‘The Gilded Age’ Season 2, Episode 1 Recap: Let The Opera Wars Begin

Welcome back to a new season of The Gilded Age, the show that consistently underscores the fact that the one percent have always been one-percenting, only back in 1883, the boots that stood on the necks of the poor took an hour to lace up.

This season – and by season, I obviously mean opera season, what else? – Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) has found herself yet again at the bottom of the wait-list for a box at the Academy of Music, where the cream of the crop gather to watch world-class performances from opera’s finest singers. (Sidebar: If there’s one thing real New Yorkers like to do, it’s give directions. And if there’s a second thing New Yorkers like to do, it’s remember back when a storefront used to be a different storefront. So here’s a two-for: The real Academy Of Music was an ornate opera house located at the corner of 14th Street and Irving Place just off Union Square. It was torn down in 1926 to make way for the Con Ed building, the one with the big clock tower. Ward McAllister’s Four Hundred would be rolling in their graves if they knew that one of their biggest class conflicts would be over a plot of land that now sit across from Trader Joe’s.)

The show begins at Easter, with New Yorkers of every class attending church and having the good sense not to resurrect their bitter rivalries in a house of worship. Still, it’s hard for people like Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) and Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) to stomach the fact that the Russells are but a pew away. Though these congregants are all welcome in the house of the Lord, Bertha is resentful that she’s unable to get a box at the prestigious Academy of Music. The Academy of Music is perhaps the purest symbol of old money, honey, and Bertha just doesn’t have that legacy.

Mrs. Astor remains cool to Bertha, despite the fact that their daughters, Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) and Carrie (Amy Forsyth) are close friends and Bertha has been kissing up to her forever now. Bertha invites Mrs. Astor to tea to appeal to her, and while Mrs. Astor gives Bertha credit for working hard to be accepted into society, there are only so many strings she can pull at the opera. When Bertha suggests that she’ll just buy a box at the newly built Metropolitan Opera House, Mrs. Astor bristles, telling her that she’d just be “throwing away” any goodwill she’s built up with the old guard.

“I suppose I’d like to go where I am valued, where people are friendly,” Bertha says in response, to which Mrs. Astor quips, “Well, the audience at the new opera house will be easy to meet, but you’ll find they’re hard to get rid of.” In short, you new-money scum all deserve each other. (Oh, and another New York real estate sidebar before I forget: The Metropolitan Opera building, located at 1411 Broadway at 39th street, would eventually be demolished in 1966 and the location is now an office tower that’s home to a co-working space. I’m just glad it’s not like, a Chase Bank. OH WAIT, IT IS ALSO A CHASE BANK. The Gilded Age hath given way to the ATM Vestibule Age.)

Bertha tells Mrs. Astor she’s planning to hold a dinner for opera enthusiasts so they can all discuss matters further, though Bertha plans to use that dinner as a recruitment tool to find like-minded and similarly-shunned rich friends. (“You don’t even like opera!” George Russell hilariously points out to his wife.) In essence, Bertha is organizing the Nouveau Riche, banding together with others who have similarly been shut out of the Academy and persuading them to buy into the boxes at the newly-constructed Metropolitan Opera House. The fact that Bertha is unionizing the young and rich now is ironic considering the fact that her husband George (Morgan Spector), robber baron of the rail system, is now fighting against his unionized workers. Or, as he puts it, he has “some troublesome business in Pittsburgh” to deal with. George, all they want is not to die on the job, can you not cut them slack? Alas, he cannot, and when he meets with fellow robber baron Jay Gould, though they’re rivals in the same industry, they find common ground in that they want to stop their workers from having things like an 8-hour day or healthcare. Their hope is that the workers will start fighting among themselves and turn on each other rather than turning on them. Capitalism, you old so-and-so! Great to see you.

Peggy Scott (Deneé Benton) and her parents Dorothy (Audra McDonald) and Arthur (John Douglas Thompson) are not taking in the Easter service near their home in Brooklyn, instead, they’ve traveled to Philadelphia where their Sunday service has been combined with a funeral for Peggy’s son, Thomas, the baby that her father secretly sent away and told Peggy that he had died in childbirth. Though we learned about that situation at the end of last season, and learned of Peggy’s desire to meet Thomas, in the time span between then and now the boy and his adoptive mother caught scarlet fever and died. With so much frivolity and class warfare plaguing the rest of the characters on the show, Peggy’s loss, as well as her feelings toward her father, are an emotional ballast for the series: she might just be the only on the show dealing with any real grief, guilt and trauma while the rest of them flit and fret about the opera in their mansions. The situation causes Peggy and her mother to hold Arthur responsible for Thomas’s death: though the man thought he was doing what was best for Peggy by sending him away, they feel like the boy never would have gotten sick had he stayed with Peggy. It’s a remorse they all share, but one that causes Peggy to need time away from her family. “We have been trapped in this trio of regret for too long,” Peggy tells her parents, so she asks Marian if she can return to the van Rhijn’s home as Agnes’s secretary. (A job she left after the van Rhijn housekeeper Armstrong racistly tried to get her fired.)

While last season Peggy was the one with secrets, this season it’s Marian Brook who’s keeping things from everyone. When Aunt Agnes hears that her nephew, Dashiell Montgomery (David Furr) and his 14-year-old daughter Frances are in New York, Marian hesitates to meet with them – the timing conflicts with something she’s got going on on Thursdays. It turns out that Marian has secretly been teaching at a girls’ school and hiding it from Agnes, who she knows will disapprove, but things get more complicated when Marian puts together that Frances is one of her students. Aunt Agnes tears Marian a new one for her deception, but Marian bites right back, calling Agnes mean and cruel. That goes as well as you can imagine, and Aunt Ada nearly passes out from all the raised voices.

And then we have Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson), Agnes’s son and the sole van Rhijn heir. Last season, Oscar hatched a plan to woo Gladys Russell. In her, he saw an opportunity to marry into wealth, and take advantage of her naiveté so that he could make her his beard and carry on with his boyfriend John Adams-no-not-THE-John-Adams. But these days, Gladys is icing Oscar out, John Adams seems to have moved on, and all Oscar wants to do is drink his problems away. Unfortunately, at the bar on Easter Sunday (this was pre-Prohibition before bars were ordered closed on Sundays), Oscar made a move on the wrong guy who beat him up as a result. Though he tells his family he was mugged, when John Adams comes over to console Oscar, he reveals the truth to him.

Oscar has come to the sad realization that if he is true to himself and remains a bachelor in a secret relationship with Adams for the rest of his days, the van Rhijn name dies with him. That’s not something his family can bear, which is why he’s put all his efforts into pursuing Gladys. At least with her he could produce an heir, even if it means he’d likely cheat on her with Adams in secret. Oscar asks Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara) to throw a welcome tea for Dashiell Montgomery, their cousin who has returned to New York, and invite Gladys.

At the party, Oscar takes the opportunity to explain to Gladys that he could also promise her independence; she wouldn’t live under his thumb. He doesn’t offer her a ring, but he does propose marriage, even if, to him, it’s more of an understanding than a romance.

The episode culminates with Bertha Russell’s dinner in support of the new opera house. Though she billed the evening as a night for all opera lovers (to dupe Mrs. Astor into coming), essentially it was a dinner in support of the new Met, and perhaps it was also to show Mrs. Astor, very pointedly, that Bertha means business when it comes to taking a seat at the head of high society’s table. Or in the opera box, if you will. When the guests arrive, its a who’s who of people Mrs. Astor and the Academy have screwed over time and again. (“Have you combed the city for the disenchanted rich?” Mrs. Astor asks Bertha. What a line!)

Bertha tells her guest Mamie Fish, “I simply want Mrs. Astor to understand the competition the Academy will face,” when she explains why she has called everyone together and then Bertha simply trots out the biggest opera star of the day, Christina Nilsson, to serenade her guests. Everyone is stunned, especially Mrs. Astor – Christina Nilsson is not just a great talent, but she doesn’t perform anywhere but the Academy when she’s in New York. It’s a shock! Nay, it’s an affront! But that’s Bertha for you.

Stray Thoughts:

Robert Sean Leonard has joined that cast as the rector at church, and you’ve gotta love when the rector is a gossip. When he tells Agnes, Ada and Marian he’s performing a wedding, they all bristle to hear that the wedding is between Sissy Bingham and Marian’s ex, Tom Raikes who, as we can all agree, sucks.

Please let’s never stop making fun of the Russells’ chef, Josh Borden, who faked a French accent and was revealed to be from Kansas last season. The fact that his colleagues in the Russell household find great joy in making jokes at his expense is a delight.

Watson’s (Michael Cerveris) secret is finally revealed: his daughter is Mrs. Robert McNeil, who is attending the Russell’s opera dinner. As you’d imagine, she’s not happy to learn her father is someone’s butler. When she tells her husband Mr. Robert McNeil that Watson is her father, he’s vaguely threatening about what he plans to do to Watson.

SPOTTED: The van Rhijn’s butler John – who went on a date once with their housekeeper Bridget but things didn’t work out thanks to her past trauma – getting flirty with the Russell’s lady’s maid Miss Watson at church! Bridget also spotted, looking not thrilled.

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.