‘The Gilded Age’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: Wilde’n Out

“Women are made to be loved, not understood.” Oscar Wilde wrote that, and it’s only right that the playwright makes an appearance in this week’s episode of The Gilded Age; perhaps the quote came to him after meeting some of the characters in our beloved show. Before we discuss Wilde’s trip to New York, however, lets discuss these women we love but don’t fully understand.

One of the most impressive things about Carrie Coon‘s portrayal of Bertha Russell on The Gilded Age is the steeliness with which she carries herself; no matter who she deals with, be it her children, her friends, or her bitter rivals, Bertha remains even-keeled and rarely relents. Never in a million years would we have ever assumed Bertha Russell would grovel to anyone, much less grovel to her former ladies maid, but here we are; her steely demeanor replaced by, dare I say it, fear that her social status and her marriage might be in jeopardy.

The ladies maid, Miss Turner (Kelley Curran), warned us all that she would be back despite the fact that she was fired from the Russell household last season, but no one could have expected she’d return so spectacularly. In the time since she left the Russells, she done went and married up in the world (one of the Russells’ butlers reveals that she wrote an admiring letter to the wealthy Mr. Winterton and also maybe seduced him in the same way she tried to seduce George Russell, though the question remains, does Winterton even know she was once a servant?). With Bertha relying on the support of New York’s young and rich to fund the new Metropolitan Opera House, she had hoped she could count on the new Mrs. Winterton to back her. She was very wrong.

Bertha has left Newport and returned to New York so she can throw a tea party for potential benefactors of the Met, and the new Mrs. Winterton is, awkwardly, now a guest in the home she once served. But Bertha warns her butler, Church (Jack Gilpin), of Winterton’s arrival by saying, “One of my guests today may surprise you, but please don’t show it.” While Church keeps his cool, ladies maid Adelheid (Erin Wilhelmi) isn’t capable of doing such a thing, and she races back to the servants quarters like she’s Paul Revere on speed yelling, “She’s here! She’s here!” to anyone who will listen. And not only is Winterton/Turner here, she’s a fucking rich wife now. “Wake up! This is America, you can be anything you want, I should know,” Josh Borden, the chef from Kansas who pretended he was French, laughs.

At the tea, Bertha announces that the Met’s season will open on the very same date that the Academy of Music’s season begins. Yes, the two houses will be going head to head in an opera battle for the ages. While Bertha was hoping to court some of the Academy’s patrons and see if they’d consider having a box at both houses, this decision forces them to choose sides once and for all. As Bertha discusses the matter with Mamie Fish, Mrs. Winterton approaches her to tell her she’s not planning to take a box at the Met, and then snidely says, “At one time, I knew a woman who was really desperate to get on their list, so I feel it would be most ungrateful of me not to enjoy it,” adding “like so many other who failed, she now supports the Met.” Bertha has to sit there and take the insult quietly, so as not to reveal the nature of her relationship with Mrs. Winterton, and she immediately realizes that she’s no longer the most calculating woman in New York.

When Mrs. Fish excuses herself, Bertha drops the act and mentions that the tables have really… TURNERED… since she last saw her ladies maid, and she really would appreciate her support. Mrs. Winterton coolly asks, “Are you threatening me with exposure?” Bertha is too smart to do the 1883 version of doxxing her nemesis, and says she doesn’t want to make trouble, but Mrs. Winterton goes even further, by saying, “If I were you, I would discuss it with George before you decide to stir things up… He never told you about us? Funny, I thought that’s why I was sacked.”

Bertha has been in the dark about the whole Turner-showing-up-naked-in-George’s-bed situation that happened last year, and to his credit, George never acted upon her advances. But when he comes clean and tells Bertha that Turner did indeed try to seduce him, she flies into a rage. “You never told me,” Bertha accuses George. “There was nothing to tell,” he replies. But keeping this from Bertha was a breach of trust. “You allowed me to be waited on, to have my hair arranged, my clothes chosen, my bath run, by a woman who had been naked with my husband?… I call that betrayal,” she cries, and thus, she begins a lengthy silent treatment. Bertha is certainly being dramatic with all her first world problems (some of us have to run our own baths!) but this is the Julian Fellowes way, even when the stakes are low, they can destroy you. It’s hard to imagine what would have happened if George really did anything with Turner.

All of this comes just as George really needs Bertha on his side to convince Mr. Henderson, the union man from Pittsburgh who is leading George’s steel and iron workers, not to lead his men toward a strike. George is ready to bribe Henderson into submission, and he needs Bertha to charm him while they host Henderson in their home. Unfortunately for George, no amount of charm will compromise Henderson’s values, and he tells George he can’t be bought, nor will his support for the union waver.

Back in Newport, Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) is still working on Mrs. Susan Blane’s (Laura Benanti) home renovation, while also getting in some body work from Mrs. Blane. This is a woman who really wants to get her kicks in when she can, and she explains to Larry as she straddles him, “I mean to have a lot of fun this summer and pay no price for it.”

This is the kind of sex-positive feminism The Gilded Age has been lacking! But then again, the last woman we met who lived life on her own scandalously sexy terms was Jeanne Tripplehorn’s Mrs. Chamberlain, who had an affair with a married man and was shunned from society. Even though Larry is outwardly embracing this exciting romance with Mrs. Blane, he does question whether it’s discreet enough, and she assures him there’s nothing to worry about. This sets off alarm bells (for me, at least), because clearly there’s gonna be something to worry about, right?

While Bertha is certain she’ll win the opera war, her pal Mr. McAllister (Nathan Lane) isn’t so sure. Mr. McAllister is known to play with fire, so while he attends Bertha’s tea promoting the Met, mere moments later he appears at the van Rhijns where he and Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) are meeting to conspire against Bertha. Mrs. Astor wants Agnes to send letters to all their friends with boxes at the Academy, warning them that if they take a box at the Met too, their membership at the Academy will be revoked. When McAllister tells them he’s heard that the Met will open on the same night at the Academy, they see that as an affront and are even more motivated to crush Bertha’s opera house like a bug.

As Agnes’s secretary, the task of writing these letters will fall to Peggy (Deneé Benton), but Peggy is also busy herself with her job at The Globe. Her boss, T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones), has reluctantly invited her to join him at Booker T. Washington’s home in Tuskegee, Alabama to commemorate the opening of a dormitory at the Tuskegee Institute. Not only is it unusual for an unmarried man and woman to travel together, but for a Black woman from the north to voluntarily venture to Jim Crow-era Alabama is highly dangerous. Peggy’s mother Dorothy (Audra McDonald) is dead-set against it but when she realizes she can’t persuade Peggy otherwise, she warns “when you cross the [Mason-Dixon] line, you are no longer human.” Dorothy tells Peggy not to look at or speak to a white person, as anything she does could be misconstrued, but Peggy is frustrated by her mother’s warnings, asking, “You’re telling me to be subservient?” It seems unlikely that Peggy, no matter how hard-headed she is, would be this ignorant to the ways of the south, but she’s also defiant: she is going, no matter the risks. After the loss of her child this is the distraction she needs.

In the van Rhijn house, Marian (Louisa Jacobson) and her Aunt Ada (Cynthia Nixon) are both entering possible romance territory, Marian with her kissin’ cousin by marriage, Dashiell Montgomery (David Furr), and Ada with the Reverend Forte (Robert Sean Leonard). Agnes (Christine Baranski) throws a lunch for them all, but unbeknownst to her, clam chowder is on the menu, in honor of the Reverend’s Boston roots. While Hale and Hearty’s entire business model is based on soup for lunch, the ruling class in 1883 would never dream of it, and the sight of the broth before her really does a number on Agnes. This is how Ada flirts though, and it seems to be working on the Reverend, who asks her to join him at an art show for a watercolorist they both admire, Adolph Menzies. Ada knows Agnes will disapprove, she she asks Marian for help, so Ada can slip out without detection. (Marian might be pretty dull, but I love that she’s always up for undermining the status quo.)

And now for the girls gone Wilde part of the show: It seems most of the younger crowd is in attendance at the very first Oscar Wilde play, Vera; or, The Nihilists, which really did run in New York for one week in 1883, to terrible critical reception (both in real life and on the show), which is probably why you’ve never heard of it. Despite the fact that everyone in attendance hated the play, they’re still all excited to meet Wilde himself (whose bon mots rival those of Agnes van Rhijn).

The night is something of a date night for Marian and Dashiell, Larry Russell and Mrs. Blane, and Oscar van Rhijn and Maude Beaton, the young heiress who is newly arrived from Paris. Maude and Oscar seem a solid match when it comes to banter, and her money is certainly appealing to him, though he still can’t stay away from John Adams. (As you’d expect, Oscar Wilde is the only one in the room keen enough to suss out the fact that Oscar and John are gay.)

While everyone is cavorting in New York, back in Pittsburgh, Henderson and his workers are in a dimly lit back room planning a strike. Henderson relays the message that George Russell is a fierce man, he’ll be a brutal force to go up against and Russell will likely try to buy them off and get the men to turn on one another. Henderson gravely warns his workers that they had better be prepared to fight and even die for their cause. The scene is made even more melodramatic by the dim lighting and sad look on Henderson’s wife’s face when she hears him speak of death. But obviously it’s a prediction, too. Henderson and his men are ready to fight against Russell’s “capital.” He may be rich, but he’s ruthless, and that will not stand.

After one of his Stateside visits during this gilded era, Oscar Wilde famously said, “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” It seems like perhaps, thanks to George Russell and men of his ilk, the decadence simply concealed the barbarism.

Stray Thoughts:

We finally know why Watson is estranged from his daughter Flora: Watson used to be named Mr. Collier, and he was a successful banker until he went bankrupt. His wife’s family forced them to divorce when he went broke, and he was cut out of his daughter’s life. Robert McNeil, Flora’s husband, makes him an offer, in order to spare the McNeil family any shame of being affiliated with a servant: They’ll bankroll Watson’s life, if only he’ll shove off and move to California, never to speak to his daughter again. It’s a temping, and cruel, offer.

It seems one of Mrs. Winterton’s friends, now that she’s rich, is the Duke of Buckingham. FROM ENGLAND! The only thing Bertha can think to leverage her situation with Winterton is this Duke’s visit to Newport, so she hatches a secret plan to meet him and to do so, she need’s George help. If he’s helpful enough, only then will Bertha forgive him for his past indiscretions. That’s how this family operates, God love ’em.

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.