The Gilded Age Season 3 was a game-changing installment that has altered the show as we know it forever. Bertha (Carrie Coon) and George Russell (Morgan Spector) are separated, Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) and Hector (Ben Lamb) are expecting their first child, and three potential new marriages are on the horizon, promising to bring with them continued family drama. It will be a transformative time for the downstairs staff as well, who will see their former colleagues Mrs. Enid Winterton (Kelley Curran) and Jack Trotter (Ben Ahlers) continue to rise up in society.
What we’re most looking forward to seeing in The Gilded Age Season 4 is the potential rivalry between Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Bertha. Marian (Louisa Jacobson) and Larry (Harry Richardson) patched up their broken engagement in the Season 3 finale. While they may not be engaged again just yet, they’ve expressed their intentions and desires to make their relationship work because they still love each other. Agnes has tolerated new-money Mrs. Russell since she won Season 2’s opera war against Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy). She approves of Marian’s potential marriage to Larry for the most part because she can see her niece’s love for the man, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be growing pains when their families blend.
Adding fuel to that fire is the potential nuptials between Agnes’ son, Oscar (Blake Ritson), and recently widowed Enid, formerly known as Turner, who was once Bertha’s lady’s maid before being fired in a secret scandal for sexually propositioning George. Enid is new money, and while Oscar was scammed into losing his family’s fortune, the Van Rhijns still hail from the old-money crowd. Financial destitution wouldn’t change Agnes’ disdain for the nouveau riche, so Oscar marrying Enid — even if it would make them more financially secure on top of Ada’s (Cynthia Nixon) inherited fortune from her late husband — would be far from pleasing for Agnes. Larry marrying Marian, Oscar’s cousin, would make Enid part of the Russell family by extension. A shared hatred for Enid could be one of the few things over which Bertha and Agnes bond.
The George and Bertha conflict plays into this as well. Imagine the dramatic juiciness that could come from Bertha having to host Enid in her home, the house she used to work in, with the new context of George no longer living there. Bertha has begrudgingly welcomed Enid into her home before, and she was invited as a guest at Bertha’s Newport ball at the end of Season 3 as a favor to Oscar. So it’s not like Bertha hasn’t risen above her past beef with Enid before. But Enid tried to have an affair with George, who has now left Bertha. The sting of this heartbreak could reignite the Bertha-Enid feud if the latter isn’t careful with her words about Bertha’s potential divorce. We all know how Enid loves to try and push Bertha’s buttons, but she’d wise to keep her mouth shut.
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She absentmindedly implied at a deeper history with Bertha than the rest of society knows about in conversation with gossip king Ward McAllister (Nathan Lane) at Gladys’ wedding, which leaves the door open for renewed storylines about Enid having to keep her humble beginnings a secret from the rest of Manhattan’s elite society. Bertha knows all of her secrets that Enid desperately wants to stay hidden.
Speaking of divorce, Agnes and Ada were not as supportive of their niece, Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara), when she was forced to divorce her husband, Charles (Ward Horton), as they could have been in Season 3. The scourge of divorce made Agnes and Ada treat their own family with a cold shoulder, but they came around to supporting her in the end. Bertha made society better for divorced women by the end of Season 3 as well, when allowing Mrs. Astor’s daughter, Charlotte Drayton (Hannah Shealy), and Aurora to attend the ball.
Agnes, Ada, and Bertha’s conflicting views on divorce could cause turmoil for their families should they come together through the marriage of Marian and Larry. For what it’s worth, Bertha and Marian seemingly will get along great next season. “I’m glad it came around that Bertha ends up having to capitulate and fight to get Marian back because I think she does actually respect her,” Coon told us of Bertha helping Larry reunite with Marian in the finale. “And I was glad to see that they’re going to have a really interesting relationship going forward.”
The greatest achievement of The Gilded Age Season 1 was making the act of Agnes walking across the street and into the new-money Russell home feel like the highest stakes imaginable. It would be nice to see the show’s heightened stakes from the third season be combined with the original feuds from seasons past. It would make sense for Marian and Larry’s relationship to stir up some new family drama, even if the Van Rhijns/Fortes have been cordial and even friendly with the Russells throughout Season 3. Of course, Agnes and Bertha’s rivalry already existed in Season 1, but it was mostly from afar since Agnes refused to be seen in the same spaces as Bertha. That could change in the future, and maybe not for the better.
The Gilded Age, Season 4 Premiere, TBA, HBO
