Last week on The Gilded Age, it was revealed that George Russell (Morgan Spector) had hired the famous Pinkertons to investigate who was responsible for the attempt on his life. This week, we find out exactly who pulled the trigger, but to understand who this attempted murderer is, you have to stretch your mind grapes all the way back to Season 1 to fully grasp the significance.
Back in the show’s first season, you’ll recall that Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) had not yet become the high society influencer she is now, and she was often scoffed at by the old money women in town. Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara) and Anne Morris (Katie Finneran) were two of the meanest of the mean girls. Anne’s husband, Patrick Morris, was a city alderman who reneged on a promise to George to get a new railway station built, and then lost his fortune when he sold his stocks in Russell Industries. Though he plead for George’s forgiveness so he could salvage his money and reputation, George showed no pity and Mr. Morris killed himself, leaving his family penniless. That’s where we’re at now, as this episode opens with George and the Pinkertons busting into the dilapidated tenement that Mrs. Morris and her son Will (Will Pullen) have been forced to live in, miles from their former society peers. (The grand irony of it all is not just that Mrs. Morris is living in squalor after being so mean to Bertha, but Aurora Fane, too, has essentially been cast out of society because of her divorce. I’m not sure if the lesson here is blah blah blah karma, or just blah blah blah, this was a brutal time to be a woman with no money or husband, but either way, it sucks to be Aurora and Anne these days.)
When George bursts in, Mrs. Morris is shocked to se him. She had no idea that Will was responsible for shooting him, while Will has no remorse and doubles down. “He drove father to take his own life and he was never held accountable!” Will explains to his mother who is devastated at this situation. “Mr. Russell, no! Please, he’s not well,” she begs as the George and Pinkertons drag Will away.
Marian really seemed like she was going to turn a corner last week, turning into a fun person for once. She went downtown to da club for the first time in her life, had a few drinks, had sex with Larry, and now has total buyer’s remorse. When Larry approaches her for the first time after doin’ it, she is ashamed of herself and shocked that he doesn’t feel the same way about their night of sin. “Have you no shame?” she asks. “Of course you don’t, you’re a man.” Listen. While I love, LOVE this energy in general, it just feels very misdirected in this moment. Larry even tells Marian he wants to do the right thing and marry her and she acts insulted, twisting his words around and making him feel bad. She is being the worst. To flagellate herself, she goes off to work at the settlement house to help people who are much worse off than she is…
Even at work, though, she can’t help but be annoying when she projects her own privilege, getting all judgey about a little boy who has been badly burned while working his shift at the ironworks. Apparently, Marian is used to the man of the house being older than 5. His mother is furious that Marian doesn’t understand their plight. (That kid will have kids of his own by the time any real child labor laws are enacted, btw.)
As Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) prepares to host President Grover Cleveland at her home in New York, the Heritage Society has arranged for her to be interviewed by the Ladies Home Journal and attend a night at the Metropolitan Opera to promote the whole affair. Agnes is reluctant but agrees; she doesn’t want her name in print and she really doesn’t want to be seen at the Met. (See also: Season 2, Opera Wars.) This is just one of the thorns in her side this week. Also causing her great irritation: Ada’s (Cynthia Nixon) decision to get new curtains!
George has been acting a little off so far this season, like someone buried him in a pet cemetery and he came back to life hollow-eyed and extra bitchy. This rude ‘tude all comes spilling out during a meeting with John D. Rockefeller, who will not budge in what he’s offering George for transport fees for oil. Rockefeller then explains that he needs all his wealth so he can then spread that wealth to others as a philanthropist and, sure, yes, that’s nice but the man still died with more wealth than the GDP of most countries, so let’s not give him too much credit.
To lose Rockefeller’s business would be devastating to George’s own company, and yet George can’t afford the offer Rockefeller is making. The meeting becomes contentious, so Larry steps in and tries to calm the situation. George is furious at Larry for making him look weak, even going so far as to insult Larry’s business acumen and call him a nepo baby who has been handed everything he’s ever had. This causes Larry to run off and consider becoming a Broadway producer.
George is similarly cruel to Bertha when she visits him at his office begging him to come home, instead of living at the Union Club, as he has been. “Please George, you look tired,” she pleads, to which he snaps, “That is so like you to look for a weakness to lure me back.” My Train Daddy can fire guns on striking workers in Pittsburgh and I’ll forgive him, but one mean interaction with Bertha and I’m ready to break up with him.
Over in Newport, Peggy Scott (Denee Benton) continues to wonder what she’s getting herself into when she marries William Kirkland (Jordan Donica), because everything about his family is just kind of terrible. When his mother (Phylicia Rashad) throws a meeting of the Daughters of Friendship — the most sinister-sounding ladies’ group name of all time — so that Peggy and her mother can be welcomed as members, the other women are shocked to learn Peggy spends her free time writing. (Although it’s all worth it to hear Audra McDonald describe Peggy’s book saying, “It’s very creative,” like a mother looking at her six-year-old’s macaroni sculpture.)
Things get truly bad when Mrs. Kirkland tells the group that Peggy is a widow. Peggy is stunned and uncomfortable at the reveal — because it’s not true. (Stretch those mind grapes back to Season 1 again and remember that Peggy’s first marriage was annulled and her infant son was given up for adoption and later died.) Mrs. Kirkland explains to Peggy that it’s more palatable to explain that she’s a widow than to get into all that other unsavory stuff.
William Kirkland isn’t having a great time in New York. While Peggy is in Newport, he’s treating a patient who has tuberculosis. When he arrives at Bellevue Hospital with his patient, he is told he, a Black doctor, is not welcome to practice at the hospital. The patient then dies while not in Kirkland’s care. (It’s giving shades of last season when William was brushed aside after caring for George Russell’s gunshot wound, effectively saving George’s life and being dragged for doing so by the white doctor.)
Agnes and the rest of society show up to the Metropolitan Opera to see and be seen (Agnes is not the type to slink, as that would be undignified, but mentally… she’s slinking so deeply into her seat, it swallows her.) Being at the opera also gives Bertha an opportunity to trade some wicked insults with Enid van Rhijn (Kelley Curran), who gets in a cutting remark about George not being there, which is Bertha’s most vulnerable weakness at the moment. Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) of all people is keen to pick up on the fact that things seem off with Bertha and George. It wasn’t that long ago that this woman hated Bertha, and yet here she is now, offering her marital advice so Bertha can save face and not have to make excuses for where George is these days. “Come now, Mrs. Russell. You and I both know you can only fool society for so long,” Mrs. Astor says. Her husband is currently “on a yacht”!
Bertha’s already uncomfortable night out gets even weirder when Anne Morris intercepts her as she’s entering her home after the opera. Mrs. Morris is frantic, explaining that George has taken her son, and Bertha is rightfully like dafuhhh? I have’t seen you in three seasons! Mrs. Morris explains the situation and Bertha initially has little pity for Mrs. Morris, but softens when Mrs. Morris asks, “Would you not beg me if our situations were reversed?” The woman’s husband killed himself and now George wants to kill her son. Without the men in her life, she will be left with nothing. Bertha’s heart grows three sizes that day and she visits George at his office (again), begging him to show some mercy, for Mrs. Morris’s sake.
When George goes to see Will Morris and exact his revenge, we finally learn the root cause of his temperamental behavior these days, as he takes a slug off a bottle of laudanum. You know, the highly addictive opium-based painkiller of yore that makes you do erratic and irrational things. (See also: Mary Todd Lincoln.)
He enters a warehouse where Will sits in a chair while Anne looks on, begging for George’s forgiveness and mercy. George points his gun at Will, contemplating what to do and lets it linger long enough that Will assumes this is his final moment alive. George shoots his gun at the wall instead and tells the Pinkertons to remove the Morrises from New York, and Anne promises they’ll never step foot in the city again. Perhaps George didn’t want blood on his hands, or maybe Bertha got through to him and he couldn’t make Mrs. Morris suffer more than she already is. At least he didn’t make the situation worse by becoming a murderer.
In the aftermath, he returns home to Bertha to tell her he let Will go. She’s grateful not to be married to a monster and welcomes him back into her bed. George has never been more of a brute, all hopped up on his drugs, and yet he opens up and gets vulnerable, admitting to Bertha that he feels directionless, and then she tells him she can’t go on living as a barely-married couple. They intertwine their fingers and, lest you think the adrenaline rush of almost murdering a man and then hopping into your wife’s bed would end in an actual sex scene… credits.
Stray Thoughts:
- Ada’s chatty new footman, Oliver Keep, has a real specific New York energy, like a cross between Richard Kind and Billy Eichner. But also, what’s his deal?
- “That’s all very well for Jesus, he didn’t have to make his way to the Upper East Side!” Never stop Agnessing, Agnes.
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.
