"It's Begun: MY SOCIETAL DEMISE." The Gilded Age Season Three, Episode Three Recap
And Mrs. Fish has never been happier.
This season is a DELIGHT so far. I enjoyed the first two seasons very much, but the pacing and the tone of this one is just hitting. The dialogue is cutting, and stakes are high! I don’t really understand folks who say this show is primarily concerned with meaningless fluff; Jack’s plot, for example, isn’t literally only about an alarm clock, and Bertha’s machinations this season aren’t actually about fish forks and portraits and operas. A young woman’s choice of husband in this time period — in any time period, frankly — is critical and crucial. Bertha is fighting to give her daughter power, something she herself desperately wants. Jack is trying to become a self-made man who controls his own future. Sometimes I read commentary, generally but not always from men, about this show — even positive commentary! — that deems it gloriously frivolous and pleasantly low in stakes, and I wonder if they’ve ever said that about, like, Mad Men.
This isn’t a ding…