Things in the van Rhijn household just got interesting! Season two of the HBO drama The Gilded Age ended with a major plot twist for the recently widowed Ada Forte, née Brook (Cynthia Nixon). This change guarantees a major shift in the power dynamic between Ada and her domineering sister, Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski). In other words, a possible season 3 just got a lot juicier!
Last week, Agnes’s son Oscar (Blake Ritson) confessed that he’d been swindled out of most of the family’s fortune by con artist Maud Beaton (Nicole Brydon Bloom). All seemed lost, and the final episode of the season opened with Agnes assessing the damage with her accountant. In this scene, the usually preternaturally composed matriarch loses her cool for the first time, barking at her son, “What do I care that you’re sorry? You ruin your mother and tip your family into the dirt. You throw away the work of centuries!”
As always, Ada sits silently as her sister berates Oscar, but her expression tells us she doesn’t agree with Agnes’s cruelness. This is a pattern we’ve seen time and again—Ada’s gentle and usually fruitless attempts to soften her sister’s bad temper. This season, when Ada met and married Reverend Luke Forte (Robert Sean Leonard), we finally saw Ada break away from her sister to become a more three dimensional character. It’s as if a light has been lit in her eyes, and everyone can see it except Agnes.
Later in the episode, Agnes gives viewers one more glimpse at the tender heart that beats beneath that stiff bodice. She instructs her entire staff to find other employment, and her nasty lady’s maid Mrs. Armstrong (Debra Monk) bemoans the lack of jobs for people her age to the other downstairs staff. When Miss Scott (Denée Benton) relays Armstrong’s message, Agnes privately offers her maid a place in whatever new household the van Rhijns can afford. Say what you will about her, but Agnes is nothing if not loyal.
Previously, I speculated that it could be Agnes’s investment in footman Jack Treacher’s (Ben Ahlers) clock invention that lifts the family out of their newfound poverty. While that plot line continues to develop with the van Rhijns’ wealthy next door neighbor Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) taking an interest in the project, this wasn’t the twist the showrunners chose. Instead of a serendipitous act of generosity saving the day, it was a surprise inheritance from a man who swore a vow of poverty before ever meeting his wife-to-be.
At the end of season two, Ada shares amazing news with Agnes and Marian (Louisa Jacobson): Father Luke left her oodles and oodles of money! So much money that “it’s almost too much,” according to Ada. There’s that gleam in her eyes again.
Before you can say, “Bannister!” the power shifts from Agnes’s hands to Ada’s. Agnes’s longtime butler (Simon Jones) immediately makes it clear that from now on, he’ll be taking orders from the new mistress of the house, a.k.a. the one who pays his salary. In an interview with Variety, the actors indicated that this change will make a potential season 3 a lot more fun to play.
“We did have a lot of fun supposing what might happen with Ada in the driver’s seat,” said Nixon. “She would throw open the doors of their mansion and make it a home for unwed mothers or stray cats or Bohemian artists or overseas missionaries.”
Co-writer and co-executive producer Sonja Warfield has a similar idea of how the new power dynamic will alter the entire series, telling Decider, “The servants are going to be looking to Miss Ada for order. It is not Agnes. That’s going to set off a whole new set of fireworks.”
Fingers crossed that we get a season 3! I can’t wait to see what Ada does once she’s in the driver’s seat. In the meantime, all episodes of seasons one and two of The Gilded Age are now streaming on HBO Max.
(featured image: HBO)
