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The Gilded Age Season 3 Viewing Thread: Part 3

Part 2 link

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by Anonymousreply 54August 2, 2025 6:48 AM

Well, someone's got to break the ice, and it might as well be me. I mean, I'm used to being a hostess, it's part of my husband's work. And it's always difficult when a group of new friends meet together for the first time, to get acquainted. So I'm perfectly prepared to start the ball rolling. I mean, I-I have absolutely no idea what we're doing here. Or what I'm doing here, or what this place is about, but I am determined to enjoy myself. And I'm very intrigued, and, oh my, this soup's delicious, isn't it?

by Anonymousreply 1July 31, 2025 1:04 PM

When is Foghorn Leghorn making her return?

by Anonymousreply 2July 31, 2025 2:43 PM

Right now, I’m at the Sargent & Paris show in the Met—seeing the real deal reminds you how weak the tv show is.

by Anonymousreply 3July 31, 2025 3:09 PM

OP

Thank you for the continuation.

by Anonymousreply 4July 31, 2025 3:59 PM

I keep seeing in the previews on YT that Bertha BEGS MARION for some shit?

Is the Season end cliffhanger going to be about Daddy'd Railroad Shares?

by Anonymousreply 5July 31, 2025 4:02 PM

R3 how long will it run? I was thinking of traveling to NYC in a few months to see it and see a couple of shows too.

by Anonymousreply 6July 31, 2025 4:04 PM

Closes on Sunday. I believe the next stop is Paris.

by Anonymousreply 7July 31, 2025 4:11 PM

I'm just bored by Larry and Marian at this point. It seemed inevitable at first, but now it just seems mindless and the worst kind of frauish reasoning. They're young. They're pleasant. They're attractive. They get along fine, and the wedding would be beautiful. But really, so fucking what? There doesn't seem to be anything in particular that would make them want to spend their lives together, forever. And it's going to become completely stupid if Bertha, who doesn't particularly want this marriage, is left to beg Marian to forgive her son (for nothing, really). I mean, I get this show is primarily for fraus, even more than us, but still, aren't the fraus bored by this whole thing?

It would be more interesting if Marian realizes, yeah, this whole thing has been just kind of wrong, but still winds up in business with Larry's father cause of those shares. I think she was supposed to be a more independent woman and a more independent character, somewhat to the aunts' horror, and this could get her back to that.

by Anonymousreply 8July 31, 2025 4:15 PM

R8 I am remembering the comments made by the showrunners when Matthew died in DA. They said that they felt they'd exhausted the storyline and there was no more drama to infuse it with. So they killed him. (Also because Dan Stevens wanted out. He didn't feel challenged enough.) The whole "happily ever after" doesn't make for a good story line. So now they injected some drama in Marian and Larry's story. I have to wonder how they resolve it because either one or both of them have to be written out at some point. Think about it. Let's say for purposes of this discussion, Marian and Larry go through this agonizing period towards reconciliation. Then there's a wedding...then what? It's already a struggle to keep things interesting. I suspect, Marian will leave. One way or another.

by Anonymousreply 9July 31, 2025 4:45 PM

[quote] They get along fine, and the wedding would be beautiful. But really, so fucking what? There doesn't seem to be anything in particular that would make them want to spend their lives together, forever

It’s because they are cardboard characters. Just generic “nice young people.” No personalities. Just plot vehicles.

by Anonymousreply 10July 31, 2025 5:06 PM

Larry is about to butt heads with his father ans Marian is about to become rich again.

All kinds of options there.

Who knows, maybe Marion exits pursued by a bear?

by Anonymousreply 11July 31, 2025 6:16 PM

Regarding Marian, they could take a page from “The Forsythe Saga” and have her get involved with someone like an artist or architect, someone society considers distinctly “unsuitable.” Then he jilts her for a married woman, Marian discovers that her worthless railroad shares are anything but, and becomes (like June Forsythe after she’s jilted) a wealthy eccentric bohemian, who backs daring young artists and founds a home for pregnant single women.

You can see threads of some of these ideas in various subplots already, the problem is that when a series is written season to season, when it could end at any time, it’s hard to plot out an interesting long term story for each character, the way you can in a novel. So instead they run from one invented crisis to another.

by Anonymousreply 12July 31, 2025 6:40 PM

I rather like the idea of Marian becoming Bertha's daughter in law and butting heads with her.

by Anonymousreply 13July 31, 2025 6:53 PM

For a look at the real Gilded Age: in NYC for two more days, or in Paris this fall.

I highly recommend it.

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by Anonymousreply 14July 31, 2025 7:52 PM

Another week, another record beat.

[quote]Season 3 is now outpacing Season 2 by 25% in viewers, while every episode of the third season has delivered audience growth. The Season 3 finale is scheduled to air Aug. 10.

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by Anonymousreply 15July 31, 2025 8:06 PM

If we're voting for Marian or Larry to be ousted, I vote for Marian.

by Anonymousreply 16July 31, 2025 8:14 PM

Preferably by a flying leg o' mutton sleeve!

by Anonymousreply 17July 31, 2025 8:14 PM

They've had a wedding, so they won't need one for awhile. If they're going to follow soap opera conventions, there should be arrival of mysterious (and possibly evil) relative---perhaps even an evil twin, someone should develop amnesia, and a murder trial (John Adams' death would be handy).

by Anonymousreply 18July 31, 2025 8:19 PM

I still can't believe Merritt Wever was only in it for one episode. Bring her back!

by Anonymousreply 19July 31, 2025 8:22 PM

Love it r18. In fact, how about if there's a secret sister, the one Ada and Agnes never discuss, and she's been living in the attic all this time.

And then one day ... she comes downstairs! (or maybe, she's been sneaking out, like the murderous bitch she is, killing random homos in the street with her weird little carriage.)

by Anonymousreply 20July 31, 2025 8:47 PM

[quote]Who knows, maybe Marion exits pursued by a bear?

Thanks for the laugh.

by Anonymousreply 21July 31, 2025 9:32 PM

You can be sure I'll be back in S4 to stir some shit!

by Anonymousreply 22July 31, 2025 9:55 PM

Maybe Marian should get a job as a prostitute at the Haymarket.

by Anonymousreply 23July 31, 2025 9:56 PM

Marian is not leaving, R9. The show is basically told from her point of view.

by Anonymousreply 24July 31, 2025 10:00 PM

r24, I think that was the notion in S1 but is no longer true. Marian's role seems quite diminished to me this season....though maybe with the last episode that will change.

Gotta say, even though I'm not a big Cynthia Nixon fan, her two big scenes last week, telling off the phony medium and informing AC Jack it's time to move on, were better acted AND WRITTEN than anything they've ever done before on the series. The Jack scene in particular was just so real and tender and intelligent and made us understand something more of the upstairs/downstairs relationship that the series had never before nailed. I wonder who wrote it.

by Anonymousreply 25July 31, 2025 10:11 PM

So is Marian Edith or Lady Mary?????

by Anonymousreply 26July 31, 2025 10:18 PM

Marian = Mary

Gladys = Edith

by Anonymousreply 27July 31, 2025 10:20 PM

r25 I agree, those two scenes were pure magic and honestly not something I expect to see when I tune into this show.

I know people mostly didn't enjoy the charlatan arc and were glad it ended abruptly, but Cynthia acted the shit out of all those scenes.

by Anonymousreply 28July 31, 2025 10:32 PM

I wholeheartedly agree R25. Marian was the original star and the bridge between the old money and new money. Now she’s just an annoying background character that no one cares about.

Bertha and Agnes are the true stars.

by Anonymousreply 29July 31, 2025 10:35 PM

Marian could be what Edith really should've been, and it would actually right a wrong. They made the stupid decision to marry Edith off in the same dull way that fraus think is the happiest ending possible. It was stupid and useless, and having Marian have a stupid, useless marriage would have the same effect.

If on the other hand they decide, no, Marian is actually going to go in a different direction, that could actually be a lot better, for the character but also for the show.

by Anonymousreply 30July 31, 2025 10:36 PM

Interestingly, two of the major characters in TGA Season 3 (Cynthia Nixon and Audra Macdonald) are giving terrific performances, while in the very same year, they are bombing in other projects (Cynthia = And Just Like That, Audra = Gypsy). It may be the writing, or more likely, the direction, but it's easy to see that without these two strong elements, a performance can go off the rails.

by Anonymousreply 31July 31, 2025 11:21 PM

Agnes has even less to do than Marian so I think some of you old bitties are just engaging in your usual elderly diva worship.

Marian doesn’t have to be the star of the show for the show to be told from her point of view. She is literally the narrator of the show. The show is not told from Bertha’s point of view. Nor is it told from Agnes’ point of view.

Marian is the only character with a a window into all of the worlds explored her. She is the common thread. She isn’t leaving.

by Anonymousreply 32August 1, 2025 12:12 AM

IMO Agnes has devolved to being not much more than comic relief.

by Anonymousreply 33August 1, 2025 1:01 AM

Right now, Agnes is little more than the Countess Dowager for this show.

by Anonymousreply 34August 1, 2025 1:05 AM

Except without all the juicy lines I ad-libbed.

by Anonymousreply 35August 1, 2025 1:22 AM

*biddy

by Anonymousreply 36August 1, 2025 1:27 AM

Agnes has never had a plot line about her and has become a completely unnecessary character. Fellowes is afraid to make her the conservative bigot that kind of woman would have been in historical reality. Just my opinion but having a character like Agnes interact as she does with Peggy, as an equal, sweet as it may be, just goes too far from NY society life in the 1880s. I do wonder if the series had been conceived and produced by an American, it would have taken this route.

In British historical TV now there's the mixing of people of all colors but those series don't pretend to be about class and race structure. Unless, of course, it's Bridgerton which is taken as a fantasy.

by Anonymousreply 37August 1, 2025 1:30 AM

R37 never met JP Morgan’s personal librarian and chief acquisition agent.

by Anonymousreply 38August 1, 2025 2:31 AM

Morgan's librarian Belle da Costa Greene was a Black woman who famously passed as white. And Morgan didn't hire her until 1905, 21 years after The Gilded Age is set. I suspect she also didn't hang out at JP Morgan's home as Peggy does at Agnes' brownstone.

by Anonymousreply 39August 1, 2025 2:37 AM

Personally I think there are too many wimmin in GA. Marian, Agnes, Ada, Bertha, Gladys, Gladys sister-iin-law, Lady Sarah, Lina Astor, Mrs. Fane, Mrs. Fish, Mrs. Winterton, the downstairs people,, at the Van Rijns and the downstairs people at the Russells. And then there's Peggy, her mother, and Felicia Rashad's character. Then they kill off gratuitously, the one Gay man who cared about Oscar, now the only Gay man among the first tier of actors. Larry Russell, George Russell, and the interchangeable cast of men who are not regulars, Peggy's father and her doctor love, and her former employer are not critical to the storylines. They have to write out a woman...or two...or three. SOMEONE HAS TO DIE!!!!

by Anonymousreply 40August 1, 2025 3:18 AM

R40, maybe Julian can do a Moldavian Massacre

by Anonymousreply 41August 1, 2025 3:21 AM

I read "The Glitter and the Gold," Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's memoir. The Kindle version is on Amazon for $15.99.) Her writing is better than expected from a key player of that era. I definitely recommend it as a sidepiece to "The Gilded Age," as it's obvious the screenwriter used it as a primary reference tool. There are real life women with the names "Bertha," "Gladys" and "Russell" (though not of those portrayed in the show) and Consuelo doesn't spare her aggressive and dictatorial mother Alva, while lionizing her beloved father W.K Vanderbilt Pulled from her journals, Consuelo's sophisticated and unpretentious style is a real page-turner as she details the period during which she lived in glowing and concise terms, though there is little reflection on her marriages - the first one to the Duke of Marlborough and the second and last to the handsome and (less) wealthy textile heir Jacques Balsan. She was the most beautiful of the "Dollar Heiresses" and the book tracks her life from the Industrial Age to the the beginning of the Second World War.

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by Anonymousreply 42August 1, 2025 10:25 AM

I read "The Glitter and the Gold," Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's memoir. The Kindle version is on Amazon for $15.99.) Her writing is better than expected from a key player of that era. I definitely recommend it as a sidepiece to "The Gilded Age," as it's obvious the screenwriter used it as a primary reference tool. There are real life women with the names "Bertha," "Gladys" and "Russell" (though not of those portrayed in the show) and Consuelo doesn't spare her aggressive and dictatorial mother Alva, while lionizing her beloved father W.K Vanderbilt Pulled from her journals, Consuelo's sophisticated and unpretentious style is a real page-turner as she details the period during which she lived in glowing and concise terms, though there is little reflection on her marriages - the first one to the Duke of Marlborough and the second and last to the handsome and (less) wealthy textile heir Jacques Balsan. She was the most beautiful of the "Dollar Heiresses" and the book tracks her life from the Industrial Age to the the beginning of the Second World War.

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by Anonymousreply 43August 1, 2025 10:26 AM

The Industrial Age started many moons before she was ever conceived of.

by Anonymousreply 44August 1, 2025 10:34 AM

But R44 I was only off by about a hundred years!

by Anonymousreply 45August 1, 2025 10:55 AM

[quote]Fellowes is afraid to make her the conservative bigot that kind of woman would have been in historical reality.

As opposed to the Episcopal Abolitionist, she was? Only the South had Slave Owning Jesus churches. Southern Baptists, Southern Methodists, Southern Presbyterian and those Church of Christ poor churches for Snake Handlers and Pentecostals.

Rich Anglicans were the beginnings of churches that believed that freed slaves had souls.

There was no fear in making Agnes a rich, abolitionist.

What was interesting is that she is not a SEGREGATIONIST.

by Anonymousreply 46August 1, 2025 11:55 AM

Yeah I don’t understand this insistence that ALL northern white women in that time period were all conservative bigots on race.

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by Anonymousreply 47August 1, 2025 12:05 PM

I say de facto, you say de jure.

by Anonymousreply 48August 1, 2025 12:17 PM

R46: She doesn't want any non-rich people of any color on her block other than servants. She's not a prohibitionist which would suggest she wasn't obsessed about immigrants or Catholics the way that many in her class were.

by Anonymousreply 49August 1, 2025 1:24 PM

[quote] Some people just have specialized knowledge that you or I don’t [R593]. Maybe the poster works in costume design for a living. Or is an antique dealer who specializes in clothes. Personally I find it fascinating.

Duh, elderlez. What's funny is dropping such knowledge into a DL thread with no context or explanation. It's not a bad thing, it's fascinating, but funny with no context.

by Anonymousreply 50August 1, 2025 5:05 PM

Everyone on DL is some ¥ expert ¥

It’s in the homo genome LOL

by Anonymousreply 51August 1, 2025 5:10 PM

I am taking to my bed until Sunday's episode.

by Anonymousreply 52August 1, 2025 7:18 PM

[quote] She's not a prohibitionist which would suggest she wasn't obsessed about immigrants or Catholics the way that many in her class were.

Or bitch won't give up her gin, more like! Oh well, I tried to save this house from perdition.

by Anonymousreply 53August 1, 2025 8:51 PM

Is this the week Leslie “hucka the bejeepers” Uggams shows up??

by Anonymousreply 54August 2, 2025 6:48 AM
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