The Gilded Age has hit its fourth series, and a new review has torn into Julian Fellowes’ period drama with unusual force, calling it a terrible stinker. That is the latest blow to a show that has won Emmys and built a loyal audience around its polished portraits of old money, new money and all the damage between them.
The reaction matters now because the series is being judged at the exact moment it has reached a new milestone, with the fourth series arriving while viewers are already wondering how long the story can keep stretching. Louisa Jacobson, who plays Marian, is part of the cast that has to live with the verdict, and family Thanksgivings must be awkward when this is the drama on the screen.
The series still pushes ahead with the sort of soap-bubble wealth that has defined it from the start. Gladys, the daughter of the nouveau riche Russells of Fifth Avenue, is now living in England Hall in England after whatever happened in the last round of plotting, while Oscar, the old-money Van Rhijn scion, has married Enid, the wealthy widow of Mr Winterton and former lady’s maid to Bertha Russell. Agnes, improbably, thinks Enid is a suitable wife for her son, even as Oscar remains a dedicated homosexual and the whole arrangement hangs on manners, money and denial.
That is part of what makes the harsh assessment sting. The show is still tossing around grand social reversals and melodrama, but the review sees no rescue in the spectacle, no matter how many prizes have been handed out. Ada is richer than Agnes now that her reverend husband has died, Marian is still yearning after Larry, and Larry and Marian are forced to spend a night in a hotel after a coach accident, which is less romance than inconvenience. Meanwhile, Grover Cleveland is due to be hosted at Brownstone Abbey, and the season keeps building toward another round of genteel chaos.
For now, the key unanswered question is not whether the criticism landed, but whether this fourth series is meant to be the end. That has not been confirmed, and the show’s own habit of treating every crisis as another occasion for dinner, display and damage suggests Julian Fellowes is not ready to close the curtains just yet.
