‘The Gilded Age’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: Turner’s Return

If there’s one thing we know about George Russell (Morgan Spector), it’s that the man is the worst kind of capitalist pig. But he contains multitudes, and so I’m happy to report that he is also a doting father, at least to his best girl Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), a young lady coming of age in an era where family money and reputation matters when discussing marriage. Funny how some men can be so publicly cruel and vicious, while tending to their private matters with so much care. George isn’t as concerned as his wife Bertha (Carrie Coon) about Gladys’s position in society or accepting a marriage proposal from a man whose family has an upstanding name. He wants his gal to marry for love: it’s a bit of a surprise to hear him say it, but it just goes to show that George Russell can be a softie when he wants to be. (Just never with unionized his workers.)

This is where The Gilded Age Season 2 Episode 2 begins: with Gladys refusing to go to the Russell’s new Newport mansion for the summer until she finalizes her answer to Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson), who has asked her to marry him. Oscar has written to George to ask for Gladys’s hand, and so father and daughter have an honest conversation about the offer. Now, we all know Oscar only wants Gladys for her money, but Gladys thinks his offer to marry is worth entertaining: she’s not in love with him, but he makes her laugh, and he has promised her the freedom to make her own decisions. (“Marriage is not the place to look for freedom,” George responds, and you know Julian Fellowes probably scribbled this line furiously into his script while thinking, “Damn, I am good.”)

George may not know Oscar’s sexual preference, but, being the shrewd businessman that he is, he can smell a lopsided offer from a mile away, and he knows that Oscar didn’t propose out of love. And so, George tells Gladys to wait until true love comes along, and when she does find it, he will support her decision to marry. In the meantime, he’ll let Oscar down gently. When the time comes, he’s anything but gentle. However cool and genteel Oscar is with George, George flatly rejects his offer of “a marriage of convenience” before kicking him out of his office. After last week’s episode where a dejected and drunken Oscar was beaten up after making advances on a man in a bar after feeling ignored by Gladys, he doubles down on his depression, flopping around on his mother’s couch like a sad fish after George shuts him down.

While Oscar wallows in despair, Aunt Agnes (Christine Baranski) is still cranky over niece Marian’s (Louisa Jacobson) secret job as an art teacher at a girls’ school, but Marian is proving herself to be a wonderful teacher. One of her students, Frances Montgomery, whose father Dashiell (David Furr) is Marian’s sort-of-cousin-by-marriage, has taken to her, as has Dashiell himself.

While Aunt Agnes is upset that Marian is taking work for herself, she’s not upset at the fact that Peggy Scott (Deneé Benton) wants to come back to work for her as a secretary. Agnes shows so much care for Peggy; if only she reserved a tiny portion of said care for Marian, but alas, Peggy’s not a blood relative who could sully the family reputation. Agnes knows full well that her ladies maid, Miss Armstrong (Debra Monk) is pretty racist, and she’s the reason Peggy chose to leave her job the previous year, and so she assures Peggy that Armstrong will not be a problem for her. When Agnes does confront Armstrong about treating Peggy with more respect, Armstrong is unable to make any promises. “Your fate is in your hands, if you show kindness to Miss Scott then you may keep your position,” Agnes says. “But Ma’am!” Armstrong objects. I mean, all Armstrong has to do is not be racist and she can keep her job, but old habits die hard. (When Armstrong does interact with Peggy, she continues to treat her as subhuman, which causes Peggy to call her out by paraphrasing that wise sage Kandi Burruss, who once said “don’t start none, won’t be none.” )

Once Bertha, Larry (Harry Richardson), and Gladys Russell are in Newport, blossoming architect Larry finds a new job renovating the home of widow Susan Blane (season two newcomer Laura Benanti).

Mrs. Blane’s husband Richard was a real snooze. He died and left her his house, his fortune, and a desire to seize upon her youth, which appears to have been misspent with a man much older than her. She is not subtle about her crush on the much-younger Larry.

In her, he sees good bones of a house. In him, she just sees a good bone. I said it!

While we have been teased with kissing and some nudity that did not lead to sex in the past, The Gilded Age has rarely discussed sex as directly as it does in this episode. It’s clear that Larry and Mrs. Blane have had sex, which causes Bertha great concern. “Decent women don’t sleep with men half their age,” she tells her son, because of course she’s only concerned with how the relationship will reflect on their family name. (Later, Bertha and George appear to get it on in the plant (?) room of their mansion. Old marrieds still got it!)

Once the rest of society – the Fanes, Oscar, Marian, Dashiell Montgomery, etc. – arrive in Newport, everyone heads to the casino where a tennis tournament is being played. (Dick Sears, one of Larry’s classmates from Harvard, is competing in a match. This is incidental to the plot, but considering how many times they drop the name “Dick Sears,” it seems important to point out that Sears was a real person, and one of the first famous American tennis players.) Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara) attempts to do Marian a favor by setting her up with her husband Charles’ colleague, Edward Morgan, but Morgan is a dandy, a drunk, and a bore. Marian repeatedly tries to escape him politely (ah, has there ever been a more realistic portrayal of the female experience?). Interestingly, while at the tennis club, Marian has flirtations with both Larry Russell (which did not go unnoticed by Mrs. Blane) and Cousin Dashiell, who both attempt to rescue her as best they can from Morgan. When Marian helps Dashiell with a bet on the match and he ends up winning, he tells he he owes her a treat as thanks. This sets the two of them up at the very least to have another moment together somewhere down the line.

In the season premiere of The Gilded Age, we got an earful about how poor old Aunt Ada (Cynthia Nixon) has never found a man. But lest you think she might die a spinster (a word derived from older, unmarried women who worked as wool-spinners, not too far from Ada’s penchant for needlepoint), it appears to be cuffing season… or should I say, collaring season, because Ada has a crush on the Reverend Forte (Robert Sean Leonard). And if you’re concerned about Ada setting her sights on a man of the cloth, he’s Episcopal, so he can marry if he wants to.

The Reverend, who has recently moved to New York from Boston, pahks his cah in front of the van Rhijns to join them for tea. The Boston accent is an enigma that has eluded almost every actah to evah attempt it, and Leonard is no exception. His is passable, though it serves more as a distraction than a charactah trait, but that’s not his fault. (I’m from Massachusetts and grew up going to the bahthroom and knocking back Fribbles, this is truly the only thing I’m qualified to judge.) Throughout the tea, Ada peppers him with personal questions, and Agnes chides her for it after he leaves. (“Hardened criminals have answered fewer questions in the dock,” Agnes berates her sister.)

While we saw the softer side of George Russell as he dealt with Gladys, we also see the harder side of him, the vicious businessman, when he learns that workers in Chicago have been going on strike to protest their wages and working conditions. If his iron and steel workers in Pittsburgh take a cue, it could threaten Russell’s business, so he tells his right-hand man Clay (Patrick Page, who might have the most deliciously evil voice ever) to bribe the union rep in Pittsburgh, a man named Henderson, so he’ll keep his workers in line. (“Suppose he’s a man of principle?” Clay worries. It turns out, Henderson is a man of principle and is not easily bought off. Clay and Russell decide to bring Henderson to New York so George can bribe him in person.)

To take his mind off of business, George surprises Bertha by arriving in Newport to attend a party thrown by Mr. McAllister (Nathan Lane). McAllister has revealed to Bertha that a very wealthy old friend, Mr. Joshua Winterton, and his new wife will be attending the party, and they might just be interested in taking up Bertha’s cause to support the Metropolitan Opera House. When the Russells are introduced to the Wintertons, Bertha’s blood runs cold and George is speechless. Because the mysterious Mrs. Winterton, the new wife who has married into old money, is none other than Miss Turner (Kelley Curran), Bertha’s former ladies maid who was sacked last season, you know, the one who tried to seduce George. Last season when Turner was fired from the Russell household, she made an ominous statement before leaving, telling George, “Perhaps we’ll meet again.” In hindsight, it seems she knew what she was playing at all along.

Stray Thoughts:

I might be jumping ahead, but is the van Rhijn’s butler, John, about to get a story arc where he becomes a prestigious alarm clock maker? (I HOPE SO.) And am I invested in this new, dumb development? (OH, YES). Wait, is his last name SonyDreamMachine??? That would explain a lot.

What do we suppose Mr. Robert McNeil is up to? We know that Watson is Flora McNeil’s father, and that it would harm the McNeils’ reputation if anyone found out that a servant is related to them. But what does Mr. McNeil want from Watson and why is he poking around the Russell’s house looking for him?

Has Oscar already found a rebound in Maude Beaton (Nicole Brydon Bloom), the woman who may or may not be the illegitimate child of Jay Gould? It sure seems like it.

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.