HBO's The Gilded Age: thread two

Link to thread one:

If you have enough slots to randomly fill in at the end, you have plenty of space to link to a new thread before closing it out, whoever shut down the last one! Thanks OP for doing what they were too lazy to do themselves.

To recap: Morgan Spector — who is possibly badly miscast in this, but who can tell because everyone might be badly miscast but the writing and direction are so bad it's impossible to discern — looks great naked:

I was expecting more from that review. The whole tone of the review is "I dislike Julian Fellowes' work and besides, we did it first here in Britain." The reviewer doesn't like Christine Baranski and also doesn't even know what a mid-Atlantic accent is.

Went into that expecting actual cuntery and got Baby's First TV Show Review.

The uncreative title should've been a clue how lame the show would be.

The Guardian review is classic cunting. I bow to this queen of cuntery and aspire to hold her hemline. For example:

[quote]everyone is using that strange voice Americans do to indicate that they are posh in the past – it mixes precise diction with a strained tone, as if they are all having a hard time on the loo.

[quote]Marian’s aunts (or “auurahnts” as it is pronounced in 1882) are Cynthia Nixon as Ada Brook, presumably as punishment for letting And Just Like That … go ahead, and Christine Baranski – who must have a very persuasive agent

[quote]All of human life is here. Not in any credible way – just here.

[quote]“I only ask that you never break your own moral code,” says Aunt Ada, whom I suspect should not be allowed to cross Fifth Avenue unaided. “How wise, Aunt Ada!” says Marian. I will have to look up whether taking the piss had been invented by 1882.

I wanted this review to continue for at least 2,000 more words. I aspire to be a cunt of this quality someday.

Please, "everyone is using that strange voice Americans do to indicate that they are posh in the past – it mixes precise diction with a strained tone, as if they are all having a hard time on the loo" is just "I don't know what a mid-Atlantic accent is, so I'll make a joke about constipation and declare myself clever."

I guess as long as people like r6 really DO think shit jokes are clever, this reviewer doesn't have to change a thing!

But I will tell you this: there's very little difference between people who watch this lowest common denominator, faux historical tripe and the people who think "lol they sound constipated and say stupid words" is good television writing for a major publication. The only difference is the TYPE of lowbrow-passing-as-highbrow entertainment you enjoy.

Aunt Ada, as played by Cynthia Nixon, does come off at times like she might be special, perhaps because she got to close to the horses at some point and got kicked in the head.

R3 = Penis in anus?

R6 knows that this has already been covered to death in the last thread. But posts it all over again anyway. It’s not even that witty or funny, but they poster uses it to drag the show again unnecessarily.

There is no education in the second kick to a mule.

This thread will die anyway because someone was too eager to control the last thread that they didn’t even put in a link.

Somebody should start a different part 2. This one is off to a disastrous start and is using the guardian of all magazines. It’s not exactly a beacon of entertainment reviews.

That Guardian headline made me laugh.

R11 What does “the guardian of all magazines” mean? Is that a reference to Time or Newsweek?

I don't think R11 is very bright.

Don’t wish to continue this tedious review chat but that cunt from the Guardian is 100% Frau. She’s a shit writer who’s attaching her fake class warrior cred to bashing Fellowes. Most of the shit she writes is cribbed from social media or inaccurate or contrary for the sake of it.

I’m also done with DL reviews. There used to be some legit contributions to these type of threads but this is all pure agenda posts now.

Maybe I’ll come back after the series is over.

R16 thanks for letting us know!

What is it with HBO shows that make any DL thread about them an instant success? And Just Like That, Mare of Easttown, The Gilded Age. It's almost impossible to keep up with those DL threads. One episode, and there's already an entire thread filled with comments.

Forgot Euphoria. Also pretty popular on DL.

I should think this thread might suit several among you.

I noticed one of the gay blades, as he fell onto the bed at the end of episode 1, had well-developed back and shoulder muscles, which proves gay men in 1882 went to gyms to work out.

That was the classic croquet body men got from hitting it through the wickets.

Why is there a black woman in OP’s post? Is this more color blind inaccurate bullshit?

R23 - You should be smart enough to answer your own question.

Carrie Coons is the only one who seems to know how to play period. Everyone else is flouncing, wearing their clothing like Halloween costumes and getting all fey in their polite dialog.

Coons seems at home with all the manners, clothing, and verbiage. She does not show them off, she just acts as if they have been part of her life for years.

It’s Coon, not Coons. And no, she is not the only actress who “got the assignment” of this show. She’s playing everything way too arch.

Controversial opinion: Christine Baranski is not a good actress. She's tolerable in the right roles, but terrible in most. Her style of acting seems like it'd be most effective on stage.

We spell it Coön.

In the Guilded Age she would've been Mrs. Tracy Letts.

Carrie Coon was brilliant in “The Leftovers” so I know she can act. Just not sure what the hell she’s doing in this show. Something is really off.

Morgan Spector is wearing entirely too many clothes. I need to see him shirtless and I want a bulge shot. He is stunning.

Morgan Spector is Rebecca Hall’s husband. Lucky bitch.

[quote]Marian’s aunts (or “auurahnts” as it is pronounced in 1882)

In the Northeast, "aunt" is pronounced as "ahnt" to this day. The way they're pronouncing it on the show isn't unusual at all.

[quote] which proves gay men in 1882 went to gyms to work out.

Concessions have to be made. Actors aren't going to stop working out. They're also not going to remove their veneers to have the jacked teeth that are historically accurate either.

Exactly, R33...although it still bugs me when actors in period pieces adhere to modern grooming standards...I recently watched Power of the Dog and Benedict Cumberbatch is shaved as smooth as a 12 year old. That didn't seem right for a rugged cowboy in 1920.

The Guardian reviewer seems overly impressed with Dorothy Parker (and herself).

If anything Coon needs to be MORE arch. She seems to think that grim determination is a character.

[quote]Maybe I’ll come back after the series is over.

Oh, honey . . . people who announce their snitty departures never actually leave.

I like the way Coon is playing Bertha, but I’m not sure the show is actually intending us to wonder if underneath all those big lady dresses lurks the heart of a psychopath.

Well that's what you get when you let Julian Fellowes control the writing.

Downton Abbey had great cinematography, music and costuming, as well as some good acting. But the plots and the writing were terrible, mostly because Fellowes was doing most of it himself and couldn't get out of his own way.

R34 did you miss essential plot points? He was a rich boy who went to Harvard (or Yale?) and headed back home tot the family business. Do you think Ivy League boys of that era could not shave every day?

This is bound to be the most hated hate watch of this or any season.

SJP breathes a sigh of relief.

[quote]But the plots and the writing were terrible, mostly because Fellowes was doing most of it himself and couldn't get out of his own way.

I disagree. Downton Abbey was very well written the first two seasons.

"What's a weekend?"

Apparently Maggie Smith's disparaging line about a gown in Gosford Park: "Difficult color, green..." was ad libbed by Maggie herself. I wouldn't be surprised if she ad libbed the "weekend" line, too.

Did Fellowes piss off a DLer? Because some one is personally obsessed with him. I smell a vendetta.

It’s actually better than I thought it would be. I hope it gets better in future episodes.

Seeing Morgan Spector's face (no facial hair) for the first time > "yikes, kinda ugly" Seeing Morgan Spector's nude video > "...damn...(gulp)...hot..." Seeing Morgan Spector's face with a full beard after watching his nude video > "please fuck me, you beautiful man!"

At least it's not The Gelded Age - like my show.

Or mine.

I hope Morgan Spector's character is a bit of a dark horse here... a real villain of the piece. That he got so many scenes at work suggests he's a true principal character, rather than just the Berthinator's bank and scene partner.

Lord knows his capitalist robber baron milieu has more material to mine than the year it will take Bertha to crack into the 400.

These are going to be weird threads.

I foresee the following kinds of comments every week, since this is what we've had so far:

"They completely got the lampshades wrong! These are lampshades from 1890 at least, but this show is supposed to be taking place in 1882! Does no one on this show not KNOW the history of late 19th century lampshades? I am of course a complete expert on this, which makes me every bit the equal of the high society bitchy women on this show (in fact, their superior!); so I despise this show and will continue to watch every week so I can bitch about the inaccuracy of the lampshades!"

"How can this cast be so awful?! Carrie Coon, Morgan Spector, Christine Baranski, and Cynthia Nixon are the absolute dregs of American acting! You could never imagine a single one of them ever appearing on Broadway!"

"How DARE you make fun of me for parading my expertise on late 19th-c. lampshades! My knowledge of late 19th century lampshades is all that stops fascism from taking over the US government right now!"

"The mud in the street does not seem accurately 1882 enough for me. Why couldn't they use a time machine to import mud directly from 1882? If this show is not a complete recreation in every way of 1882, it has failed me!"

"Let's re-hash the cunty comments the reviewer in the Guardian made about the show again!"

And so on.

Beautiful body and penis, R3!

Thanks.

R51, a variation of this exact same post already appeared on the last thread (was that you too?)

Did you think we wouldn’t survive without your contribution to this thread? You’re repetitive and boring.

R51, you are revealing your low station. My knowledge of historic fabric is the reason I attend so many candlelit suppers and am particularly sought after to present to the Insomniacs Guild. I hiss in your general direction!

I wasn't overwhelmed with enthusiasm for the first episode but it did a solid job establishing some the characters and plot and scenarios. Yes there were some "Happy wedding day Sis" moments but there were some sound moments.

The downstairs staff come across as less developed. The Evil Maid With Designs On The Master was pure ham. When Downton started a lot of the original cast were very familiar faces on British tv, even if you didn't know the actors names. The evil gay butler was Him From Corrie who fucked his brother's wife. Streep Daughter III did a good job.

Morgan Spector has also bottomed on camera. The ink is his.

So is Marian the product of Ada having been raped? I would assume so.

Raped by her own brother?

Yeah, I think r56 is a bit confused. It's implied that her sister's husband was kinda rapey, maybe, but that wouldn't lead to Marian being raised by their brother unless everyone was being truly bizarre.

I wasn’t expecting much, so I wasn’t disappointed.

Do we know the gay lover in the last scene? I didn’t recognize him. One review said it was the Adams boy.

Haven’t seen it but why is a Briton making this story about New York in the 90s? If an American had made Downton Abbey the Brits would have jumped all over it.

Why didn’t he do the uk in that same era. So much material and chubby little mourner Queen Victoria too!

Morgan’s beard looks fake to me.

So please, someone, I know John Adams is mentioned before the gay scene, but do we actually see him prior to that? I don't remember him at all till then.

I don't mind that it's a Brit making this. I don't know that every American has some unique insight into every aspect of our culture.

I do think he should be force fed a steady diet of every Edith Wharton novel and letter, though, if he's gonna do this thing.

Keep aiming low, R6 💯

They often just don’t get us, r63. The Guardian review is proof of that.

He shows up at the Van Rhian (shoot, don't know the spelling), the Aunts' home briefly, meeting his "friend" for lunch, r62. He's introduced to the dreary Streep daughter, and is a little brusque with her, if I remember.

This Streep child is so much more attractive than the other one.

I urged Louisa to try out for the Betty Schaefer part in Sunset Boulevard, but apparently it's a kind of Salomé, if you follow.

I see that they have a token black character to make the heroine look sympathetic. Such bullshit. The wealthy people in this time period were horrible racists and should be depicted as such.

The Streep spawn is the weak link. Certainly not attractive enough to overcome the deficiencies in her acting.

Hello says everyone LOVES it.

r51 DL's eldergays are the most persnickety, pissy, and just all around bizarre eldergays you will ever see.

True, r69 just as in Downton Abbey, pretty much everyone in their circle would be a horrible anti-Semite, and the whole marriage to Cora would be a huge and unpleasant scandal. But they'll throw in a few "bad apple" racists to acknowledge there was some, while pretending that most people were perfectly happy to be around black people and wouldn't dream of anything so vulgar as racism.

Here's a preview of what's to come and Julian Fellowes & some of the actors talking about the show

[quote]True, [R69] just as in Downton Abbey, pretty much everyone in their circle would be a horrible anti-Semite, and the whole marriage to Cora would be a huge and unpleasant scandal. But they'll throw in a few "bad apple" racists to acknowledge there was some, while pretending that most people were perfectly happy to be around black people and wouldn't dream of anything so vulgar as racism.

Cora's Jewishness wasn't mentioned until one of the later series if I recall rightly? When Shirley Maclaine rolled up it was clear SHE wasn't Jewish despite being Mrs Levinson. And then Lily James married a Jew after flirting with the black jazz singer.

Were there any Indian characters in Downton? The aristocracy would have had more interaction with people from India than Africa.

It's getting weird to watch Cynthia Nixon. All I can think of is Che Diaz finger banging her pussy. I half expected Che Diaz to show up in this.

This is just a hunch, but it looks like they are setting up the situations so the Russells will eventually get divorced. This will let manipulate our sentiments into thinking that Bertha is a sympathetic character instead of a monster.

True, r75, but the point is I bet Cora's Jewishness would be mentioned a lot, in a lot of upper class houses, and Lady Mary and Edith and the pretty one would be "the Jewess daughters" to a lot of the British upper crust. It was constant and ubiquitous, and of course in the US as well. It's ugly and tragic, but it was a fact of life. There's a reason no country would accept Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.

And of course in the US, there was a big problem with any black person not being 100 percent in their place. It was worse in the South but up north, it definitely wouldn't just be the Irish maid bitching about it.

Jesus, watching the promo - this thing takes itself soooooooooo seriously. You're never going to read a sentence that includes Shakespeare, Ibsen, Albee, Stoppard and Fellowes.

[quote]True, [R75], but the point is I bet Cora's Jewishness would be mentioned a lot, in a lot of upper class houses, and Lady Mary and Edith and the pretty one would be "the Jewess daughters" to a lot of the British upper crust. It was constant and ubiquitous, and of course in the US as well. It's ugly and tragic, but it was a fact of life. There's a reason no country would accept Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.

The Remains Of The Day gets that period spot on.

Would Cora's Jewishness have been well known if her mother wasn't Jewish and she didn't look stereotypically Jewish. Would the snobbery about her being an American trump her being a Jew?

Well, you'd never mistake the name Levinson for Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe.

Are black kids going to be pissed off when they mature and discover that blacks were not prominent members of European courts and cherished friends of enlightened American capitalists?

Is Ricky Lake in this?

R60s DO PAY ATTENTION dear. The issue is the story starts in the early 1880s, not 90s, so the passmenterie is all wrong!

If this shows scrapes out a few seasons I just know we are going to be served a proud trans POC playing a woman.

I just realized that the businessman with the big muttonchops and bald head was Ron Raines without his toupee. It was driving me crazy because I knew he looked familiar yet couldn't place him. I think his name was listed with other Broadway actors in the earlier thread but I thought then....Ron Raines...is he in this?

"The token Black character" is going to be a successful novelist, because "there are [unspecified] precedents."

If she can make it there [1880s New York], she can make it anywhere!

[quote]"The token Black character" is going to be a successful novelist, because "there are [unspecified] precedents." If she can make it there [1880s New York], she can make it anywhere!

I did wonder if she'll end up doing the Fat Derry Girl in Bridgerton, and writing a scandalous tale about society but published anonymously.

IOLA LEROY published 1892, so no, there were no precedents in1882, lazy Uncle Julian!

[quote] candlelit suppers

No, gaslit.

I’m assuming they are setting up the Black character to be kind of an Ida B. Wells.

[quote] Haven’t seen it but why is a Briton making this story about New York in the 90s?

Because Nancy Astor led a posse of American millionaire heiresses over to marry English aristocrats.

Cora Crawley was another.

In my earlier post I didn’t mean to imply that Marian is the product of Ada being raped by her brother. I think Ada could have been raped by someone we haven’t been introduced to yet and she gave up her child to her brother and his childless wife to raise as their own.

One might have expected the sisters to have at least alluded to the Streep Child’s being Ada’s daughter.

Ada is going to be visited by a former beau. They never married. There is scandal and intrigue. Maybe that beau sired the Streep Child with Ada.

Cynthia Nixon has been typecast...she'll only ever be the woman who needs to be fingered in the kitchen.

Maybe it was Captain Craig in the study with the candlestick.

R90, it’s like y’all expecting me to believe gaslighting was a thing before the 21st century. SMDH. Please take several seats.

When were we told that rape is going to be a big part of the storyline on the show?

If Bertha’s daughter gets raped I wouldn’t be surprised.

R77: Divorce would have been too unconventional even for new money. Catholics didn't divorce because of the Church, but Protestants wouldn't because of appearances.

The 400 divorced all the time, honey.

The need for cultural, ethnic, racial, gender, gender-fluid representation does indeed tire one out, sometimes. Identity politics can be exhausting. But it's not even remotely as annoying as all the Q-rabble, anti-woke, poltroons that try to be so clever ragging on POC casting and other attempts at inclusiveness. Give it a rest, all you dotards. Young Black lady in this is just fine and much less questionable that 100 other gaffs in this Fool's Guilded Age.

The black actress is one of the best on the show so far.

^Are you saying the black actress is one of the best of the black actresses on the show?

[quote]If Bertha’s daughter gets raped I wouldn’t be surprised.

I have no idea what Taissa Farmiga is doing here. She's a great actress but she's a 27 year year old playing a teenager.

It happens but she's been fairly well known for a while and it just seems odd here.

R77, not only was divorce a social taboo then, it was legally very difficult.

[quote] The Streep spawn is the weak link. Certainly not attractive enough to overcome the deficiencies in her acting.

Absolutely this. Was shocked at how terrible she was.

I know I’m probably alone here, but I’m rooting for Marian the character and Louisa Gummer the actress. We need one of M’s spawn to carry the torch (there’s a Sosie Bacon out there, for fuck’s sake!) I think she can be quite attractive based on photos I have seen of her.

I think there’s hope for her. I didn’t think M was very good in Holocaust despite winning the Emmy (I would have given it to Rosemary Harris).

[quote] We need one of M’s spawn to carry the torch..

Why, R110? She is without presence, charisma or beauty in this, thus far.

The whole Hollywood nepotism thing is a big stink.

It’s one thing for actors to get on via their own merit. It is quite another when it is a result of their mother or father paving their way so that no-talent hacks imbue movies and television with their bumbling performances.

I bet the Millionaire Mother Streep contributed $3 million into the Julian Fellowes' production company.

Nepotism has always been in play, even for the ones “who got it on their own merit”.

Some of us needed to audition and don't count on connections.

I'm confused DL people. Should I bother to watch The Gilded Age? My favorite show about the upper class was Upstairs Downstairs- NOT the pointless remake but the original 1971-1975 version.

Can I enjoy this series on any level?

We're so opposite, R115, but then I suppose the picture quality and acting seemed quite good back then.

R115 Picture quality was hopeless back in the70s.

They were so cheap they could only afford one black and white camera.

Fashion!

Taissa Farmiga is a great actress?

Finally a show that can truly be deemed: So bad it's good!

It's actually not that. It's just not very good.

The costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone deserves awards for her work.

[quote] Kasia Walicka-Maimone

and her hundred milliners and seamstresses. Were they local milliners and seamstresses?

My crew friend told me the costume designer is a nightmare.

Were they ten year olds forced to work by lamplight for ten cents an hour?

Who gives a fuck r123?

[quote] Who gives a fuck [R123]?

Local milliners and seamstresses being forced out of work by offshore milliners and seamstresses who undercut their prices.

r127 then you can fuck off and go stand in front of HBO's corporate offices and sing The Internationale, then. JFC.

Ah, the joys of the "Ignore" button.

But what about the seamstresses r129?

My cousin went to Vassar with Louisa Gummer. Said she was a horrific cunt - stuck up and nasty piece of work with a gaggle of mean girl friends. Maybe she’s calmed down since then but who knows…..

Carrie Coon is completely miscast. Love her - hard to see her fuck up like this.

Gummer has a Yale MFA too. The mind boggles.

Has Louisa explained why she's not using the family name Gummer? Where does the "Jacobson" come from?

Don Gummer must have the patience of a saint.

Taissa Farmiga Is extremely difficult to look at. I have to turn away out of fear I'll turn to stone.

Carrie Coon is utterly overparted. Only Christine Baranski scores here.

I gather that Jacobson is her middle name.

What does "overparted" mean? I've never heard that term before.

Sounds like it comes from the same world as “casted” and “casting agent.”

R138, it’s been around for awhile, it’s not a recent term. It means having a role that is too demanding for you.

Was The Streep Child’s dog played by a rescue dog?

R131 Better yet, how many dogs died doing that stunt before they got the shot wanted?

[quote] My cousin went to Vassar with Louisa Gummer. Said she was a horrific cunt - stuck up and nasty piece of work with a gaggle of mean girl friends.

Likely playing herself. Rewatched the first episode, and the character she plays is a witch: from the beginning where the financial guy attempts to assist her, she snarks and snaps at him (when he asks if he can write her, she snaps, “no”), when her neighbor assists her with a runaway dog, she fails to thank him or show appreciation and instead chides the neighbor for putting himself at risk, and she spars continually with her aunts who attempt to assist her.

Louisa and her character come across as mean, spiteful, and intensely unlikable.

She seems unattractive: inside and out. And the weakest link in the episode.

Was Yale drama obliged to accept Gummer?

The Russell son is really cute.

Trivia: Fellowes' original idea was to write a prequel to DA, concentrating on the courtship of Cora and Lord Grantham. This led him to reseaching the Gilded Age in New York, to see what kind of early life Cora would have had. His research eventually led him to change his focus to The Four Hundred and switch the setting to New York.

Jesus, R143. All because she's M's daughter.

[quote] Finally a show that can truly be deemed: So bad it's good!

Mmm, I’m not sure I agree with that. That usually implies there’s a level of camp that saves it from being completely unwatchable, and that’s not true here. Usually Baranski would be the arbiter of camp, but it’s not present at all. She’s playing it way too seriously. All of the actors are. I’m not sure why. I’m hoping that Donna Murphy will bring some to the table. If not, we’re going to have a bunch of potato faced telegraphing Broadway actors treating Fellowes’ scripts like the Holy Scripture and that won’t be fun at all.

Nathan Lane is yet to appear too.

^ Are you serious? Because I was sure I saw a flash of him in that preview but then thought it was just someone who looked like him.

Lane is playing Ward McAllister, Mrs. Astor's arbiter of the social scene. He completely decided who was in and who was out and invented the term The Four Hundred.

Hopefully Lane will bring some much needed cunt to the table, R151.

The people who want to seem like no-it-alls are now trying to spoil the plot just to demonstrate their vast knowledge.

Try to be considerate of the people who were not born yet and don’t know the ins and outs of the history.

You’re not impressing anyone, it’s anonymous.

Jacobson is Louisa Gummer's middle name, it was her dad's mother's maiden name.

Know-it-alls.

Wtf are you talking about, R153? No one is spoiling anything. It’s literally history. And there’s no guarantee that Fellowes will follow it at all. This isn’t exactly historical fiction. It’s not that deep.

“It’s literally history” not everyone is 100 years old.

Some people like to learn something new while watching a show like this.

Is there anyone here that worked on the show or knows people who worked on the show? There usually are.

Is there a reason that all the actors are playing it like it’s Ibsen? Were they directed that way? Everyone seemed constipated and terrified.

Agree with R148... the writing lacks any humour and the actors are playing it like it's serious drama. It's not camp, it's absurd. Watchable, though, for being so mystifying.

THEN DON’T COME TO THESE THREADS R157. This happens for every show on DL. People always discuss these details. History is not a spoiler. Grow up you fucking infant.

"When Shirley Maclaine rolled up it was clear SHE wasn't Jewish despite being Mrs Levinson."

R75 - Cora's mother was Episcopalian and her father was Jewish. She talks about this when she walking with the art historian Simon Bricker (Richard E. Grant) after attending a Piero Della Francesca art exhibition and comments about the Levinsons being new money and her father being Jewish.

The Crawleys own painting by Piero Della Francesca which Simon Bricker comes to Downton to view and value for possible sale.

R80 - Brits marrying Jews was not an issue after Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery married Hannah Hannah de Rothschild. The Dowager Countess "attended" this wedding.

On 20 March 1878 in the Board of Guardians in Mount Street, London, at the age of 31 Rosebery married the 27-year-old Hannah de Rothschild (1851–1890), only child and sole heiress of the Jewish banker Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, and the wealthiest British heiress of her day. Her father had died four years previously in 1874, and bequeathed to her the bulk of his estate. Later on the same day the marriage was blessed in a Christian ceremony in Christ Church, Down Street, Piccadilly.

Also, George Cholmondeley, 5th Marquess of Cholmondeley married Sybil Sasson on on 6 August 1913, and they had two sons and one daughter. Their eldest son was the father of David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, who is married to Rose Hanbury. The wealth of the Cholmondeley family was greatly enhanced by Cholmondeley's marriage to Sybil Sassoon (1894–1989), a member of the Sassoon family and the Rothschild family, Jewish banking families, with origins in Baghdad, India, Germany, and France. She was heiress to her brother Sir Philip Sassoon.

Jews marrying aristocrats was not uncommon is aristocratic England.

R162 is why I come to these threads. Lol.

Love the remake of the Forsyte Saga with Rupert Graves and Damien Lewis. I usually watch it once every year or two.

The luscious Harry Richardson, who plays the Russell's son, was "discovered" by Julian Fellowes and played the young lead in the BBC Fellowes-produced and written version of Anthony Trollope's DR. THORNE a few years ago. At least on that one, Fellowes had a good model to copy. It's a decent and relatively short series with Tom Hollander, Ian McShane, Phoebe Nicholls and lots of recognizable British actors. I think it's still on Amazon Prime.

Larry Russell is a dreamboat. I’d love to watch him getting fucked and bred by the actor playing his father.

I was SO fucking pissed off when I was a gayling and went to a revival showing of Gone With The Wind and some prissy know-it-all SPOILED THE PLOT and told me the South lost. I mean really, How inconsiderate to a little boy. Then I was reading Anne Frank and I asked my teacher about the setting and he told me about the Nazis and something called the Holocaust and I was appalled he presumed to ruin the suspense for me. What a know it all cunt! Who hired him to be a teacher?

Thanks for the plot idea, R166!

Just hold your horses! Do you mean this show is based on American history? I figured it was a fantasy with the fancy accents and the people dressed like princes and princesses and living in those fancy palaces like French queens. I figured it was a remake of Cinderella with the footmen in gold and the red carpet and carriages. I'm confused. This actually happened? Wait a minute. DONT ANSWER. NO SPOILERS please.

r157 is Meghan McCain...

I enjoyed it. I could care less what The Guardian says. It’s a great cast and the scope is ambitious.

Don't tell me this show uses that Cuticle Race Query they told me ruins everything?

r153, The Brits have had a class system in place with titles and entails and tons of paperwork to document all the peerage and merchant class shenanigans. Americans not so much. So, when someone steps up and says that the original of the Whistler was much larger, or the bustles should have been large enough to muffle a large sized lady fart, I am glad to know. Not every show has someone like Alastair Bruce, who literally (!) has libraries of reference materials. So, if someone wants to inform me that the hobnails should have been closer together, I am all for it.

I am a DataLounger, please Whelm me with your minutia.

I haven't see this, but it sounds like another woke disaster.

Anyone who uses the word woke, is a political correctness asshole.

R59 we saw the Adams progeny at Newport and later when he visited at the Van Rijn house for a moment.

R110 - M was so awful in HOLOCAUST, I would have given the Emmy to Blanche Baker.

Everyone in a Fellows project is just so NICE. All of them. Except like three villains who are totally one-dimensional and are either put in their place or are revealed to be Actually Nice After All.

The servants know their place, the aristocrats are kindly.

Nothing ever really happens. Everything turns out ok. The dialogue is clunky and telegraphy. And it's mostly boring.

[quote] Anyone who uses the word woke, is a political correctness asshole

Wait. What?

If SJP was in the could have called it the Gelded Age.

[quote]…Guilded Age

Oh, DEAR.

R179 your joke didn't land in the first thread, either.

R181 Not me, but you made me feel unoriginal nonetheless.

[quote][R131] Better yet, how many dogs died doing that stunt before they got the shot wanted?

No dogs, but several Streep daughters.

Why did Meryl Streep only have daughters?

She has a son, too, who's not hit the Bug Time at 40. If I were one of the Gummer girls, I'd think to myself: "There are three of us, we're pretty much alike, with no special charisma, all competing for the same basic parts in an age when nobody cares about blonde white actresses. Why don't I become a doctor or lawyer instead."

^^^ Big Time. Not hit by Henry Gummer.

R174 R175 The only people who even use the word woke are tiresome rightwing dotards who somehow think they are being "clever" in "owning the libs".....

I agree that the Russell boy needs to be a central plot in this.... seeing how same-sex relationships exist in these decades would be interesting. Not sure the gay subplots worked in DA.

That is not true. You can be a liberal and still use the word “woke.” It didn’t come from the right. And there are plenty of liberals who think critically about cancel culture.

For the last time THE RUSSELL BOY is not the homo! My God, the series has "dead affect" but this at least was clear.

The only people who use "woke" wungnuts.

Tom + Lorenzo weighing in…

Since "woke" means to follow a certain kind of take-no-prisoners ideological lockstep, trying to prohibit that word only serves to prove the validity of it.

R192: You're the one bringing up "prohibiting". I'm sure you'd like to prohibit a lot of things like the largely non-existent CRT. The comments here have been about how and who uses it these days. You're an obvious troll and your awkward English is another tipoff.

R187 Are you being ironic or just incomprehensibly ambiguous?

Another weirdly “stagey” element is how the show really expects us to suspend disbelief when it comes to everyone’s ages. Carrie Coon is too young to be playing the mother of actors who are obviously in their mid-twenties (even if they are playing younger). Blake Ritson, who is supposed to be a bright young man about town and a contemporary of Marion and Larry Russell is older than Morgan Spector.

Carrie Coon is 42. The elder of her two children, Larry, just finished Harvard, so his character is 22 or 21.

Women in those days often got married at 18 or 19, so her age is not a problem.

My point is that Carrie Coon is clearly not 20 years older than Harry Richardson (28 in real life) and Taissa Farmiga (27 in real life). She looks like their older sister on camera.

Even if Michelle Dockery was a little long-in-the-tooth at the start of Downton Abbey to be playing early twenties, Ellizabeth McGovern and Hugh Bonneville read as old enough to be her parents because they are.

Coon's 40. The son is at Harvard so he might only be twenty. The daughter is younger than that. She hasn't debuted.

"Blake Ritson, who is supposed to be a bright young man about town and a contemporary of Marion and Larry Russell is older than Morgan Spector."

So??? It is all about looks. Macaulay Culkin is 41 born 1980. Prince William is 39 born 1982. Prince William looks 10 years older that Macaulay Culkin IMAO. Real age has nothing do with age you play in film. Angela Lansbury always played 15-20 years older than she really was. I mean she played Elvis Presley's mother is some 1960s movie when only eight years older than Elvis.

Sorry, she's 41.

Warning: THIS POST IS OFF the TOPIC of "The Gilded Age"

R187, R188

[quote] You can be a liberal and still use the word “woke.” It didn’t come from the right

The word came from the black civil rights movement. See at 8.25.—

That dress at R199 seems so bizarre.

Those big flaps on the front seem to invite us to pull at them.

I'm glad to see Ashlie Atkinson in this, she's a great character actress.

So now it seems some Dataloungers are arguing that not only do actors have to be the exact same ethnicity and religion as the characters they're playing, but they also have to be the exact same age.

r204 I think it could be the dementia setting in.

Just saw the first episode and I find it rather charming.

Would it be too obvious that Oscar (Blake Ritson) is looking for a "Brideshead Revisited" romance with Larry (Harry Richardson)? Clearly, he wouldn't dare courting Larry's sister Gladys when his mother, Agnes (Christine Baranski), doesn't approve of the Russells.

Oscar could end up in bed with Mr. Raikes, Marian’s hot attorney from Doylestown PA (and on Sundays it’s PU).

R206, I think it’s more likely that the arc will be Oscar struggling to choose between a bohemian life outside of polite society with his boyfriend or a marriage of convenience - I suspect the bored with-it-all Astor daughter will be the beard of choice.

I have a feeling this show is going to epic. We’ve only seen one episode.

Louisa seems like a good actress.

I just love that amped up promo.... the urgent strings... the flashing cuts... the Machiavellis... it's so over the top.

Also over the top: all the CGI. I realize many of the buildings of that era are long gone, but this looks like a Marvel movie (and is about as well-written and acted...).

R211 Those 'urgent strings' were stolen from a baroque-style piece by Carl Davis which is also used in advertisements for expensive cars and jewellery.

Ah, so stock music.

I have this feeling, in time, we're going to be rooting for the Berthanator in spite of herself. She's like bulldozer, picking up speed. It could be wildly entertaining, not on purpose.

R211... do you know the title?

R214 It seems that's not uncommon if the advertising company is different from the production company.

R216 It's probably something basic like 'Adagio for Strings' or 'Fandango for Strings'.

I like Carl Davis because he knows how to write instantly-attractive music.

Are they going to have Mark Twain be a character at some point and have him shake his fist at them and call them the Gilded Age?

Will Helen Keller make a guest appearance?

I want Oscar and John Adams in a threeway with the red headed Clarence Day Jr (I’m an Irene Dunne freak).

Anvils dropped around the Berthanator's sister in episode one, so I expect Samantha Josephine will be arriving in due course to stir up trouble on Fifth Avenue.

If you want to see another version of Gilded Age NYC, watch the Alienist. Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl and Dakota Fanning solving a murder mystery in the 1890s. The sets, costumes, street scenes and overall attention to period detail is incredible.

Alienist does a kind of stereotypical uptown/downtown contrasting trop, but does it well. I'm getting sick of that one building housing "Delmonicos". The setting are stretched THIN, but that's ok. I enjoyed both seasons.

R213 This advertisement climaxes with 'urgent strings'.

Actually, the music is, I presume, by the same guy who did Downton Abbey, and is just too similar to it. They should have gone to someone else.

That Coons person is just dreadful. Nixon played Birdie in Little Foxes on broadway and she’s playing her again here.

Slightly off topic but that production of The Little Foxes mentioned above was really good. First rate production values and a very fine cast. It had a gimmick but it was an interesting one for a change: Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon alternated nightly as Regina and Birdie. Both were excellent, in different ways, in each part.

The tacky side of marriage.

Damn, William Kassam Vanderbilt was a hot Daddy and he can get it! I’m assuming this is the picture they were looking at when they cast Morgan, who normally has raging sex appeal, though we didn’t see much of that on display in episode one.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if HBO decides to pull the plug on this even though a Season 2 is in pre-production. They did this with Vinyl.

Some fun stuff here... Mamie Fish may be the part to play.

Here’s a picture of Willie K. Vanderbilt when young, and he looks strikingly like the actor playing Morgan Spector’s son.

Vinyl wasn’t even worth a hate-watch. It was a complete piece of shit EXCEPT for that amazing disco song they featured during the Quaid child’s storyline. Otherwise, dustbin.

This at lease has a hate-watch quality (and a gay s/l which Vinyl did not).

Might be fun r218, although I know it's death when any show enters its famous "guest star of the week" phase.

Still I wouldn't mind if Lily Langtree could drop by. What do you do when some is a scandalous actress, and yet ... she is a "friend" of the Prince of Wales, so does that outweigh the scandal part? Dilemma!

R131 I went to Vassar with Louisa. I never heard about her being mean or nasty, just a bit snobby and dull. She’s a basic girl who went to Vassar and tried really hard to be hipster with her other wealthy NYC prep school female friends. She’s the kind of insecure girl who always does what she can to fit in and be popular - not a leader or tastemaker. Apparently her sister Grace was much worse and actually mean.

R234, which character would Louisa have been from THE GROUP? Lakey?

Pokey.

I just watched the first episode and can't believe how bad it is. The writing is banal and flat, the direction turgid, the CGI is weirdly bad, and Louisa Jacobson can't act. Not a shred of charisma or charm. Even Carrie Coon, who has been good in other shows, is terrible. Only Cnythia Nixon seems to be pulling off her role.

All in all, just a mess.

R235 Lol I haven’t started watching the show yet, I just pop into these threads sometimes because of Louisa. I’ll get around to watching it at some point

I wonder what Meryl thought? Or is it like any school play. "Well, you were wonderful darling and everyone - really was trying hard, you could see it!"

Reading the new Yanagihara, which has an alt-Gilded Age setting with gays.

Tick, tick, tick, M…

Uhh hahhad uh fahhm even uuffreeka

Pot.Kettle.Black.

At least our family understands age appropriate, Norma.

Hee, I love it r239. Maybe she can pull a Joan Crawford and step in to the role at some point.

[quote] I wonder what Meryl thought? Or is it like any school play. "Well, you were wonderful darling and everyone - really was trying hard, you could see it!"

Alternatively, maybe she's like Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis in "Feud" watching her daughter in "Baby Jane," and turns to someone and says, "She stinks on ice!"

For r242, says the woman who portrayed a thirty something Julia Child at sixty something…um, okay gurl, tell me more about age appropriate…

Yes, dear, but I didn't try to sing it. Although if I did, I, for one, could.

I don’t think Meryl would do a cameo on this.

R247 But if Louisa fell I’ll on a day of them taping the show live, she would gladly step in and play her part right?

Ugh * ill, damn spell check!

I checked Louisa’s IMDb profile and she has one minor credit before this. That’s it.

R250 Yes, Louisa recently graduated from Yale School of Drama and hasn’t done much else yet

Hopefully, she won't get to do too much more.

That M/G shit is completely lame and unfunny. Hopefully the dementia-addled old queen who insists on posting that inane drivel will be dead soon.

1882 is a tad early to be using the expressions “they won’t play ball.” Referring to the scene of the silver bearded daddy in Mr. Russell’s office.

R234 - maybe I am thinking of Grace then? I can't keep the two bitches apart - did both of them go to Vassar? My cousin is 35 - isn't that how old Louisa is?

Bottom line - one of the daughters was apparently a huge cunt with a gaggle of mean friends at Vassar.

All three of the Gummer sisters--Grace, Mamie, and Louisa--went to Vassar, their mother's alma mater.

r255, no one can take your gossip seriously if you can't even remember which of the sisters it was about.

Jeez, did any of these bitches ever do something that mommy didn't do?

How many episodes have run to create all this havoc? One? Two?

I just googled R256 and the Mamie went to Northwestern so don't come at me like that! And the oldest brother went to Dartmouth. Looks like they got progressively dumber. She should have stopped at 2.

My gossip was about GRACE based on her age. I'm sorry I got these bitches mixed up - that Louisa looks to be about 35 - how was I to know she's the youngest one?

Just one, r258.

But, given that the TV show

1) is about the infamously snobbiest people of all time--the Old Knickerbocker aristocracy of NYC--, which older gay men tend to obsess about (because they love to fantasize about being such a nasty snob towards aggressive rich & powerful people);

2) and that Julian Fellowes, who is a man of limited talent and ridiculously huge ego, was the brains behind it;

3) and, finally, that it stars one of Meryl Streep's underwhelming daughters,

it's completely inevitable it would immediately become a DL obsession.

[quote] She should have stopped at 2.

Well, that's what I think!

[quote]is about the infamously snobbiest people of all time--the Old Knickerbocker aristocracy of NYC--, which older gay men tend to obsess about (because they love to fantasize about being such a nasty snob towards aggressive rich & powerful people);

The Gilded Age and mid-century NYC high society are the two periods that older gay men romanticize about endlessly.

R254, that line jumped out at me too. It’s something a 1920s gangster would say.

R253 can't come soon enough. And take the hoary old "Liza schtick queen" with her.

What are all the descendants of the Old Knickerbocker aristocracy doing now? Are they still wealthy and "high society" or have those families faded into the ether and the descendants are just ordinary schlubs now?

My aunt married into an Old 400 family in the 80s. 2nd marriage. I was in my early 20s. Because I was an Ivy Leaguer and always curious about any fringe culture, she invited me for several years to all their watering holes. They were still around in the 80s and the fortunes were not always as reduced as people were led to believe. Rockefellers, Fricks, Whitneys ("new money" a hundred years ago) and Peabodys, Biddles, Auchinclosses etc (old money), and they were all mostly living grandly - or at least there were enough of them who still were living grand, thus their presence in the watering holes. We used to get sloshed at the gentlemen's clubs, which were also around. I don't know now.

My next exposure to the Happy Few was the London circuits in the 90s and Jet Paris, Geneva and the Côte d'Azur. Then in the oughts, the Arab gotha and oligarch wealth. Needless to say, there are plenty of families who had enormous fortunes in 1900 and liked to live grandly, and still doing the same in 2000. Of course, there is is ALWAYS new and bigger money. Unless its royalty, their money has always been big.

[quote]To recap: Morgan Spector — who is possibly badly miscast in this, but who can tell because everyone might be badly miscast but the writing and direction are so bad it's impossible to discern — looks great naked

My feelings on Morgan Spector from The Plot Against America is that he’s gorgeous and whilst he technically can act, he’s not a good screen actor.

Yale's MFA program really couldn't do a better job than this?

From around 1970 to around 2010 the Arab oil money and royal money (which is also oil money) replicated a kind of Gilded Age. It had a LOT of similar rules and games and social climbing, and an arbiter (which ever Saud was king, and his crown prince) and the same EXTREMELY ostentatious consumption. And fashionable watering holes.

Any family who wanted to play the High Society game had to have some pedigree (title) or BILLIONS, and had to have at least 5 extravagant homes in the watering holes around Europe, and a superyacht, and the right collection of ultra luxury vehicles, the right wardrobes, watches, jewels, toys, the kids in the right schools (often accompanied by a paid employee doing all the work), the right collections of horses, camels, falcons, etc etc etc. It was fascinating and well, it does circulate a LOT of money back into the economy.

They had employees do the kid’s schoolwork? Oh my.

Crew friend told me Louisa had particular trouble hitting her marks. She was so bad at it that an exasperated Julian Fellowes could be heard from video village saying “I don’t understand why she has so much trouble landing on her mark.” The camera department ultimately had to put down raised foam marks which would literally stop her when she walked into them.

Julian Fellowes was also heard from video village saying "I hate this little fucking cunt! NO talent! Her mother should've sent her to law school instead."

The review is crap. Evidently, she doesn't like the accents. That's all I got out of it.

R254, R263. I agree

Is this going to become a Louisa hate thread? The posts lose credibility when they are so visceral and hateful.

[quote] She was so bad at it that an exasperated Julian Fellowes could be heard from video village saying “I don’t understand why she has so much trouble landing on her mark.”

That sounds like the producer, director and scriptwriter of 'Darling' saying 'I don’t understand why this new dolly bird can't speak a complete sentence without stressing the wrong word'.

How could we have missed this?

No, R276, there’s plenty of hate to go around when it comes to this series.

^ Look at all the effort and tweaking that went into that middle-aged woman's ruchèd bodice.

Julian Fellowes is ruthless. If he even remotely thinks Louisa Jacobson is hated by the audience or that she sucks, he’ll off her in a heartbeat. Car accident, stroke, poisoning, you name it.

R280 She could be sent off for some very early experimental plastic surgery and come back as another actress?

R255 Louisa is 30. Grace is 35.

All of Streep's daughters are ugly and untalented.

Interesting that Louisa is so bad in a film that is getting pummeled. Notable that she stands out (in and even more unfavourable way), than the rest of the stilted, unnatural cast.

With 3 daughters and the acting machine that is Meryl Streep, you would think one of them would have talent.

Sadly, not only can they not act, but while looking like their mother, they are surprisingly unattractive.

I imagine it's G who is posting all those negative comments about her arch nemesis' daughters. Especially on DL, where she can remain anonymous.

I wish The Gilded Age was a film, R284. Unfortunately it’s a series and we have nine more weeks of protracted agony hate watching it.

Despite all the carping and bitching in this thread—

I have to say I thank the filmmakers for putting together this elaborate concoction!

“Hate watching” is when haters watch something because they like it but they don’t want to admit it.

For everyone else, “hate watching” means not watching it at all.

I see what people mean about it being elaborate or lavish but its not impacting me. I get a staged and dinky vibe. It might be the framing or lensing. Or the compromises of a covid production. For example the Newport Garden party and the levity of a steaming pile of horse manure. They looked hemmed into tight framing, the light was winter light, the trees were bare, the still life of the spread of drinks and eats was preposterously hamfisted. The carriage rides are hemmed in as well. The Breakers' kitchen is a grand space but in this series it looks cramped.

Uhhh, no, R288. That’s not what hate watching means.

Some of you just need to upgrade to a modern HD set. Because I watched it on a cheap, outdated tv and then again on a brand new HD set with all the bells and whistles.

Major difference.

Also, watching it on regular HBO doesn’t put out the same visuals as HBO Max from my experience. You have to switchover to the Max.

hmmm there's an idea, thanks

Thanks, OP, for linking to that cunty review! The Guardian at its best! I watched the trailer, rolled my eyes and now can rest easy knowing my knee-jerk reaction was right.

[quote] ^ Look at all the effort and tweaking that went into that middle-aged woman's ruchèd bodice.

"middle-aged"??

Meryl Streep is 72.

r289 there was nothing wrong with the Newport garden party. I don't know what fantasy you have in your mind of how it should've been, but it looked pretty accurate to the period.

That Guardian review was ridiculous. A Brit not really knowing much about American culture. People in the Northeast pronounce "aunt" as Ahhnt" to this day, it's not an affectation by the actors on the show.

Who is pretending to “hate” this show but keeps posting about it? It’s like the manic Lange Loon or the one that kept posting about Being the Ricardos.

Cynthia Nixon is reproducing her Tony-award winning role of Birdie in The Little Foxes.

No, Cynthia Nixon is just being bizarre with her Sandy Dennis like stammers.

Streep's kid really isn't very good---she's not laugh out loud terrible, but she is basically reciting lines and going through the motions.

[quote] What are all the descendants of the Old Knickerbocker aristocracy doing now? Are they still wealthy and "high society" or have those families faded into the ether

I went to college with a Roosevelt and a Rhinelander, and until he recently died, one of my city council members was Nick Fish, a direct descendant of Mr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish (Mrs. Fish is a character on "The Gilded Age").

Mrs. Fish needs to remarry or take a stage name.

I only knew Baranski and Nixon were in the cast before I watched. As soon as Louisa opened her mouth and knew she was a Streep offspring. I liked Grace in American Horror Story but Mamie is pretty dull. Maybe she should have tried sculpture instead.

Or she could fail in obscurity like the son. I wonder if Streep has some sort of iron clad will to prevent these idiots she spawned from spnding all her money.

Meryl did buy all of them apartments in Manhattan, the lucky fucks.

The only British/American production with any merit.

So two threads and it's only the first episode?

Wow.

One of the Gummer daughters managed to land a rich music producer. She's probably the only one who doesn't mooch off of Mother.

Cynthia Nixon really can't do period pieces. She was the weakest link in Amadeus as well.

This is a TikToker who worked in a non union costume shop that made outfits for primarily Louisa and Tiassa’s characters for the show and her frustration at the designer who changed their mind a lot, especially post Bridgerton, and gave very little guidance as to what they wanted. Sounds like she’s going to be doing a running commentary through the series. Her first TT was giving the screen the finger….

[quote]Mrs. Fish needs to remarry or take a stage name.

She died over a century ago, honey.

Has anyone listened to this HBO sanctioned podcast of GA? I’m a bit reluctant since the host is Australian and I’m afraid her voice and lack of historical context is going to ware on me.

Anyone pursuing FIRE? As someone hoping to retire by 40 or at the very latest before 50, there was something comforting seeing the comfortable and cozy lives of the wealthy dowager and her spinster sister. They have never worked and never will need to work, have a house full of servants doing everything needed, enough money to comfortably last the both of them the entire rest of their lives, plus enough to easily and comfortably support a new niece and hire a new secretary.

All Agnes had to do was marry a wealthy but abusive old fuck, blow him and entertain him for a few years to a decade, and outlive him.

Sigh... she had it made... but her lesbian spinster sister Ada had it even better; she gets to reap the rewards from her sister's efforts and can just embrace her spinsterhood, without having to touch a man she wasn't attracted to, and just live leisurely, attending charity functions, and walking her damn dog. And here I am working my boring ass 9 to 5, barely making $130k in this economy with absurdly high inflation, worrying about what's to come in the next 10 years and if I'll be able to hit my retirement goals if the economy continues down its current fucked up path... Sigh... at least this show provides good escapism for a bit.

r311, life provides you with struggles you have to overcome either way. For an outsider it seems like a great life, but every life has its challenges that can make one feel overwhelming.

I had a fairly rich friend (not from the 400, mind you), but he was a total paranoid mess who thought everybody is out to get him or is trying to steal his money. He was constantly testing people, and he didn't trust his own family members (moved away and refused to take any staff with him - he was afraid they would report back to his family). He was very needy one moment and the next he accused you of using him. His relationships were very short-lived, and I gave up on him when I couldn't take his mood swings and all the traps he tried to set up to prove that I can't be trusted. Like, one moment he spends so much money to impress you and then throws it in your face that you are only with him because of the money. Very bizarre.

R308 she’s really unprofessional and hindering her chances of picking up further work behaving like that. Juicy gossip though!

R311 Fuck you, you whiny white woman problems having bitch. I hope you come back in another life born without arms or legs.

Can that TikTok be "re-formatted" for those of us not on TikTok?

R315 are you Lia Thomas?

Let's not forget that Christine's own daughter doesn't get much love around here. Mocking her mole on threads about the Roswell reboot.

Who the hell is Christine?

Will The Gilded Age and Euphoria do a cross over event at some point?

R308 what’s her account?

Honestly, there's so many female names being thrown around, I'm half confused.

But I agree Cynthia Nixon was wrong for the role. And the Streep girl just isn't cutting it. She doesn't have a presence.

All this after one episode?

R317 is referring to Christine Baranski’s actress daughter Lily Cowles who’s a regular on the series Roswell, New Mexico.

Never heard of the daughter or the show.

[quote]she’s really unprofessional and hindering her chances of picking up further work behaving like that. Juicy gossip though!

She's non-union already, twerp. I don't think she cares.

R324 If you’re one of those people who are obsessed with moles you know her.

What are moles?

Fellowes, as mentioned way above, said that his original idea was a Downton prequel about Cora's early life. He has also said that he still might do a Downton prequel. Perhaps there might be a crossover there.

R327 You tell me.

tl;dr

Why don’t people get moles removed?

I’ve had several removed, and I’m poor. There is no excuse. Who wants to walk around like that. I was so relieved when they were gone. One was on my face. Disgusting.

Get those things removed, people. So what if there is a tiny scar. Nobody will ever see it. But they will see the huge witch mole from across the room. They are such a gross turnoff.

[quote] All Agnes had to do was marry a wealthy but abusive old fuck, blow him and entertain him for a few years to a decade, and outlive him.

I doubt someone as obsessed with respectability and decorum would have blown her husband in the 19th century.

R331 Amen! And she’s a surprisingly attractive girl besides that mole and her mother

They're called beauty marks, bitch. Google it.

R334 Shut up Madonna!

Lily plays the most power alien on the show who could wave her hand and make it disappear, it makes no sense character wise.

I think a beauty mark is different. Those are like minuscule, flat and can even enhance an otherwise flawless face.

But moles are disgusting. Especially on the face. Like that giant growth that was attached to Enrique jr.’s face.

[quote]Lily plays the most power alien on the show who could wave her hand and make it disappear, it makes no sense character wise.

We have yet to see Nathan Lane as Ward McAllister. Let's see whose hand waving counts.

Fellows seems to not want anything to do with England leading up to World War II. Not their finest hour? But once engaged, they were brave and fierce. It's a great story.

Fellows needs to do a future Downton in 1936, the Year of Three Kings.

So the costumes were used to show the differences in class after all.

Some know-it-all tried to shoot that down in the other thread.

Link at OP is a straight hit piece.

Do these people have a vendetta?

I'd like to fix this, if possible.

Fellowe$, as mentioned way above, $aid that his original idea wa$ a Downton prequel about Cora'$ early life. He has also $aid that he $till might do a Downton prequel. Perhaps there might be a cro$$over there.

I'm not surprised it's a stinker. Haven't watched yet but could only sporadically watch Downton Abbey. The plot lines were horrible and horrid situations, like Anna's marriage, went on forever.

I liked the visuals and the storylines were sometimes entertaining but over all the characters lives were just annoying and dumb.

Slightly off topic: Another period drama was released by BritBox recently. It takes place in Italy. Posted about it in the "What are the current TV shows with gay male characters? Part 5" (I don't think The Gilded Age has been mentioned in the thread yet).

Ohhhhh boo-fucking hoooo Mary, @311. Humble brag much? You are so uppity and obnoxious. 130,000 a year? Retire at 40?

Power to you, if you can do it, but please spare us your whiny, poor-me, paranoid tears. It’s an affront to all hard workers who would like to be in your situation, but for a host of reasons, things just didn’t turn out as well for them.

R345, unfortunately Hotel Portifino in only streaming on the UK Britbox, not the original US one.

r347 you can watch it on the streamers.

No, R348, I did a search on it here on US Britbox. It’s not there.

The free streamers r349

[quote] Where is BritBox available?

[quote] BritBox is currently available in Australia, Canada, USA, South Africa and UK.

You have to subscribe. I guess that could be the issue.

What “free streamers,” R350? You mean torrents?

[quote]Knew from the start that the Russell party would blow.

Anyone who’s ever seen The Unsinkable Molly Brown knew the Russell party would blow.

[quote]No one should employ Bernard Telsey or Mark Saks to cast television series. Both men are star fuckers, so you won't get quality actors, just actors you recognize from somewhere else.

Such a capitol sin in TV to cast actors viewers will recognize.

[quote]I think the biggest failing between GA & DA is that in Gilded the families don’t seem to be loyal or loving to each other. Old Money seems to resent each other… Ms. Nixon is not twinkly and charming enough to play a sparky maiden aunt.

I think I liked the domineering/passive sisters dynamic better on The New Adventures of Sabrina.

Primewire, Watchseries, Himovies etc. r352

No, thanks, R354. I’ll wait for it to appear on my local Britbox or Amazon or Acorn. I subscribe to enough streaming services as it is.

I watch things on 123, openload, gomo and the like. Search for* watch online free* and see what pops up.

That HOTEL PORTOFINO trailer looks like sexy 1920s fun (I love me some Adam James!) except for the hideous anachronistic bouffant hairdo on that blonde.

I love me some Adam James, too. He’s very sexy. The Gilded Age needs someone like him on it.

[quote] Love the remake of the Forsyte Saga with Rupert Graves and Damien Lewis. I usually watch it once every year or two.

Gina McKee and Ioan Gruffudd were REPULSIVE.

Who needs presence when nepotism can get you anything and anywhere in life?

r355 you don't subscribe to those free streaming services.

How old are some of you people? These sites have been around for well over a decade now.

Excuse me, R361, some of us like to get our entertainment via legit means. Actors, directors, etc are getting gypped out of those free “streaming services.”

Like Mamie and Grace before her, Louisa will benefit from nepotism only so far. Actually, it's sad for her that she's making her big debut in a showcase millions are watching, unlike her two sisters who could fail mostly unnoticed.

[quote] Like Mamie and Grace before her, Louisa will benefit from nepotism only so far. Actually, it's sad for her that she's making her big debut in a showcase millions are watching, unlike her two sisters who could fail mostly unnoticed.

THIS.

Is Louisa really any worse than Michelle Dockery and Laura Carmichael? Uncle Julian is very bad at casting ingenues.

Yes Louisa is worse than Michelle Dockery.

I wasn’t much a fan of Laura Carmichael but at least she wasn’t Meryl Streep’s bratty daughter.

God knows Louisa isn’t even as compelling as the one who played the dead sister.

Morgan Spector talks too fast.

It looks way too CGI-y

The CGI in 'Belgravia' was much nicer.

BELGRAVIA worked so much better than DA and TGA because it didn't attempt to be so ambitious. Far fewer characters and plots that wrapped themselves up in 8 or so episodes. So glad Fellowes didn't try and keep it going with a second season.

Everyone says that Downton Abbey was really good for the first two series but trailed off in the following series.

I thought Belgravia was Brilliant! in the first episode but trailed off in the following episodes with some unacceptable plottiness.

But what made Belgravia was brilliant was the playing by Harriet Walter. She spoke volumes using silence and froideur.

Harriett Walter is like Lesley Manville.... one of those great British actresses who is having a hell of career comparatively late in life. In fact both have probably been around forever but they're rocking this stage of it. Walter is a favourite of mine.

I'm definitely seeking out more by Harriett Walter as she's massively intelligent.

Unfortunately she gets small roles in movies while her big roles are on stage.

I think it rather pathetic that she —like Judi Dench— only seem to get recognition late in their career.

She was very good in Law & Order:UK which can be streamed on BritBox.

[quote]Excuse me, [R361], some of us like to get our entertainment via legit means. Actors, directors, etc are getting gypped out of those free “streaming services.”

Piratebay, bro.

I loved Harriet as the ruthless Margaret Beaufort in The Spanish Princess

Harriet Walter is fabulous as the cunt mother on Succession.

Harriet Walter is also great as Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan’s mother in Atonement.

Harriet Walter is married to an American named Guy Paul who she met doing Mary Stuart on Broadway.

R380 I wonder if marriage to an American will entitle her to special visas and better employment prospects in the USA?

F&F the person who caused this thread to become greyed out just because they didn’t like the show.

[quote] F&F the person who caused this thread to become greyed

It was probably one of Datalounge's grouchy socialists who're unhappy two threads have been devoted to the worship of capitalism.

Just watched the first episode. It’s not THAT bad. I will give it a chance.

I think they FFd the shady article at OP

Part three might want to consider dropping the agenda.

Actually someone else should do part 3 since Op has an agenda.

[quote] F&F the person who caused this thread to become greyed out just because they didn’t like the show.

How would we tell who that is, exactly?

R386 I like coons in this.

I think some people would prefer a documentary.

I’m pretty sure PBS did a documentary about 10 years ago in gilded figures.

I meant r36

PBS American Experience did a documentary called "The Gilded Age" that is worth watching. You can rent it on Amazon Prime but I don't know where you can watch for free.

I just watched the first episode. It was predictable and boring.

I wondered why they cast a dullard in the role of Marian and learned from DL the reason is nepotism.

Mrs. Russel was so rude to the society woman who came to her party. She knew the game she was playing and should never have let her bitterness show. If I were a very rich woman in her situation my motto would be "living well is the best revenge." I'd spend as I pleased cultivating the arts, creating a salon of great talent and thinkers. Screw all those old fading biddies who think an old name makes them better than others.

Harriet Walter was incredible in Mary Stuart, R380. Such a great Elizabeth.

Isabella Stewart Gardner did exactly that in Boston, r390. Fascinating woman.

But, did she have fascinating rhythm?

The whole „nobody showed up at the party“ storyline was totally predictable and stupid. People would have RSVP‘d back then. And the food looked like plastic.

I recall Bertha saying that people did not R.S.V.P. to an invite like that, so she was guessing at the amount of food needed.

Bertha may have thought RSVPs weren't appropriate but she was dead wrong.

That’s also manufactured and unrealistic. Why would they not RSVP. And if they don’t you know what it means. But Lady Astor would have had her secretary decline the invitation.

It seemed very short notice, another faux-pas, I think.

Just rename this show the Gilded Rage for all the anger it stirs up.

Has a one-hour drama ever filled two threads before after airing just a single episode? I’m already pretty impressed with the “DL fave rising” aspect of all this on the board.

No RSVP for an “At home” invitation.

I think you're right r401, but there's a whole etiquette before you actually get there. You drop off your card (or better, you wait in the carriage while a servant drops it off). Then you go home, and if the other lady wants to respond, within a few days she sends her card with an invitation to come by and visit her, on her "at home" day. There's an etiquette there, you go in the late morning or early afternoon and stay 20 minutes. Only then do you even think about an invitation of your own to some gathering.

Bertha is skipping all the delicate steps and then being shocked that it didn't all work out, which seems silly. I know she's supposed to be sort of in over her head, but she'd know the basics.

(And yes, I'm a DLer with too much time on has hands who decided to find out about calling cards.)

r401 I'm surprised our eldergays didn't catch that, and took the opportunity to lecture us common proles about it.

r402, makes it sound like "at home" visitis were the equivalent of a friend request on social media. You send the request and wait for the other to respond and invite you.

It could be that the poster was just incorrect but the show got it right.

I think that's true, r404, but it's the calling card that was the actual "friend request," at least at first. Later, once you're actually friends, they're dropping them off all the time, as a kind of thank you card for dinner or whatever, as a congratulations card, even to say "I condole you" if somebody in the house has died.

In fairness Louisa Jacobson's role is always the hardest to carry off in any of these costume dramas -- the perpetually perky sweet center of the story.

But in all fairness, LJ doesn't come close to doing carrying it off. She has zero it-factor: nothing about her shines or radiates or even interests. It's not that she's bad as much as she's nothing.

Her mother will probably make sure she wins an Emmy.

Only DLers would be able to discuss the proper etiquette for an 1883 invitation.

It’s exactly why I love DL, R408.

She looks like she is wearing a trash bag here…

Well, isn’t that the point, R407? Isn’t she just a country bumpkin with nothing to her name?

She’s always been quiet and dull because she didn’t have need to be anything else.

She’s a fish out of water. Now that she’s in civilization, she’s going to have to learn to be seen and to be noticed and remembered.

As for the fashions, especially Mrs. Russell’s, they are divine! Those dresses are stunning. The lilac dress Russell wears on the staircase when she berates the carpenter, or whatever he was, was swoon worthy.

Fellowes has already borrowed a big incident for the first episode from Edith Wharton's [italic]The Age of Innocence[/italic]: early in the novel, Mrs. Manson Mingott and her family plan to throw a big dinner to re-introduce her grandchild Ellen Olenska back into society, but because of her tarnished reputation, no one will come ("and New York declined...").

But since Edith Wharton was from this rarefied layer of Old New York society, she knew exactly how it would actually be done (and Martin Scorsese shows it beautifully in the movie): the invitations are sent out, but then the other New York society people send their regrets by mail, which deeply shames Ellen's family the Mingotts (and their relatives the Archers).

Fellowes' way of circumventing that and to make it more dramatic is that he's making Bertha Russell impulsive, and whipping up a quick party which people would not have to formally decline if they didn;t show up. But that's not really the way people did things back then, so although it was supposed to be dramatic, it didn't ring very true.

(In the book and the Scorsese film of it, the Archers wisely respond to the snub by going to their other relatives, the most unimpeachable Knickerbocker family in all of New York, the van der Luydens, so as to get them to host the welcoming party for Ellen instead--knowing no one will dare refuse that invitation.)

Wasn’t Bertha essentially throwing an “open house”? Were those really done then?

One doesn't 'throw' an “open house”, one states one is 'at home' for visitors.

I was applying a modern parlance to the events for the sake of comparison, R414. Quite obviously.

No need to apologize, r415. Your term "open house" was exactly the way it was (anachronistically) portrayed in the episode.

I was quibbling over the verb 'throw',

'Throw' suggests a frantic action whereas an 'At Home' is passive.

One presents one's home. Were any of the corners of the calling card bent?

wrong thread R419 ?

It was a dumb idea for all the characters, inexplicable, and therefor also a dumb action in the narrative and insulting to the audience.

Berth has been in NYC for a long time and has been rich for a long time too. Her son is at Harvard. The only thing that is new is she hired a prestige architect to build a townhouse dwarfing all the others at an entirely new scale of grandeur AND she wants to crack high society. She already knows all the names and she knows enough about how to play the game.

This was a cynical plot point delivered in a condescending way to the audience assumed to be idiots so it this needs to be SPELLED OUT for them. Including Bertha's ridiculous overreaction in there bedroom later on and her completely self-sabotaging show of anger and meanness.

Bertha is a character that Laura Linney would have absolutely nailed back in the day.

Didn’t she play a Bertha in The House of Mirth?

[quote]wrong thread [R419] ?

Yikes! I think when I post something on one thread and immediately switch to another thread, it can get posted in the second one.

Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I thought Bertha was a new arrival to NY

No, R424, it was mentioned that she and her family had moved up from 30th Street.

I think it was meant to establish that Bertha has to crawl, and claw, her way up the social ladder right from the start of the show. Showing her progression of getting smarter and more cunning in her attempts.

DUH - yes R426 for the dullards in the audience. Because the Bertha character wouldn't be so stupid at this point in her life, in the time of the story. That was all for the viewer and not consistent to the character.

What does this mean R418? Enlighten us, Arbiter of Elegance!

DA never went to the trouble of explaining what "entail" meant to its British audiences, for one example, but TGA is insistent on dumbing everything down for its American audiences.

Euphoria is a much better show but The Gilded Age is somehow more enjoyable due to subject matter alone.

Okay but why aren't we discussing the real travesty in this show? The two gays made out whilst fully clothed, and Morgan Specter walked around at night time wearing a fucking bathrobe... Instead of competely in the nude.

FIX THIS MESS, FELLOWS. I expected better from you!!

The first bunch of episodes were directed by Michael Engler and the second bunch by an African-American female (Salli Richardson-Whitfield). It will be interesting to see if the quality improves in her episodes.

Just because one was "at home" didn't mean they were at home to everybody. Some people were simply not received.

Remember that Rhett Butler was never again received by any decent household in Charleston after he took that girl out for a late afternoon carriage ride, UNCHAPERONED, and then refused to marry her.

"No, but she was ruined just the same."

Ain't quality.

Taint quality.

When does the next episode drop, tomorrow? Tuesday?

I'm hoping that lackluster first episode was about setting up the plot and it may improve. Or not.

New episodes air on Monday nights.

[quote] The first bunch of episodes were directed by Michael Engler and the second bunch by an African-American female (Salli Richardson-Whitfield). It will be interesting to see if the quality improves in her episodes.

Or not.

I hope we won't be seeing "a bunch" of "Bad-Ass" in her episodes.

Thanks, r438.

Viola looks good in the photo at op but I think that is one of my awful Gummer actresses with her.

Please accept my apologies.

Tonight…tonight…we’ll all hate watch tonight…

R439 Oh look, the racist showed up.

Tonight at 9 pm!

Tonight at 9 pm!

Anybody know if the episodes will drop earlier on HBO Max than they’re broadcast on HBO? I got a hot date.

Taint quaintly

R446, I believe they drop on HBO max the same time as they air on cable.

Having now seen most of the first episode of Hotel Portofino, I can safely say it makes Gilded Age look like Upstairs Downstairs.

I knew there was a reason we weren't hearing about Hotel Portofino until now....

All of the clothes look so fucking hot and uncomfortable, I would be sweating my ass off if I had to wear them.

Are you all watching?

Well, crickets. Or maybe they fell asleep.

Vast improvement over the first episode.

Observations:

The King Canute scene was basically a copy and paste from Downton.

The housekeeper and Monsieur Patmore are basically Carson and Mrs. Hughes

Christine Baranski bears an unsettling resemblance to Ron Perlman in Beauty and the Beast.

It suffers from And Just Like That Syndrome: too many characters getting too little to do, crammed into the same episode

It is more entertaining than AJLT. Improved over last week but, basically, Fellowes is a lazy bad writer, rather than an original bad writer.

[quote] too many characters getting too little to do, crammed into the same episode

That's what killed Downton.

It had twenty characters trying to appeal to all possible demographics in the audience.

But only six of those 20 were interesting.

I loved it! Much better than episode 1. Why is the show getting so much hate? It’s fun.

Fellowes may find what they figured out in original recipe Dynasty: none of the viewers cared about the middle class Blaidels and personally I'd far rather watch an hour of the Berthanator, Mamie Fish and Mrs. Astor than the servants. It needs to focus to become a solid hour of escapist fun.

Definitely better than last week. And Donna Murphy seems to be the best thing in it.

I thought this episode was even worse than the first. To call it a melodrama would be kind.

All of the women are dressed in equally gaudy gowns in outlandish colors and patterns that bounce off each other like circus clowns. There's no difference between old money and new money, or between generations or classes. That poor Black girl's got fancier dresses and hats than Meryl Streep Jr. #3!

And Carrie Coon's voice is driving me mad.

[quote]All of the women are dressed in equally gaudy gowns in outlandish colors and patterns that bounce off each other like circus clowns.

It's historically accurate. Look up historical dress from the period.

This was a fun episode. The show is improving.

So many people to keep track of. It’s too much for my feeble mind.

[quote] Fellowes may find what they figured out in original recipe Dynasty: none of the viewers cared about the middle class Blaidels and personally I'd far rather watch an hour of the Berthanator, Mamie Fish and Mrs. Astor than the servants.

I could not be more certain that the original "Dynasty" is of course his model.

Is the cook Irish? German? Cockney?

I thought she was Polish tonight but last week I thought she was Oirish.

She’s meant to be German, her last name is Bauer.

Tonight’s episode only reinforced what was bad about the premiere episode. Louisa Jacobson is beyond amateurish. And the usually wonderful Carrie Coon is truly awful-that voice alone is contributing to sinking this ship. Morgan Spector is like a robot. Katie Finneran (Mrs. Morris) is bland as hell but hey, she’ll get just as much airtime next week. Yikes. This is such a dud it’s shocking.

The real entertainment of this show is clearly coming to these threads and seeing everyone try and out-do Agnes van Rhijn in pursed-lip prissy snobbiness!

[quote] and seeing everyone try and out-do Agnes van Rhijn in pursed-lip prissy snobbiness!

"Oh, [italic]dear[/italic]" to myself!

That should read "try [italic]to[/italic] outdo Agnes van Rhijn..."

[quote] Having now seen most of the first episode of Hotel Portofino, I can safely say it makes Gilded Age look like Upstairs Downstairs.

Most British period TV of the past decade is SHIT.

Looking at you Indian Summer, Beecham House, The Crimson Field, The Last Post, Vanity Fair…

DITTO if it is a Great Novel adapted by Andrew Davies..

[quote] SHIT.

You have stated your boundaries, R469.

They have broken my heart one too many times, r470.

[quote] a Great Novel adapted by Andrew Davies.

Davies likes to throw out all that 19th century verbiage.

He said his ideal is when the story can be conveyed with camera movement and the actors sighing, grunting, glancing, urinating and doing nude scenes.

His woke version of Jane Austen's 'Sanditon' was just silly.

Sanditon was dreadful, except for Theo James ass.

That was some pretty heavy exposition during the insider trading scene. I haven't had such a schooling since the entail.

Is Sanditon the show where Regency British aristocrats are trying to win the hand of a negress?

I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous.

Streep Jr. sounds like her Mama.

It must be a law that if there are subsequent threads, that link to naked, full frontal Morgan Spector must be included.

I beg you.

The accents are very odd.

Everyone is trying to sound a bit English.

But I bet the real accents were very New York.

It entered Mommie Dearest territory when she threw that tray from the bed.

[quote] Is Sanditon the show where Regency British aristocrats are trying to win the hand of a negress?

Yes, it was. The competition was an inarticulate teenaged, pale-skinned, thumb-sucking baby who was continuously wiping her unkempt hair away from her face in every scene.

Sanditon was terribly cast. Anne Reid was fun in as an unrepentantly awful woman but it was filled with awful acting.

Theo James was weirdly aggressive as usual.

Loved it!!

Again, the dresses are stunning.

Loved what Mr. Russell did to those old biddies, fuck them.

Hell, one hundred dollars now is a lot for those trinkets they were selling.

Oscar should be kept away from that naive, young girl.

This episode was awful.

Just awful.

For reasons you know very well.

I’m not ready to leave, I’ll give it a go next Monday, I guess….

They should have done a show called the Guilted Age about Freud in Vienna.

I would respect Bertha as a character a lot more if she schemed her own way to get back at those women rather than tossing her breakfast tray and then whining to hubby.

I agree with the poster above that Donna Murphy was good. She gets the tone in a way that the other ladies don’t, especially Baranski. They’re all playing it like Ibsen. Donna is playing it archly camp with a slight smile and a well schooled Midlantic accent. Streep the 8th continues to suck. I didn’t mind Coon so much this time around. I get what she’s going for, but the tossing of the tray… ugh.

And can we please talk about the cruelty of not allowing the women to wear any makeup? Yes, I get naturalism and whatever, but these are Broadway ladies of a certain age and it’s really terrible to put them on screen with not even a little cheek or lip color. And Baranski doesn’t have any brows. They look like corpses. They all must be horrified when they see themselves. They’re lucky that HBO is so fucking cheap they still aren’t broadcasting in 4K and it’s only 1080p. Otherwise the audience would be running for the hills.

It’s getting better, so I’m sticking til the end.

This show is getting tedious real quick if the main plot point is new vs old money.

[quote]It entered Mommie Dearest territory when she threw that tray from the bed.

That scene was a lost opportunity to me. It was a chance to explore motivation and this show isn't good enough to peel the layers of the onion as slowly as it is. The Russells delivering the fuck you at the bazaar should have been a much more satisfying climax, so to speak.

I get what the Berthanator wants, I just don't know why she wants it.

Are they just panting after respectability because they now live among the respectable?

Are they aspiring to something they lack the social graces and understanding to achieve?

Are they proudly crass rogues (like Shirl in Downton) rubbing it in the faces of the grand?

Are they Rhett Butlers, fully aware and delighting in pointing out the hypocrisies and pomposity around them?

Morgan Spector seems accidentally better defined. He is evidently ruthless and seems to love his wife or at a minimum like and respect her and support her ambitions. He seems to like her. His dialogue is a bit thick and courtly. You wish he'd talk to her more plainly and bluntly in private. They could be really entertaining.

The mother is plainly going to peddle the mousy daughter to the gay better across the street, which could be a really entertaining and even thoughtfully dramatic as she contends with understanding her lousy marriage and living in it and her bitch mother-in-law on top of it.

But as the ancient Greeks said: never expect much from Julian Fellowes.

Just watched the second episode. I’ll keep watching, because it’ a period of US history I know little about, but it’s not particularly compelling viewing. There’s no real depth to the characters. They are simply walking, speaking “types”. None of the actors seem to be able to breathe life into the person they are playing. Ms Baranski has had nothing to do but scowl. Ms Nixon is slightly bizarre: does she think this is a comedy? Ms Streep Jr is giving us a full dose of Dr Quinn Medicine Woman acting here. She’s going to be mopping a fevered brow before the series ends.

The stuff with the cook was boring. We don’t know anything about her yet, so why are we supposed to care? There are too many characters, and the characterisation is too shallow.

The beautiful actor playing the beautiful Mr Russell really needs a moustache to twirl if he is going to be so villainous. I expect he is going to try to bankrupt/blackmail the aldermen…

On the plus side, the sets and costumes are beautiful.

True. We really haven't been given a reason enough to root for the Russells to care that Bertha is continuously snubbed.

Carrie Coon’s dresses in this episode were stunning. I loved the gown she wore to the Morris dinner party. And that beautiful light green peacock thing she wore to the bazaar. Major visual confections.

R489 I think Mr. Russell will pull a twist and send Mr. Morris to the poor house after he invests all of his money in the railroad station stock.....

And then Mrs. Morris will come to Mrs. Russell to beg her to stop the steal......and Mrs. Russell will look at her and sneer and then offer her a job as a kitchen maid.

And Streep, Jr. will continue to be terrible.

We better get some naked men in here stat!

Although I did like Ada telling Agnes last night not to worry about Oscar getting all of the family money: "You'll be dead years before I am."

What is the backstory they keep alluding to between Agnes, Ada and the late Mr. van Rhijn? I’m getting a sexual abuse / domestic violence vibe of some kind here.

Baranski's character is humourless so comments like that ^ land like bitch, please. She's the Maggie Smith archetype. OK. It worked for Downton, but after Fellowes removed Violet's claws and teeth Smith seemed to outflank him by giving her a real sense of humour and maybe even sense of the absurd.

Let's predict the show's jump the shark moment. I'm seeing a Christmastime duet between Baranski and the secretary.

This show begins on the other side of the shark.

And then they become Freedom Riders, but by carriage r495.

[quote] I think Mr. Russell will pull a twist and send Mr. Morris to the poor house after he invests all of his money in the railroad station stock.....

Yes, r492, that’s what I was implying. Either he is going to bankrupt them, or he's going to gain social acceptance by blackmailing his way into their social set.

There’s a serious lack of subtlety in the way plot points are driven home in this show.

It's a soap opera... the elements continued in the second episode. Guilty pleasures.... the primacy of $ in all their lives and the relate comeuppance at the bazaar.... kind of the central theme here. Capital. Money trumps everything eventually. Even Queen Astor (the best character) acknowledges Mr Morris will have his way...

The Streep Jr part has some good lines written for it.... iconoclastic and bitchy-adjacent. I can imagine the tone/shade and delight that a young Mama Streep would give to them. Baby Streep is relentless flat... that same insipid smile. It's almost like she's playing against her characters lines... leading to some further development in a later episode. But jeez, it's amazing to watch how bad she is so far.

Shark moment: Who shot GR?

Good God. Even the sunlight is CGI!!!!!

Please stop calling The Streep Child “Streep Jr.”. It’s not only awkward, it’s incorrect.

Donna Murphy is a hoot! I’d rather see her in Baranski’s role.

Thank you, R502. The correct way to address her is as Meryl Jr. #3.

If Marian saying to Ada “I love you” wasn’t a clue that she’s actually her daughter I don’t know what is.

Donna Murphy is totally selling her character and her acting/accent has the correct tone for this series. Well done, girl.

That Keenan-Bolger girl is hard to look at, but I like her character so far.

Christine Baranski bears an unsettling resemblance to Ron Perlman in Beauty and the Beast.

With the hair do and her face - she looks like a Who from Whoville.

R460 - I'm with you on Carrie's voice. I hate every word spoken by her. She's a terrible actress, at least in this role.

R484 - or one titled The Quilted Age that follows the rise in popularity of quilting in America.

Well, R506, it's hard to shake off a defining role.

The woman playing Ada Brook is an abysmal actress. She and Carrie Coon make my skin crawl whenever they're on screen (Mary!)

[quote]or one titled The Quilted Age that follows the rise in popularity of quilting in America.

Or the Gefilted Age, about the dietary practices of Ashkenazi Jews.

R510, “the woman playing Ada Brook”? Honey, it’s Cynthia Nixon. You must either be a frau or someone who’s never watched television before last week.

Or the Girdled Age. Just big fat girls.

Oops just realized I mean Louisa Gummer playing the poor niece. I can't keep the characters and their names straight at this point.

R512 - take a pill, lover. You sound rather frau(ght) yourself.

OK, I'm team Coon. I can't figure out if she's a bad actress, or taking inadequate scripts seriously or what, but she's about the only compelling thing in this. The voice is distinct. She's got a rich, deep voice for a woman. I don't know... for reasons I can't explain she stands out to me. I suppose because the rest of it is so pallid and her character is going to bust balls.

R511 - ha! Or they could just rename this series The Stilted Age since that's how most of the acting is going so far.

Cynthia Nixon is doing a very good job. I really forget that she's Miranda while on this show. That fact alone is positive. She's an interesting spinster that could have a lot of depth, though I doubt a show with this weak of script will be anything more than superficial.

I just hope they don't go all Outlander on us and suddenly the butler's announcing hey, it's Che Diaz.

[quote] With the hair do and her face - she looks like a Who from Whoville.

You know she played a Who in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," right?

I’m clearly in the minority here I actually like this show. I guess I just don't get hate watching. If you hate something why do you continue to do it.

Hoping Mother-May-I will come along, Rose, and point out the error of our ways.

The second episode was much better (and more original) than the first. I still don't find Louisa Jacobson very appealing, but I like almost everyone else on the show.

I'm a little concerned by the preview for next week, because it looks like George Russell is going to be stiffed by Patrick Morris and the other aldermen next week and then destroy their fortunes in revenge, and he already got revenge last week with the Ohio railroad company man and then this week with the women who ran the charity bazaar. I don't want it to be the same thing every week, especially if the message is constantly "You have to give rich people what they want because money is more important than anything."

Well, they were not called “robber barons” for nothing.

If what any of what R522 wrote comes to pass.

I still want to know what Jeanne T character could have done to be scorned like that. It’s probably gonna be something stupid.

[quote] The stuff with the cook was boring. We don’t know anything about her yet, so why are we supposed to care? There are too many characters, and the characterisation is too shallow.

I believe it's about the staff joining the side of Peggy, the secretary, one by one. It's not a coincidence that the black girl is involved in the storyline. At the end of the second episode, we see the cook standing up for Peggy to the uptight head of staff. That means both the butler and the cook are on Peggy's side.

I fear the Russell's throwing way too money at a problem will grow old very fast. And from a business perspective, George should be broke and the enemy of every local businessman in NY by the end of the season. And Bertha will drive George either to the poor house or commit suicide.

This is not hate-watching. It’s too new. I’m hoping it will get better. Plus the costumes and the history. I don’t think there’s enough to keep me watching if it doesn’t get better. A good hate-watch leaves me angry. This is just boring.

[quote] I'm a little concerned by the preview for next week, because it looks like George Russell is going to be stiffed by Patrick Morris and the other aldermen next week and then destroy their fortunes in revenge, and he already got revenge last week with the Ohio railroad company man and then this week with the women who ran the charity bazaar. I don't want it to be the same thing every week, especially if the message is constantly "You have to give rich people what they want because money is more important than anything."

I think we are supposed to be on The Russells’ side because they are the anti-authority figures (as they are not yet accepted by the elite. The problem is that no work has been put into making these characters likeable.

I need to see some gay fucking. I want to see what they were using for lube back then. Lard? Olive oil? Just good ole spit?

I don't know if I'm on anyone's side. And quite frankly, I'm put off by George and Bertha wanting so desperately to be accepted by these snobs. George is so well off already, he doesn't need their business. And Bertha could just do her own thing and be the Queen Bee of her own social club and reign supreme. But, of course, George is greedy and Bertha is a desperate social climber. And that's why "we" should care? I don't think so. I'm more interested in the kids (not just the Russel kids) trying to go through life without having to pick a side and just basically roll their eyes at the elders and their outdated beliefs in social norms.

I want them to show what passed for an 1880s gay bar back then. I know they had them in Manhattan even way back then.

[quote]I still want to know what Jeanne T character could have done to be scorned like that. It’s probably gonna be something stupid.

My money is on former madam or prostitute or mistress who became wife after the first one died or maybe just the housekeeper who worked her wiles.

She's a bit long in the tooth but she's plainly a bad woman in terms of the times. Whatever the reason, I bet her marriage is regarded as inappropriate. She's shunned in all her scenes, except with Louisa (who I think may be becoming Karen of Smash! - much resented for her ability to just do anything.)

You mean a Molly House.

^ That would be clever because she could have leverage with Oscar. I don't know if Uncle Julian could think that far.

No, R532. I meant exactly what I said. “Molly-houses” were British.

I am not a huge Cynthia Nixon fan... her performance in the current AJIT is just plain annoying. But earlier in this thread I pointed out that she was really, really good as Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion. She really seemed period in that, and only she and Donna Murphy seem period in The Gilded Age.

Also... Ms Gummer's hair is horrible. Blonde and pulled back on her hear like a 1960s B-Movie extra. I think having darker hair could have helped with the hapless, sappy facial expressions.

Meryl Jr is just so....bland. There's nothing memorable or unique about her. Hell, I watched the latest episode this morning and I've already forgotten what she looks like.

I beg r534’s pardon.

The second episode really was terrible. A lot of inane, anachronistic dialogue delivered as if it were written by Wharton instead of a jumped-up ignoramus. Agnes has a problem with "take a shine to" but talks openly, if metaphorically, about rats, not to mention her use of the word "shyster." Was that really OK in this time period?

Ada doesn't mind that the cook was $50 in debt and (possibly unknown to Ada) stealing silver candlesticks from the family to pay it back? Fellowes has absolutely no concept of what proper character and deportment were like, for either servants or society, during the Gilded Age, so why is he doing this? He is unequal to the task. And this series is said to have been well over a decade in the preparation; how is he not doing better with it than this?

R538 Beyond "comportment appropriate for the period and one's station".... I also was baffled that stealing silver for gambling debts, falling on the sidewalk in front of the house with the family's silver clattering on the sidewalk... was a cause for sympathy? I mean, sure be kind to the help, but nothing about stealing silver for gambling debts is ok...

The cook had a gambling debt of $50 . That's the equivalent of $1,300 today. Not an unrealistic or outrageous amount.

What kind of gambling do you think the Polish-Irish-German cook participates?

I wonder if the cook is a Polish-Irish-German-Norwegian Catholic.

That accent will be by next week!

Hey, it's Chef Diaz!

The cook was playing what sounds like 3 card monte, the way Louisa described it to Ada

[QUOTE] What kind of gambling do you think the Polish-Irish-German cook participates?

it was cards in pick-up games on the street. This came out in dialogue in the episode.

R538, "shyster" is Yiddish (and pretty vulgar). It's strictly Lower East Side at that point. I'm baffled by the writing in this show.

Different people use words over time—

Not Yiddish.

Quack, shyster, huckster-did all these terms begin to get used in the 19th century? I thought they were 20th century.

Shyster dates prior to 1850.

And quack goes back to the 1600s apparently. From the Dutch. "Quacking" was like boasting, which somehow really fits.

R460, I think the costume design is pretty unsubtle in relentlessly contrasting old money vs new money and old vs young. They could afford to look a little more alike instead of so opposite each other. (Old money--symmetry, more fabrics, new money--asymmetry, more unified color palate)

In real life the old money people would have worn much brighter, vibrant colors with a much higher contrast (gaudy by our standards). Their homes would have a lot more color as well.

Dear R553, I have no idea how you make generalisations like that— especially as how most of the information we have of that period is from black and white photographs.

There were some truly funny moments in the episode. I laughed out loud at Cynthia Nixon’s facial expression after Buranski said she’d outlive her.

Nixon abandoned her awkward delivery and now seems like a generic masterpiece Theater character. The Russells aren't quite likeable enough to be sympathetic nor wicked enough for camp---as someone mentioned upthread. Mr Russell would be better off twirling his moustache--Snidely Whiplash would be a good character for him to model. His wife and daughter both have those aardvark-like noses. I wonder if that was part of the casting.

The cook is Zoroastrian.

Who the fuck is Donna Murphy and what character does she play?

R554, the wild colors of the late 19th century are pretty well known. It is often discussed in books on design history. Scholars (and the rest of us) can figure it out from paintings, written descriptions, surviving interiors, textiles etc.

There are not enough photographs from that era that you get much of a sense anyway.

The outfit the old aunt wears to the charity bazaar was beyond hideous. It looked like old curtains and was ridiculous looking. That fringe!

The only nice thing was the color.

WHEN. WILL. MR. RUSSELL. GET. NAKEDDDDD???!!!!!!????

[quote]I still want to know what Jeanne T character could have done to be scorned like that.

She once used the wrong knife for the fish course.

I definitely wish Donna Murphy were playing Christine Baranski's part. It would make her a lot more fun. And likeable.

R561 - I'm there with you. I want to see him naked, full front and back. We deserve this experience.

Why can’t we see a naked George in bed with at least two of the footmen?

From TV journalist Joe Adalian:

HBO says GILDED AGE is doing golden numbers, with week two linear+streaming audience up 15% week over week, and cumulative audience for the fist episode now at 3.4M multiplatform viewers, a bit ahead of WHITE LOTUS at similar point in its run.

R530 It takes place in the mid 1890s, but the first season of the Alienist is about boy prostitutes from the Bowery being murdered and shows what the brothels with a bar of that time might have looked like. This clip captures a little of it, there was a right wing website that had a fuller bar scene, but I didn’t feel comfortable linking it. Overall I thought the Alienist did an amazing job capturing the Gilded Age, much more so from this show. I also heard great things about the Knick, though I couldn’t get into that.

Second ep enjoyable enough. Agnes, Peggy starting to emerge as most interesting/sympathetic characters. Pretty soon though, the show really needs a dramatic kick up the arse. Stuffs gotta happen!

Sargent and Whistler painted scores of portraits of those 1880s society ladies, both the old money and the new, and I don't see those garish clashing colors and patterned fabrics in any of their paintings from that decade. There is the occasional deep red dress but none of those vermillion and scarlet and orange brocades of which this designer is so fond.

And now it's time to play COUNT THE TONYS! We'll give you 6 to start (think of it as the Audra Free Square) Extra credit for Obies... Go!

r569, here's a painting by Carolus-Duran, who did the famous portrait of Mrs. Astor they mimicked in last night's episode. She's in scarlet.

The Russells are so unbearable I find myself rooting for the snobs.

Here's a Carolus-Duran of a woman in vermilion.

I wonder if that's intentional r572. Probably just clumsy, but maybe the ultimate idea.

Still I admit I'm looking forward to this crazy bitch and her obnoxious husband barging into drawing rooms all over New York.

I don't think you're supposed to root for the vicious elder Russells OR for the snobby old guard represented by Agnes and Mrs.Morris. Both sides are too extreme. (You are supposed to find Agnes's bitchery amusing, though.)

I think you're supposed to root for the young people (including Peggy), and Ada, all of whom are caught between the two sides.

I stood frozen watching the 2nd Mrs. Astor, Brooke, drop her fur off her shoulders to the floor then drag it all the way down the almost 2 block-long white marble corridor of the New York Public Library.

Is the dialogue accurate to the period? I remember the conversation between Scarlett and Rhett after their marriage in Gone with the Wind (book, not movie) as much more natural. If the writing isn't wrong then the delivery is the problem.

why is nobody mentioning the super-hot lawyer that's wooing Sophies's wrong-choice? He is beautiful.

R553, R569 The makers of this TV show demand that audience follow the Woke Guidelines and make themselves Color-blind.

When the scene changed to Bertha’s bedroom and breakfast tray, I said to my husband “that tray is going to be flying to the floor any second.” There’s a lot of choosing the obvious on this show. I also noticed that Baranski delivered a few very obvious Lady Grantham put-downs that seemed all wrong for the character, the tone of the show, and the actress. Just pandering bullshit.

[quote]I also noticed that Baranski delivered a few very obvious Lady Grantham put-downs that seemed all wrong for the character, the tone of the show, and the actress.

I wonder if Fellowes has a file of Dowager Countess "zingers" that were never used and are being shoehorned in here.

Like trunk songs being plugged into musicals!

Is this show available in HD of any kind? It often looks blurry in 1080p. I guess its the blending of the CGI. But even midrange shots of the actors sitting at tables - murky. The faces are not clear. Are they fuzzing the faces of the old actresses? The Gummer lady is filmed clearly.

R580

[quote] Just pandering bullshit.

Pandering to whom?

Carolus-Duran was French and the ladies in those portraits are French, not old (or even new) money New York.

[quote] Pandering to whom?

Middle-aged show queens.

Shame they’re setting up a love triangle with Marian, the lawyer and the gorgeous Russell son. I would’ve loved for the gorgeous Russell son to be the token gay and hook up with the twinky footman. Instead, the footman’s going after the secretary. Oh, what could have been.

I guess it’s still okay that we get Oscar and his boyfriend. But, they should’ve waited a few episodes to reveal the relationship. The catharsis would’ve been fantastic after watching him ask around about the Russell girl.

I imagine the lawyer will turn out to be a bad character who has a sinister agenda. Maybe he knows something about Marian's father and some hidden fortune that is hers. The show keeps mentioning he's such a great guy for waiving his fee.

It would surprise me very much if they turn Larry into a jerk.

Pandering to an audience that just wants to see another DOWNTON ABBEY.

R569, Sargents portraid of Dr Pozzi and Lady Helen Vincent (wearing green and pink) show a bit of the vividness. Sargent Also, a lot of Sargent;s work is Edwardian, which did have a more muted. (You can see the new money in Gilded Age tend to dress in softer colors--and eventually they win.) Whistler is not a great source since he was more progressive and would have preferred muted tones to the standard colors of the time.

I would recommend checking a good design history book or look to lesser known painters. The best known painters are not always the most typical.

Also, as one designer pointed out to me, the surviving materials are usually quite of few shades lighter than they were originally since fabric, dyes, paint, and wallpaper all fade.

She recommended this person who she said does excellent and accurate reproductions.

I am loving this show

Read the book Mauve: How One Man Invented the Colour that changed the World. It goes extensively into the Colour revolution in the second part of the 19th century. The Pre Raphaelites were the first (ironically) painters to take advantage of the new, brighter, intense colors in paint. Also, when it came to textiles in homes and clothing through time, the lighting completely changed how color was perceived. From candle light, to whale oil lamps, to gaslight, to electricity, not to mention day light, color could look radically different in all of these.

Incandescent light has 100% color rendering. It was perfect for that.

This was an amazing exhibit on light, and this article gives a good overview of the changes. One of the best parts was a section where they had Van Gogh’s painting Gaugin’s Chair and showed what it would look like in different types of light, daylight, candle light, gas light, electrical light. It could look radically different each time.

I wish they would use that atmospheric lighting more. It seems garishly front lit, and that with the lack of makeup makes everyone look dead and corpse like. This show is a fantasy, and they’re making an effort with the costume and sets. Why stop there? It’s an overall inconsistency of tone.

[quote]I would’ve loved for the gorgeous Russell son to be the token gay and hook up with the twinky footman. Instead, the footman’s going after the secretary. Oh, what could have been.

This is an Uncle Julian show. Give up any hope or expectation you'll be getting any more gay than the two you've seen and that will be intermittent.

His track record speaks for itself. He doesn't invest in the gay angles. I imagine he sits on his overstuffed typing chair giggling "oh, that will be shocking, let's add a bit of that!" And I'd venture what he's doing is taking the Duke of Crowbrough story from Downton and showing fleshing it out, except it will be a device to make his victim-bride a figure of sympathy.

R595 They are toning down the colors and ornamentation in the design because people today would consider a more authentic rendering to be "wrong" (as we see in this thread). But if they went for more makeup, the audience of today would also see that as "wrong."

I am curious about the lighting. At that time there were so many types of lighting and it would define class. I would assume that the Russels would have electric lighting but the servants would use gas. The ballroom at least would be lit by electricity---I think. I do not know what the van Rijn's would have used.

Van Rijns have enormous gas chandeliers.

Agnes van Rihn has enormous gas.

“The electric light is as cruel as the sun.”