Let the Tournament Begin
- Episode aired Mar 21, 2022
- TV-MA
- 50m
As Ada and Aurora rush to stop Marian from making a huge decision, Bertha and Mrs Astor's clash impacts all of New York society. Season finale.As Ada and Aurora rush to stop Marian from making a huge decision, Bertha and Mrs Astor's clash impacts all of New York society. Season finale.As Ada and Aurora rush to stop Marian from making a huge decision, Bertha and Mrs Astor's clash impacts all of New York society. Season finale.
Photos
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCarrie Coon discovered She was pregnant early on in the show. Her wardrope therefore change from tightfittting and simple to more layers and she is ofte placed sitting behind a table or standing in an angle where her stomac is hidden. In the last episodes She is 9 months pregnant and fooling even the Crew behind the set. If you know it you Can see She's pregnant. But I didn't know, and didn't notice untill I watched the episodes all over.
- Quotes
Marian Brook: [Marian races in to intercept Mr Russell before he delivers her departure missives to Agnes and Ada]
[flustered]
Marian Brook: Am I too late?
Agnes Van Rhijn: Heavens, is there a fire?
Ada Brook: [shocked] Marian, you're back!
Agnes Van Rhijn: [looking to each in the room] Too late for what? Why shouldn't she be back? What's going on?
Larry Russell: [Looks at Marian, confused]
Ada Brook: [to Marian] How was your day?
Marian Brook: Not all it could have been - Mr Russell, how kind of you to come by.
Agnes Van Rhijn: You were saying, you were here on a mission, Mr Russell? Does it concern those envelopes?
Marian Brook: *No*.
Agnes Van Rhijn: *What*?
Marian Brook: I'm sure Mr Russell went out to catch the evening post, and thought he'd look in to see how you are - isn't that so, Mr Russell?
Larry Russell: [catching on] Absolutely - but now it's clear you're both as well as I could hope, so I'll be on my way...
Ada Brook: ...to the mailbox.
Marian Brook: Isn't that nice... I'll see you out.
Agnes Van Rhijn: I feel as if I I'd been watching a play in a foreign language.
Ada Brook: They're young.
Agnes Van Rhijn: Is that an observation or an excuse?
I have now watched all of the first series, and I should report that I haven't changed my view at all: that it is far, far more of a miss than a hit. Nice try but certainly no cigar, not even a cheap smoke that the posh folk in The Gilded Age would turn their noses up on.
With all ten episodes of that first season under my belt, I have more to go on, but, frankly, the same thoughts keep running through my mind of which, perhaps, the main one is that The Gilded Age is a grand opportunity missed by a country mile.
It was Mark Twain who described the last three decades of the 19th century - and, I suppose, the first few years of the 20th century - as 'a gilded age', and it should be pointed out that he did not intend it as a compliment: 'Gilt', as in 'gilded' is fake gold, that is it is not quite the real thing.
HBO might have chosen to present us with a more intelligent portrayal of 'the gilded age'. Instead it chose to produce a fluffy, middle-brow, low-powered, often quite cliched drama that is essentially indistinguishable from all the fluffy, middle-brow, low-powered often quite cliched drama that historically - one might even say traditionally - has been churned out my American TV producers.
The puzzle is why? HBO has a proud track record of going one or two better than the opposition: no longer being subject to the dual tyranny of advertisers and ratings (and the parasitic relationship between the two) because of its subscriber model, it became the trailblazer for a new kind of TV drama - intelligent, innovative, imaginative and well-written drama. The Gilded Age is none of these things.
I suspect the core of this misadventure is allowing British writer and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes to write the scripts for the first season. In fact, perhaps Fellowes should not have been allowed anywhere near the show.
Our Julian, or to give him his full name Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, not only had a good education - Ampleforth and Cambridge (me The Oratory School, an Ampleforth rival, and Dundee University, in its previous incarnation as Queen's College St Andrews part of an Oxbridge rival, but he can certainly distinguish between the correct fish knife and the correct sherry schooner.
Want to know in which social circles it is infra dig to fart? Julian can certainly tell you. But despite all those silver spoons stuck in his mouth, he refuses to write one line of cliched and stale dialogue where ten will do. Our Julian gives new meaning to 'clunky'.
Given the expensive sets, costumes and the number of extras - and I have no idea how much of all this was computer-generated, though quite possibly some of the dialogue was - why did HBO not follow its usual practice of hiring the best of the best writers? It has used them well in the past.
Perhaps Jules agreed to HBO making the series (and HBO took it over from NBC) on the strict understanding that only he would write the series, or at least the first season. I don't know, if that's true, but it's possible and would explain much.
None of the storylines has a great deal of substance at all and all the characters are two-dimensional and stock fare. The train crash which might have ruined 'robber baron' George Russell, the romantic predicament and shock of nice but naive Marian, the scheming of gay son Oscar, the predicament of very rich but socially ostracised Mrs Chamberlain and much else all occur more or less by the by and get scant examination.
In the hands of better writers - or rather in the hands of any writer but Fellowes - these themes might well have been scrutinised and presented with subtlety and nuance and insight. As it is they come and go with such alacrity, you might even miss them if you don't carefully time your comfort breaks.
One review of The Gilded Age made the pertinent point that for a drama which purports to deal with the lives, wealth, snobberies and affairs of the topmost echelons of late-19th century New York we see very little of that circle.
There are said to have been only 400 members of 25 families who were of any consequence at all in the city, so it is very odd that we get to know just about ten or so of those 400. Where are the rest? We can't expect to be presented to the other 390, but one or two more might have helped. And just two families of 25? That really is being excessively stingy.
I confessed earlier that there was an addictive quality to watching The Gilded Age, like that of soap operas and toffee. Well, I have to report it is an addiction I have now conquered.
Whatever else Aunt Agnes, Ada, Marian, Bertha and George Russell, Gladys, Larry, Oscar, Sylvia Chamberlain, Aurora Fane, Ward McAllister, Mrs Astor, Peggy and her parents and, of course, all the gang down there in the kitchen get up to, I shall be none the wiser.
If something very dramatic and serious happens, give me a shout. But otherwise I shall leave this fluffy nonsense to you while I take off in search of more interesting fare.
NB This review has been edited from the original piece I submitted.
- pfgpowell-1
- Nov 24, 2023
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime50 minutes