HBO’s The Gilded Age has returned, and it’s packed with drama in Season 4. Each week this season, TV Insider is breaking down the newest episode in video interviews with the cast as part of our Aftershow franchise. In the video above, Carrie Coon, Morgan Spector, Louisa Jacobson, Harry Richardson, Taissa Farmiga, Blake Ritson, and Kelley Curran explain the biggest moments from The Gilded Age Season 4 Episode 1. Warning: The Gilded Age spoilers ahead!
The Gilded Age Season 4 picks up nine months after the Season 3 finale, opening with a wedding for Oscar van Rhijn (Ritson) and Enid Winterton (Curran). In England, Gladys Russell (Taissa Farmiga) was giving birth to her and Hector’s (Ben Lamb) child. The baby was in breech, putting its and Gladys’ life at risk. She survived, but not without a tragic event that she’ll be informed of later.
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The doctor asked Hector, if it came down to it, should he save the baby or save Gladys, and Hector chose Gladys. However, to stop the post-birth hemorrhage, he had to perform a hysterectomy, eliminating any chance of Gladys giving birth to more children after their newborn son. Bertha Russell (Coon) was there to witness it all, and she asked Hector to keep the truth from her for a little while to give her the chance to be happy about her son and their health.
Back in New York, George (Spector) was under immense business stress and still didn’t plan to reunite with Bertha. Larry (Richardson) attended the after-party for Oscar and Enid’s wedding, where he and Marian (Jacobson) shared a romantic dance. A tropical storm caused their cab home to crash with minor damage, forcing the previously engaged pair to stay the night in a nearby hotel. There, in the privacy of the late night and no one they knew in the hotel, they had sex, and Marian awoke in an anxious panic the next morning.
Since Season 1, Marian has oscillated between wanting to act freely and punishing herself when she actually does. She’s a modern and progressive woman, Jacobson explains to TV Insider above, but that doesn’t mean she thinks it’s fine to have pre-marital sex. Through tears, Marian told Larry that her reputation is probably “ruined,” and Larry feared he has lost her forever over an impulsive, albeit romantic night, Richardson tells us.
Clearly, Marian and Larry still have feelings for each other after their failed engagement. After her steamy night with Larry, why can’t Marian give herself the grace that she would to someone she loves, like we’ve seen her do with Peggy Scott (Denée Benton)?
“Marian is a really interesting character in that she’s emblematic of this tension between movement forward into modernity while still be very steeped in very Victorian ideals of purity and morality,” Jacobson tells TV Insider. “We see seeds of her rebellion in her supporting universal suffrage, in her dedication to her work, in her questioning the social network of old money and all this, and yet she is still…a product of her time, so she has really internalized these values.”
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“She’s not necessarily at war with herself. I think she’s at war with this society, the tight constraints that are placed upon her as a woman,” Jacobson continues. “We don’t see Carrie Astor [Amy Forsyth] or Gladys Russell going through these trials and tribulations. If they did, if they were in Marian’s position, I think they would be having very similar reactions to this transgression of having pre-marital sex. [It’s] a very big deal for this time period.”
Before Marian dashed out of the hotel room to return home to aunts Agnes (Christine Baranski) and Ada (Cynthia Nixon), Marian reminded Larry that whatever blowback comes from this tryst, should people find out, she will likely suffer worse social consequences than him because of their patriarchal society.
Richardson says that Larry is full of instant regret “not only because of the love that he has for her, [but] the compassion and shame that he has around hurting someone or making someone who he loves suffer so much.”
“There’s also the very real realization that he might have just ruined his future of being married to her,” he adds. “I think because he has done it in the wrong order, so to speak, and he does really want to marry her and they have gone back and forth with both of them having trust issues…and then he lets his impulse get the better of him, he also then realizes that not only has he now hurt someone who he cares about so much, but he’s possibly lost her forever. That brings along a huge weight and humbling and fear for him as well, which we see him grapple with through the season.”
In the full video interview above, Coon and Spector discuss The Gilded Age‘s uncanny ability to write stories that get real-life parallels as the seasons air. Plus, Ritson and Curran explain why Oscar and Enid are a perfect match, and Farmiga breaks down Gladys’ childbirth experience.
The Gilded Age, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO