NIt is always positive when a series comes up with a whole ensemble of headstrong middle-aged women and lets them loose on each other. Some are a bit eccentric, some sharp-tongued, still others loyal and lovable. And even if other things play a role and of course some young pretty people are looking for a spouse – in the end “The Gilded Age” is about the ladies of society and about who belongs to this society and who doesn’t.
The term “Gilded Age” goes back to a novel by Mark Twain and roughly describes the economic heyday around the turn of the century, which we know as the Gründerzeit. In America, progress exploded at that time, suddenly there were railroads, gas, electricity, steel and oil industries, people invested and built everywhere and people who had immigrated with a suitcase a generation or two ago suddenly had money like hay. And in its shadow still lived workers and peasants in dire poverty, especially those who were not of Anglo-American descent. This is the background against which the panorama of the series unfolds. And because Julian Fellowes – he is known as the inventor of the series “Downton Abbey” – is responsible for it, everything unfolds slowly, carefully observed and with effective drama here and there.
A swanky building made of railroad money
So we are in New York in the year 1882, or at least on the way there. Because first we meet the young, penniless Marian Brook at the train station, who moves to her aunts in the big city after the death of her father. Played by newcomer Louisa Jacobson, the fact that her face still looks so familiar is because Jacobson is Meryl Streep’s eldest daughter. On the other hand, we know her devoted aunts: Christine Baranski as Agnes van Rhijn and Cynthia Nixon as Ada Brook. The interplay of the older, widowed and class-conscious Agnes, for whom no comment is too sarcastic, and the old maid Ada, who repeatedly allies herself with Marian in her boundless philanthropy, focuses on qualities of dialogue that “Downton Abbey” only has played on the sidelines – the teasing, the exchange of blows, the clarified review of life plans.
The two ladies, together with their niece who wants to marry, in their gloomy city palace made of old money and a kitchen full of traditional employees, now have to live with the fact that new neighbors, the nouveau riche Russells, use all their nice railroad money to build a huge swanky building on the other side of the street. And while Aunt Agnes is still standing behind the heavy curtain and gossiping, newcomer Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) is already positioning herself to get involved in New York’s tight-knit high society. She has the money, the polish is still a little lacking. After all, she affords a French chef, even if her butler doesn’t even know how to properly set the table in England. The author Julian Fellowes knows this, of course, and once again makes the correct order of the silverware the representative battlefield for the big picture, as we already know from Downton Abbey.
The sons are troublesome
And this time the big picture is a little more complex than the social structure on a large English estate, and usually more complex than it is for the ladies of the old moneyed gentry. The sons, for example, cause grief. The Russells’ son, Larry, has no intention of continuing his parents’ dynastic legacy because he is not particularly interested in railways and would rather be an architect. Oscar van Rijn, Agnes’ son, is dutifully looking around for a high-class wife, but lives with his boyfriend in a somewhat too intimate togetherness, which will certainly lead to trouble. For now, however, he’s courting young Gladys Russell, who is kept on such a short leash by her ambitious mother that she doesn’t yet know what she wants out of life other than to rebel and fight for every bit of freedom.
Hope the kids have a good match: Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) and Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson) don’t want what’s expected of them.
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Image: AP
And it’s not all that white either, after all we’re in New York, albeit in a very idealized version of it. After her wallet is stolen at the train station, the young heroine Marian befriends the black Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), who helps her out with a train ticket. And she has to learn that Peggy, on the other hand, does not need her material help, but comes from a well-to-do and educated middle-class family and has her own plans. Namely to write why she is hired by the New York Globe, the first black daily newspaper.
In the first episodes, everything is still a little stiff and stiff. But that’s forgivable, after all, an entire era wants to be illuminated – also in the literal sense, when tout New York is fascinated by the major event of the first house to be electrically illuminated by Edison’s light bulbs. But then things pick up speed, the figures get contours and fill themselves with life, nuances are alluded to. It’s nice that the second season has already been commissioned, because “The Gilded Age” has a lot of potential. And Marian and Peggy and Gladys and Larry have much fate yet to come, accompanied by the stern looks and snide remarks of society ladies.
The Gilded Age runs from today on every Friday at 8.15 p.m. on Sky Ticket.