exactly what he’s done with his steel workers. Henderson, the head of the mill, knows he’s being bought off, and hints to George that he won’t let it divide his workers. )

Oscar, who hasn’t seen George Russell since George told Oscar to get out of Gladys’s love life, approaches his neighbor to apologize for making things awkward… see, the new business venture that Oscar has spent his family fortune on, the Casterbridge Pacific Railroad, bid against George’s company for a new railway. Russell gives his best Mariah Carey “I don’t know her” face and tells Oscar “I’ve never heard of Casterbridge Pacific. I make it my business to know every major player in my industry. If I have not heard of them, they cannot be of any consequence.” And that’s when Oscar’s downward spiral begins. He goes to the office he once visited with Maud Beaton, where he invested his money, to find it deserted. He goes to Maud’s house, only to find that she’s never lived there. She’s been duping him, as well as the rest of New York society, and is not in fact the illegitimate daughter of Jay Gould, but just some scammer with a fancy parasol. The only person Oscar can confide in about the situation is his ex, John Adams, and while he visits with John, he fully breaks down. “Oh God, John, I’ve ruined everything,” he weeps.

At a charity tea thrown by Aurora Fane, Mrs. Astor loudly announces that Bertha should come inspect her new box at the Academy. Bertha explains that she’s not actually interested in the Academy anymore, and Mrs. Astor tells her she’s making a fool of herself.

“I could not imagine you to be so deluded as to turn me down,” Mrs. Astor tells Bertha, and she leaves the tea before it even begins. While it would seem that Bertha continues to shimmy her way up the social ladder, the incident fuels Mrs. Astor in her fight against Bertha and the Met even more.

Who knew that Larry Russell was such a feminist? After his meeting last week with Emily Roebling, the wife of the Brooklyn Bridge’s chief engineer Washington Roebling, he learned that Emily, an accomplished engineer herself, has been spearheading construction of the bridge for years. Larry is determined to give her the credit she’s due, but the bridge’s primary trustee, Mr. Tate, is not so charitable. He doesn’t want people to know the extent of Emily’s work, for fear that people with think the bridge shoddy, but Larry has other plans. At the grand opening celebration for the bridge, which the entire city is coming out for, Larry goes rogue: he outs Emily as the engineer, to everyone’s shock. Emily herself is grateful for the acknowledgement. (In real life, Congressman Abram Hewitt delivered a similar speech at the bridge’s opening, acknowledging Emily’s accomplishments.)

First feminism, and now integration, there’s nothing this episode doesn’t have. In Brooklyn, Peggy’s been helping with the fight to keep the Black schools open, and after discussion, it seems that the only way to do so is to recruit white teachers who will, in turn, entice white parents to send their children to the integrated schools. Though Marian is happy to speak on behalf of the cause, the only white people they can entice to actually work in the Black schools are immigrants like the Irish, who were themselves persecuted on their arrival to the country. Through all of it, Peggy is awkwardly trying to understand her feelings for T. Thomas Fortune, who is her married boss, but who she’s also crushing on. Her mother is no fool though, she knows what’s up and rather than tell Peggy to stay away from Fortune, she simply tells her daughter, “I raised you better than that.”

As the whole city is out and about celebrating the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, Uncle Luke is dying. Ada tells him “It’s alright if you go now,” and as she lies down in the bed with him, fireworks go off outside and the crowds outside ooh and ahh at the world’s newest wonder, he dies in his sleep. Though they spent much of the season divides, it’s Agnes who’s there to comfort her sister in her grief.

Though Agnes only has thoughts of Ada on her mind, Oscar finally shows up after being M.I.A. from the van Rhijn home, and reveals to his mother his bad news. “I’ve made a bad mistake,” Oscar tells Agnes. He then adds, “My mistake involves you, mother.” And that’s when it becomes clear that Oscar hasn’t just lost his own money. He’s lost the entire van Rhijn fortune.

Stray Thoughts:

• Bannister pulled a favor for Jack and got him into a watch-making society, so now his clock patent can go legit! Maybe the van Rhijn fortune can be recovered when Jack becomes a wealthy clock entrepreneur?
• Watson (a.k.a. Collier) finally gets his happy ending… sort of. It feels odd that two seasons-worth of drama over Watson secretly stalking his daughter, Flora McNeil, and her husband’s attempts to erase Watson from their life would end so succinctly but I’ll take it. Flora, who arrives at the Russells’ home unexpectedly, reveals that her a-hole husband was behind the whole plot to move Watson to California, but she wants him to live in New York and be close to her after all. While he’ll enjoy an all-expenses paid retirement and a relationship with Flora, he’ll have to leave his job behind.
• Finally, Mrs. Bruce and Chef Josh Borden had their date! I’ve been waiting for any new development in this relationship.
• This Duke of Buckingham – what’s his deal? Does he know he’s a pawn in everyone’s game? First he was Mrs. Winterton’s duke, then he was Bertha’s, and now Mrs. Astor has invited him to the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, making him her duke. Maybe the more relevant question is: Is he really all that special?

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.