The Gilded Age Recap: I Must Cancel My Congratulations

The Gilded Age

Close Enough to Touch Season 2 Episode 5 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

The Gilded Age

Close Enough to Touch Season 2 Episode 5 Editor’s Rating 5 stars *****

OMG. What! Was this episode amazing?? I think it was! I can’t believe the number of things that happened. When Ada’s wedding approached, I felt like I was watching an episode of The Bachelor and saying, “They can’t do a rose ceremony with five minutes left!” But then they did. Someone was hustling along some exciting plot this week, and I commend them for it. This is how you do a Gilded Age: nonsense events put on by rich people, coupled with things that actually matter. Have to show the gild on the age, if you will.

Bertha is in Newport, preparing for the dinner in honor of the Duke of Buckingham. Only she is at risk of being foiled by the crafty Mrs. Winterton. Just kidding. Mrs. Winterton’s ideas for how to ruin this event are like what your 10-year-old nephew would come up with if you said, “How do I ruin a dinner party?” Idea No. 1: Make the sauce taste gross! Everyone will be like, Ew, why did I even come to this dinner when it has such terrible sauce? And that will be embarrassing. Idea No. 2: Spill hot soup on the duke’s pants! He’ll hate it! It’s so hot! Also, then he’ll have soup pants. Vengeance achieved!! Come on, Winterton. When you threw that newspaper in the fire, I expected better of you. It is, however, hilarious to see these two ideas completely fail. You can’t even revenge correctly, Winterton!

Watching Bertha triumph is extremely satisfying, even though her husband is literally a robber baron who is trying to crush a union. We’re also witnessing her growth as a Lady of Society because she effortlessly throws out that she wants the Bernardaud china with the Saint Louis glass. I have looked up both of these, and they are worth whatever she paid for them. Good for you, Bertha, for learning all this information without the internet. Seems hard. She also knows she needs a new lady’s maid because her temporary maid, Adelheid, apparently has limited tiara skills. Well, then. No, I’m kidding. I’ve seen this show; tiaras are a weekly affair, and how are you supposed to show them off to their best advantage if you have an unskilled tiara worker? It’s like people don’t want to work these days, and by work, I mean “learn the intricate methods for placing a tiara on someone’s head.”

But what of Peggy and T. Thomas Fortune, whom I will call “Fortune” because “T. Thomas” is awkward as hell. They’re still in Tuskegee, meeting students at the Tuskegee Institute and having a great time, which you know is going to go to shit, and then it does. Peggy and Fortune eat at a Black woman–owned restaurant with an incredible ambience, and some white asshole comes in and really starts in on his asshole behavior, grabbing the owner by the neck and demanding food. Fortune tells him to stop and ends up shoving the man’s sidekick, so he and Peggy run out the door, grab their things from the Washingtons’ house, and hide in a barn. It’s terrifying. In the barn, they, of course, kiss. He is married, and I do not support this, but adrenaline will make people do things. This was genuinely such a frightening situation for them to be in, and I hope they get out of there soon.

Now we come to Maud. I had a theory about Maud based on a misremembering of history. Jay Gould once had to flee to New Jersey to escape arrest due to railroad chicanery. It turns out this was about 20 years before the events of this series, which is a real bummer because after finding myself bored by Maud (a potentially exciting character), I suddenly thought, Wait! What if this is all a SCHEME to get rich men to invest in this railroad venture? I 100 percent want con-artist Maud. I haven’t fully given up hope, but it looks like Gould didn’t do anything con manlike in the 1880s, and then he died, so. I don’t know; hope springs eternal. Maud also wears a very Georgia O’Keeffe–ish hat in this episode, if you know what I mean, so I’m still holding out for a marriage of equals between her and Oscar. And he could marry her despite her conning him, like in The Lady Eve! Wow, this show that I’ve imagined sounds great.

As we all remember from last week, Ada is now engaged to Reverend Luke Forte, who proposed to her after a highly brief acquaintance. If I were a suspicious person who thrives on fictional intrigue, I would not trust it (I am, and I did not). But it all seems fine? Just a weirdly fast engagement and marriage? Ada tells Agnes, which goes about as well as you would expect, and gives us Christine Baranski’s best scene this season. She tells Ada that Ada is a spinster and she’s always been a spinster and then orders Bannister to rescind his congratulations. We also get an icy “Please do not tell me how to speak to my own butler,” which is why we watch this show. When else are you going to hear that in daily life? Unless you call your dog your butler, which would be very cute or possibly weird, I can’t decide.

Ada tells Agnes not only that she is engaged but that the wedding is NEXT WEEK. What is happening? If this is that thing in Christian circles where abstinent youth get married real fast because they want to bang, then like … okay, fine. They’re both in their 50s. I get it. But it still seems SUSPICIOUS. Trust no one! Constant vigilance! What dark secrets is the reverend hopefully hiding? But no, they do all these speeches about love and marriage and moving on with your life, so they can’t just say “phbbbbt” to that and have his three hidden wives show up, no matter how fun that would be. After many adamant refusals to attend, Agnes is shamed just enough that she ends up making a dramatic entrance at Ada’s wedding. Oscar walks Ada down the aisle. Everyone is together and happy. This cannot last! Unless it can. Hmmmmm.

Lastly, let’s quickly touch on the plots running just slightly behind the scenes. The one where Bertha is trying to throw Gladys at the duke is more obvious, but I am concerned about what this will do to the Russells’ marriage since (as we have discussed) Gladys is Consuelo Vanderbilt, and that means she does not love the duke, and George is determined she’ll marry someone she loves. This is not good!!

The other plot, which I am about 50 percent sure of, is that Larry and Marian are endgame, and they’re just really keeping it low-key until there’s going to be some moment when they realize they’re in love. If it’s true, though, it’s been very subtle, so we shall see.