SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the second episode of Season 3 of The Gilded Age.
The second episode of The Gilded Age Season 3, titled “What the Papers Say,” dives deeper into the somewhat concepts of arranged marriage after introducing divorce in the first episode.
Those who tuned in for the Season 3 premiere last weekend will remember that Taissa Farmiga’s Gladys Russell ran away from home in the middle of the night as a rebellious response to her mother Bertha’s rumored arranging for The Duke of Buckingham to come back to their mansion. It turns out she ran away to the home of her latest suitor Billy Carlton (Matt Walker) and his mother Joan (Victoria Clark).
“For every generation, marriage is a crapshoot. Nowadays, we see much more of each other than they did in the 19th century. We live together more, and we sleep together, and we do all of these things, but at the end, you don’t really know the person you’ve married until you married them,” series creator Julian Fellowes told Deadline. “The modern world always likes to pretend that it deals with everything better than any previous generation, but you can’t take the luck element out of marriage.”
This season, Bertha has her eyes on the prize of an esteemed husband for her daughter, and not just anyone will do. Even though Gladys claims she loves Billy Carlton, a suitor she covertly met up with at the opera thanks to the secrecy of Mrs. Fish and Gladys’ brother Larry Russell (Harry Richardson), Bertha firmly rejects him as a potential husband for Gladys.
L-R: Matt Walker and Taissa Farmiga in ‘The Gilded Age’ Season 3
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When Mr. George Russell (Morgan Spector) comes home from Morenci, Arizona where he is tending to railroad business, he is greeted with a heated discussion between mother, daughter and son about Gladys’ lack of agency in who she can marry. The railroad tycoon feels a bit more conflicted about where Gladys’ life could be headed, because he did promise her that she could marry for love.
Those who have watched the period drama since Season 1 may remember that Gladys also had high hopes for Tom Blyth’s Archie Baldwin, one of her suitors before she was even out in society, but it was her father who turned down the young man at the time through a twisted job offer to bribe him.
“I mean, arranged marriages were the norm in this period, and I mean even today, there are still places where people have arranged marriages, sometimes they work out,” Spector told Deadline. “People do fall in love with each other. Some of those marriages really last. Some of them are very happy. It’s not impossible that there can be joy and real fulfillment in those relationships.”
Even after Billy attempted to approach Mr. Russell to ask his blessing for a proposal to Gladys and he chickens out at the Young Women’s Christian Association benefit — hosted by Aurora Fayne (Kelli O’Hara) and her husband Charles who is desperate for a divorce, George states to his wife that the young man didn’t get a chance to present his argument. Bertha doubles down on her desire for her daughter’s future to be one of empowerment, influence and high status.
“A lot of the world still operates on the basis of arranged marriages. We always feel superior about that, but it’s not safe to feel superior about anything. I think that some aspects of it work better and some don’t, and that’s life. We take life as it comes and we take chances,” Fellowes said. “The first few years [of marriage], you get to know your wife or your husband, and sometimes it comes as a pleasant surprise, as aspects of their personality are much more interesting than you’d realize. Other times, it’s the reverse. I’m not sure there’s any kind of insurance you can take out against that. I think that’s how life is.”
Unfortunately for Gladys, it looks as if her mother got what she wanted in a way because Billy showed up in the last minutes of Season 3 Episode 2 to call off their relationship and any potential engagement. With Hector, the Duke of Buckingham’s return at the end of the third season’s second episode — attorney in tow — only time will tell what path Gladys, still teary-eyed and looking like a deer in the headlights, ends up walking amidst the wishes of her mother. As Mr. Russell tells his daughter, he is just as surprised as she is at what this could signal.
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