If You Want To Cook An Omelette

If this week’s episode of The Gilded Age was a t-shirt, it would say:

Sidmouth &
Highland Falls &
Morenci &
New York

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…because those are all the destinations we head to. (Maud Beaton’s shirt would just be one she picks up at the Sandusky train station.)

Sidmouth

We’ll begin in England at Sidmouth. It doesn’t take Bertha (Carrie Coon) more than a minute after stepping foot inside the castle that Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) now calls home to realize what her daughter has been up against. Lady Sarah has managed to keep Gladys under her thumb since she arrived as Hector’s new bride, but now that Bertha is witnessing Sarah’s lady-of-the-manor behavior, she’s stunned.

Gladys explains to Bertha that after their parents died, Hector (Ben Lamb) relied on Sarah (Hattie Morahan), and she happily controlled the home. “He sees no reason to change now,” Gladys tells Bertha. “Aren’t you a reason?” Bertha asks. “Mother, you wanted your daughter to be a duchess. You can’t talk now as if your chief goal was for me to be happily married,” Gladys fires back.

“Make sure he remembers your role in his family’s redemption and acts accordingly,” Bertha tells Gladys, alluding to all the money that the Russells have handed over to the Duke so that their castle and family name can be properly restored to its former glory. “If you want to cook an omelette, you have to learn to break a few eggs,” Bertha adds. I think Sarah is the egg? Gladys laughs at the idea of her mother cooking, and for the first time all season the two women seem at ease with one another and actually on the same page. Bertha, estranged from her husband because of her social-climbing behavior, now owes it to Gladys and George to make this marriage work and you can see she’s really trying (in her own demented way). It’s also a bit of a relief to see that Hector is not really the problem here – perhaps there’s actually hope for romance? – and if we can just get his sister to step aside. Later, when Bertha’s maid Andre (who might be the gossip that’s feeding information to the tabloids?) tells her that she heard another maid say that Lady Sarah is trying to wear Gladys down and train her like a puppy, Bertha is livid; no one is going to treat Gladys like a dog, so it’s time for Lady Sarah to get a taste of her own medicine.

At a dinner with several guests, the conversation turns to women’s suffrage, which Sarah says she opposes. Bertha, goes full debate club on her, asking, “Why? Do you find women stupider than men? They’re not equipped for important decisions?” and then asks if Sarah thinks the Queen of England is equipped to run the country. She makes a fool of Sarah at the meal (which Gladys is secretly tickled by, you can tell she’s mentally taking notes, once again seeing just how good her mother is at manipulating people – it’s all fun and games as long as she’s not the one being manipulated).

Gladys realizes that to truly get under Sarah’s skin, she has to worm her way into her turf. So she decides she will make it her business to learn all there is to know about the Sidmouth estate. As Sarah, Hattie Morahan is incredible at conveying disgust and dismay with the slightest expressions, and when she learns this, though she simply asks, “Why?” her face adds, “How dare you?” “Gladys lives here now, she’s entitled to be interested,” Hector says, finally defending his bride.

Later, at yet another fancy meal, Gladys tells her seatmate that she’s planning to plant a copse of indigenous trees on a plot of land on the estate in honor of the Queen. This comes as a surprise to Sarah, who stands up from the meal to excuse herself. Sarah of all people should know the etiquette here, that no one stands up without waiting for the Duchess, and so Gladys dresses her down for doing do. Bertha can be a domineering pain in the ass, but it’s a delight watching her daughter take a cue from her.

Highland Falls

Up at J.P. Morgan’s estate in the Hudson Valley, Morgan is attempting to broker a deal between George Russell (Morgan Spector), Edgard and Alfred Merrick, and the Risley Sage, who all own shares in the Illinois Central railroad. When George arrives, he’s surprised to see that Mr. Sage’s new partner is none other than Clay (Patrick Page), George’s former associate who he unceremoniously fired. George realizes that negotiating anything with Sage will be tricky, as Clay knows all of his secrets and that’s going to complicate all of his plans to acquire the shares he needs to expand the railway. “Like most men in this room, he’s always been on one side: his own,” Morgan tells George. The thing is, even though Morgan pulled his investment in George’s railway, he believes in the project and thinks that if the other men sell their stake to him and George gets a controlling share, this continental railway might just change the country.

George does manage to convince the Merricks to sell their shares, making a verbal agreement at Morgan’s home, with the plan to sign formally when they return to New York. This will ruin Risley Sage’s investment but Clay, of impure heart, plants a story in the paper that Russell Industries is bleeding money. Stock in Russell Industries starts to plummet and the Merricks reneg on their deal, ruining George’s plan and allowing Sage to control the railroad and perhaps even ruining George financially, too.

New York

At the van Rhijn/Forte home (we have to call it that because Ada (Cynthia Nixon) and Agnes (Christine Baranski) are still struggling to deal with just who is in charge), Agnes continue to harass the staff, trying to squeeze them for information about how rich Jack is now from his clock invention. (“Will it be more than $2,000?” she asks, the joke being how very low her estimate is.) Unfortunately for everyone, Miss Armstrong knows the astronomical sum, and tells Agnes. Her motives are… well, bitchy. Armstrong could never just let anyone else be happy since she’s miserable herself, so she explains that Jack “seems to thinks he’s to live on here as long as he wants when his circumstances have quite changed,” and she even says that everyone else on staff feels “belittled” by him now that he’s wealthy. She’s obviously the only one who feels this way, and after telling Agnes the amount he’s really made ($300,000 in case you forgot) she’s not happy for him, rather, Agnes is furious that a man who can now buy and sell her is living under their roof, cosplaying as a footman. She insists that Ada throw Jack out now that he can afford to live elsewhere.

Ada surprisingly agrees with Agnes and gently tells him it’s time he “finds his way in the world,” which may be true, but leaving the only family he’s ever known is devastating to see, and it’s all because of Armstrong’s pettiness. Is this the saddest the show has ever gotten, watching Jack forced out of the only home he’s ever known?

Before he goes, Jack leaves a note for everyone in the house, each one stuffed with money to repay their initial investments in his clock patent, with a hefty sum of interest included. Armstrong, who didn’t invest because she’s a ghoul and she never believed in the idea, is stunned when even she received a sum of money from him. Will she invest in therapy? One only hopes.

Marian (Louisa Jacobson) and Larry (Harry Richardson) aren’t even in the same city but their engagement isn’t going great. Marian starts to suspect that Larry had been keeping something from her, and eventually drags it out of Oscar (Blake Ritson) that Larry was not, in fact, at Delmonico’s the night that they got engaged, but at the much seedier Haymarket, which is where he spotted Maud Beaton. Marian is furious that Larry visited a den of ill-repute and feels betrayed enough to break off the engagement (oof, third time was not the charm). Oscar begs Marian not to make such rash decisions or make so much of it, but she doesn’t listen, refusing even to wait until Larry is back from Arizona so he can explain himself.

Morenci

If there’s one good thing about Larry being in Arizona, it’s that he’s proving to be a savvy businessman like his father. He initially went to purchase the land around the copper mines for his dad, learns that there’s even more copper in them there hills than anyone assumed, something even George had written off. His land surveyor tells him to make “all the deals for all the mines” because they’re sitting on some serious opportunity.

Back in New York…

Peggy (Denee Benton), back from Philadelphia, feels she has to explain herself to Dr. William Kirkland and come clean about the true nature of her relationship with T. Thomas Fortune. Kirkland is understanding, not even passing judgment on the fact that Fortune is a married man, telling Peggy, “We all have a past.” And so, looking forward to their future, Kirkland tells Peggy he’d like his mother to attend the ta she’s holding to spread the word about suffrage. Problem is, Elizabeth Kirkland (Phylicia Rashad) doesn’t believe in the cause, so she’s argumentative throughout (“It’s best to pick our battles,” Elizabeth says), later asking William, “Do you see her finding time in her busy life to support your work? To run your house? To rear your children?” “I’d be proud of a wife who fought for reform and equality,” he responds. “No, you’d be proud of a woman who fought for those things. A wife is something different,” she replies. So what does this mean for Peggy and William now?

Oscar had a rough year, and it’s about to get rougher. After Larry spotted Maud working as a sex worker at the Haymarket and told Oscar about it, Oscar decides to go find the woman who scammed him out of his family fortune and confront her. What he learns is that Maud herself was a victim in the situation, cast aside after the real mastermind of the ruse, Crowther, ran away with the money. “Don’t pity me, I’m tough,” Maud tells Oscar. “My father lost me in a card game when I was 12.” Oscar does pity her though, and can’t stop thinking about her situation. Now that he’s getting back on his feet financially, he decides the most charitable thing he can do for her is to buy her a train ticket so she can go live with her sister in Ohio so she won’t have to live her life selling her body.

Oscar’s one true love, John Adams (Claybourne Elder) is the one person who has stood by him and helped him get back on his feet after his financial downfall. After Oscar meets him for a drink to reveal what happened with Maud, the two men say their goodbyes on the sidewalk outside the Union Club. Oscar, grateful for John’s companionship as well as his business connections, tells him, “You are my savior, I thank you.” It’s a poignant moment that turns horrific because as John steps off the curb, leaving Oscar behind, he’s struck from behind by a rogue horse cart that crashes into him and a fruit stand, making Adams one with the apples. This would have been more impactful if the CGI wasn’t so terrible, but it’s still tragic. The one person in Oscar’s universe that means anything at all has been taken from him, right before his eyes.

Stray Thoughts from The Gilded Age Season 3 Episode 4:

• As fun as it’s been having Andrea Martin on the show (“Did you feel a light breeze as you walked in? That was your husband!”) I think we all knew it would end this way, as she was exposed for being a fraud. Poor Ada.
• Do we really think Miss Andre the ladies maid is the gossip selling info to the papers? Seems too convenient, too easy!

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.