Julian Fellowes has received yet more Emmy nominations for the third season ofThe Gilded Age, his opulent HBO drama about a clash between entrenched aristocratic families and ambitious newcomers in 1880s high- society America.
But the way the Oscar- and Emmy-winning creator of the period drama tells it, The Gilded Age is also a love letter to the promise of a rising America after the Civil War and near the turn of the 20th century, an America of glitter and glamour the English screenwriter came to admire as a young man coming of age in postwar Britain.
The series, set in late 19th century New York City, sees Christine Baranski as the tradition-bound Agnes van Rhijn and Cynthia Nixon her softer sister Ada, representing old-guard elites. Carrie Coon’s Bertha Russell, on the other hand, is a fierce high-society newcomer who, along with her industrialist husband, George (Morgan Spector), seeks to rule the social class.
The series’ third season, which received eight Emmy nods this year, climaxed with George cheating death after being shot in the penultimate episode, only for Team Russell to no longer be the resident Gilded Age power couple by season’s end. Instead, Bertha sees her world suddenly falling apart as she looks out the window to a fleeing husband, seeking to distance himself from her ruthless social climbing in the finale’s final scene.
