The Gilded Age writers on the Russells' triumph, Marian's elopement and what's next
Warning: This article contains spoilers about Monday's season 1 finale of The Gilded Age.
The Russells have triumphed at last.
Of course, it's difficult to define "triumph" for a couple who already have an ostentatious amount of wealth and have climbed their way to the top of New York City through the cutthroat ways of the robber barons.
But on Monday's season finale of The Gilded Age, George (Morgan Spector), and Bertha (Carrie Coon) in particular, finally achieved their season-long aim — a ball at their opulent home where the old money of the New York aristocracy, including Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) and Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), were in attendance.
The ball, ostensibly Gladys' (Taissa Farmiga) coming out party, was where everything came to a head after much drama ensued. Peggy (Denée Benton) left her employment with Agnes after the truth about her baby, who she'd presumed dead, was exposed — Peggy's efforts to uncover what happened led her to discover the child is still alive. Not only that, but it was her own father who concealed the truth from her.
Marian (Louisa Jacobson) attempted to elope with Mr. Raikes (Thomas Cocquerel), but he jilted her in favor of pursuing a life of luxury with Sissy Bingham. But she managed to recover enough from her heartbreak to attend the ball and dance with Larry Russell (Harry Richardson), along with aunts Agnes and Ada (Cynthia Nixon), who have summarily been ordered by Mrs. Astor to attend.
Though the Russells' ball goes off with a hitch, could it be two steps forward, one step back? HBO has already renewed the series for a second season, so undoubtably there is more drama to come. We called up creator Julian Fellowes and co-writer Sonja Warfield to get all the details on the drama-filled finale.
Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO Bertha (Carrie Coon) and George Russell (Morgan Spector) share a moment of victory
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This world of Gilded Age New York has somewhat less strict rules than Downton Abbey, with people like the Russells finding inroads that they probably wouldn't have had amongst the British aristocracy. What appealed to you both about telling a story that had the same level of wealth and opulence but this greater degree of freedom and fluidity between classes?
JULIAN FELLOWES: I got interested in the Gilded Age quite a long time before anyone was coming to make a TV show about it. I was just reading books about it. And I was rather intrigued by this society of great opulence and tremendous consumerism and so on and so forth. But it was all faster moving than Europe. And it had an upward curve energy. With Europe and with Downton to a certain extent, we were using the fact that things were coming into land for the European aristocracy. These were the last years when they would dominate the social scene, and that was about to be taken from them. Whereas America, coming out of the Civil War, was just getting ready to dominate the world, which they did do for the following century. That created a completely different dynamic, which appealed to me. I liked the fact that Mrs. Astor was the one who realized that she couldn't keep the new people out. They were too strong. They were too rich. They were too everything. And she had to sort of forge a society out of these different elements.
This finale has many big reveals, but let's start with Peggy. She ended up resigning to avoid bringing any gossip to the Van Rhijns and then we learn of her child that she thought had died but is still alive. Was the secret something that's been weighing on her all season? And did you tell Denée what it was from the beginning?
SONJA WARFIELD: I didn't tell her. Did you tell her? I think she knew though, right?
FELLOWES: I think she knew, didn't she, all the way through? I don't remember it being a big reveal of a secret. She knew all the way through that that was going to be her reveal.
WARFIELD: It's definitely has been weighing on her all season. That's why she hired Raikes to help her. That's why she was in Pennsylvania, so that's how she and Marian met.
FELLOWES: She knew she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She definitely knew she wanted to know what had happened. That's been with us from the start.
Will we get to continue to see her hunting for her son or will she be far away in Philadelphia?
FELLOWES: I never talk about coming seasons. I never give anything away. Of course, you have to ask. I know that. But I don't have to answer.
The Russells finally have their moment of triumph with the ball. Do they feel they've won, at least for now?
FELLOWES: I hope so. I feel Bertha has had quite a rough ride. She's a very determined woman. She's ambitious. She wants to get this settled. And we've seen her go for it. The fact that she has almost tricked Mrs. Astor into coming and generally rounded up New York society against their will – I hope she has a feeling of satisfaction and triumph and goes to bed happy. That's my plan for Bertha.
George does call her "the belle of the ball." I hope they can at least savor that a bit.
FELLOWES: Yes. Of course, she's always the belle of his ball. He is very, very loyal to her, and he supports her in all her endeavors, even when they make him laugh. It's come right for them both at the end. But in life there's no such thing as a happy ending. There's a happy bit and then you move on to the next chapter. I'm sure that's what George and Bertha will do.
Marian and Mr. Raikes have this very unfortunate end to their love story. Why did he bother pursuing her if he was ultimately only going to put money above his feelings?
FELLOWES: Ultimately is the right word. I don't think he knew at the beginning. At the beginning, she was a breath of fresh air. She was going to New York, where he'd always wanted to live and work. Suddenly, she's stimulated that ambition that made him do it after delaying it for years. He comes to New York and he's very, very strongly attracted to her. He's in love with her from an early stage, and he has every intention of becoming a New York lawyer and marrying this lovely girl and having a nice life. But when you are a handsome young man with a decent tailcoat, and you get into society, you are shown a whole way of life that you couldn't afford.
I don't know if it's true now. But it was true when I was a young that you could do the season if you had a decent dinner jacket. You could spend every weekend at houses you couldn't afford in a million years, and you got used to this extraordinary way of life. He has that and he's tempted, but he's still true to Marian. Then the girl Sissy comes along, and he suddenly realizes that actually, he has a choice. If he wants this way of life, he can have it. That is very hard for him. I'm not entirely without sympathy. In the end he's morally weak, and he's not prepared to ride it out. But it's tough, the decision he has to make, and I can think of plenty of people who would be similarly weak in the face of it.
Sonja, a lot of the actors have talked about conversations they've had with you that helped them find their way through these moral gray areas. With Marian and Mr. Raikes, where she's deciding that they can't be friends, but she won't hate him either — what were the conversations like for that? How strongly did you want to come down on one side or the other in terms of this breakup?
WARFIELD: As a woman who has been jilted in love, I definitely tend to be on Louisa's side. I had a lot of fun writing Aurora's lines, when she sees him at the ball and she comes over and she tells Louisa, he's here and he's with Sissy Bingham. When he approaches, and Aurora says, "Well, you're certainly the man about town." Those are all the things you want to say to a guy when you catch them doing something wrong. My empathy was definitely with Marian's character. I felt as if he should have been stronger and he should have told her the truth and he should have been upfront. That came across, but one of the reasons why Julian and I worked well together is because he could see Raikes' side of it.
FELLOWES: Ada says it. Marian's been lucky that it all came to a head when there was still time for her to get out. If she'd married him, and then he felt he made a mistake, that would all have been much worse. You want to try and have these crises before you've tied the knot. But I wouldn't say it's quite fair to say I'm not on Marian's side. Marian is a stronger person morally. On the whole, she quite enjoys New York and parties and fun and she goes to them and all of that, but she has a more robust morality. The idea of living with not so much money, and living in a simpler way doesn't frighten her. But he's seen the other side, and he knows he can have it and that's where he's weak. Being weak doesn't mean someone has to be hateful and horrible. She says she's not going to hate him. But she's lucky she didn't put her life's happiness into this frail bark morally that would sink at the first challenge. On the whole, she's come out of it ahead, but of course, it's very sad.
What should we make of her dancing with Larry Russell? Because there's been a bit of a spark between them each time they've met this season.
FELLOWES: She likes Larry. I don't think it's terribly loaded. They're a similar age. He could have been an entitled brat, but he isn't. He wants to get something done that is outside his father's kingdom. And he has ambitions for a job where he himself is going to have to work and his father's not going to be able to just fix it all. That appeals to her. I don't necessarily think there's anything more in it, but she likes both him and Gladys. She's quite friendly to them both because they want to get on and live their lives. And that's exactly what Marian wants to do. Ada is more inclined to let her than Agnes.
WARFIELD: Larry represents the young and wealthy, but he's very welcoming to her. He's not snobbish at all. As is Gladys. So, they'll get along.
Who would be a more horrific option for Marian to Agnes — Larry Russell or Mr. Raikes?
FELLOWES: In a way we make fun of Agnes. Christine's wonderful performance allows us to do that. But Agnes is not entirely insubstantial. The fact is, her moral assessment of Mr. Raikes was completely accurate. She saw before Marian that he was a man of straw, and that's really her complaint. She could have lived with the lack of money. But what she can't live with is the lack of spine. I rather like Agnes for that. I don't feel she was unjust in her condemnation. Ultimately, she saw ahead of either Marian or Ada what he was made of.
WARFIELD: She's also practical. She wants the best for Marian, and she knows what Marian will need to be able to survive in this world.
FELLOWES: That's an important element. Nowadays, we've all been so brought up on the ninth reel kiss and Disney that we don't like to think of the practicalities of choosing your partner, but for Agnes, the practicalities are always going to play a big part. She sees Marian as a young woman with the potential to make a very successful marriage that will give her a podium to get things done that she wants to do. Agnes doesn't dislike that. She dislikes her doing things that are wrong for her social position and so on. But she doesn't want her to have no ambition. She just wants her to have a position, and I'm sufficiently old fashioned to rather sympathize.
Agnes makes this huge concession in the end in going to the Russells' ball. Do you feel that marks a real turning point for her? Will she think of things a little differently going forward?
FELLOWES: No, not really. Agnes is a great believer in realpolitik, and how the world is, just as Mrs. Astor, in real life, understood that these new rich people had to be dealt with. They couldn't be excluded. Agnes has a very similar feeling. She says to Ada, "This is the ceasefire. We can decide whether to resume the battle later." I don't think she's going through a great sentimental recharge. But in the last analysis, these people live on the other side of the street, and Mrs. Astor has asked her to go and she can't really fight that because Lina Astor is her leader.
The Russells are such unique protagonists in terms of how they can be very despicable and underhanded, yet their love for each other keeps you rooting for them. Sonja, how did you keep that balance with Carrie and Morgan throughout the season?
WARFIELD: Their marriage is to be admired, really. They're just great partners, and they have each other's back and they're for each other. That's why you're rooting for them, because they're a team. He's tackling titans of industry and she's tackling the social world and she is an underdog. Those ladies are not nice to her in the beginning. You are rooting for Bertha. Bertha's ambition is to be admired. I always thought if Bertha were in 2022, she would be running Apple. You know, she would be running Instagram or something. She'd be Sheryl Sandberg. Bertha is one of my favorite characters.
FELLOWES: The key is that they don't share each other's ambitions, but they support each other in their desire to achieve their ambitions. Bertha's social ambitions, every now and then, make George laugh. He thinks it's hilarious that his wife is so desperate to get Mrs. Astor into her ballroom. He couldn't give a monkey's stinker whether she came. But that's not the point. He will support her. Similarly with his industrial struggles, and all the rest of it, she will support him. Even when she's not in the mood for it. She will support him. People like that because most of us want to be married, if we are going to be married, to someone who will get behind us, who will cover our back, who will support us in our endeavors. That's a powerful thing for people to see. That's why we're on their side whether or not they're garroting fellow businessmen or throwing hostesses out of the window. They support each other in all things.
Whether it was in the writing or the way something turned out in the final version, what surprised you most about season 1?
FELLOWES: I don't know if surprise is the word. You're always very anxious that the audience are going to get it. In Downton at the beginning, everyone kept saying that the way they live is too far away from the way everyone else lived. Who's going to sympathize with them because they've got to fix the roof when the roof is the size of 15 football pitches? That's not how we all live. And I felt we could get them involved in this family's woes and joys so that they became sympathetic to their endeavors. We have a similar thing here. Who's going to care whether Bertha makes her mark in New York society? George is too rich, who's going to care about that? What has been a real pleasure while the first series has unrolled is the number of people who do care and who've come back week after week to see if it's coming right to them.
WARFIELD: I echo that. The surprise for me was how invested the audience is. When I go online, and I'm on Twitter or Instagram, the audience is already guessing. They didn't trust Raikes a few weeks ago. They're just so in it and involved and worried about Marian. I love that ... and that's what good television is about. It's about these characters who you really care about.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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