The HBO Max logo is still hanging over the frame when the trailer finds George Russell (Morgan Spector), head bowed, half his face in shadow, and the first voice belongs to Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson), who observes that the Russells’ climb “might have left their marriage on shaky ground.” HBO released the official trailer for Season 4 of “The Gilded Age” on Tuesday, October 13th, and the eight-episode season premieres Sunday, November 1st, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO, streaming on HBO Max. Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton Abbey,” is back as creator and writer, with Salli Richardson-Whitfield directing. Season 4 looks like the season where the bill for every one of Bertha’s victories finally arrives, and the trailer spends its whole running time showing who gets stuck paying it.
That bill has been running since the Season 3 finale, which opened with George carried home shot and wounded, then saved by Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica), who happened to be across the street. George survived, but the season closed with him telling Bertha (Carrie Coon) that he would not be coming home with her, still furious about the marriage she arranged between their daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) and the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb). The same episode gave Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) a proposal from William, put Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson) and Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) back together, more or less, and left Ada (Cynthia Nixon) running the van Rhijn household. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “The Gilded Age” Season 3 and for everything shown in the Season 4 trailer.
Season 4 looks like the season where the bill for every one of Bertha’s victories finally arrives, and the trailer spends its whole running time showing who gets stuck paying it.”
The Russell marriage gets the opening stretch, and it is cut like a thriller. Bertha stares off under a wide cream hat, and George’s voice says, “Everything is wrong.” Three men come down a stone staircase, and George and a younger man sit across an enormous desk from a gray-haired figure with his back to the lens, while George complains about “Rockefeller trying to drive me to my knees.” John D. Rockefeller is played this season by Neal Huff, according to both A.V. Club and Deadline. Then Bertha, in a pale floral jacket and a feathered hat, pleads, “Please, George, come home,” and George, framed against a tall window, answers, “So like you to look for a weakness to lure me back.”
Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), in blue velvet and a hat crowned with plumes, gets the next big line at a crowded party: “Soon, I shall entertain the President of the United States.” The trailer cuts straight to the proof, a banner reading “Welcome President Cleveland 1885” beside a stair dressed in flags, then a kitchen and a long candlelit table being laid. Jim Gaffigan plays Grover Cleveland, per Deadline and A.V. Club, and Entertainment Weekly reports that a dinner Agnes is planning for him is one of the season’s big storylines, with Bertha as her rival. The smartest edit in the trailer follows, Bertha at the head of her dining table in silver and black, then Agnes at the head of hers in deep red, while a voice says, “I must be cunning, and that means rallying the people that I trust.” The trailer never shows who is speaking, and the line could belong to either woman, which may well be the point.
The van Rhijn money is where the comedy lives. Over footmen serving dinner, Ada says, “It’s become too much,” and Agnes asks, “So you won’t pay for anything more?” Ada, in green, answers, “I’ll follow my own instincts,” and Agnes delivers the best line of the trailer with a straight face: “The same instincts that plan to replace my curtains? They don’t even make tassels like that anymore.” Nixon told Entertainment Weekly that “what we see in Ada is she’s getting better at saying no,” and the scene plays like a sister who has finally noticed she holds the checkbook.
A card reading “A New Age” lands over a packed hall, and Peggy sits on the stage in pale blue, smiling as the audience applauds, while a voice says, “America is a land of possibility.” At a dinner table, Peggy’s father Arthur (John Douglas Thompson) smiles as the line “There is a position opening in Washington” plays, and Soap Central describes it as Arthur telling William about the job. William, talking with his hands, says, “I’m open to new challenges,” and Peggy turns as a startled “I’m sorry?” lands. Deadline’s February casting report described Dennis Haysbert’s new character, Dr. Reginald Harris, as William’s mentor, raising money for the Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, a hint at where that job is. Then it is back to Society, with Bertha walking through a crowd that applauds her, as Oscar’s voice notes, “Society may seem capricious, but really it’s all tremendously predictable.”
After a card reading “A New Portrait of Power” over a rocky coastline, Jack Trotter (Ben Ahlers) stands beside a carriage in a top hat with a cane as someone tells him, “You’re quite the gentleman these days.” Jack quit his job as a footman in Season 3, and Deadline says his alarm clock invention sold for a big chunk of money. Outside, a woman in a white cap and apron asks a younger woman, “Or do you think you won’t be good enough?” and the cut finds Jack grinning at a party. Marian gets a quieter thread. Ada, in a plum hat, asks her, “Are you allowing enough time for your own life?” and Marian, wearing an apron, answers, “What if this is my life, what I’m meant to do?” Nixon told Entertainment Weekly that “there are things that Marian does that are a bridge too far for Ada,” and this exchange looks like the start of it.
Peggy’s wedding is where the in-law trouble shows up. Mrs. Kirkland (Phylicia Rashad), in a teal bonnet, declares, “This must be a dignified affair,” and Peggy’s mother Dorothy (Audra McDonald), on a settee beside her daughter, answers, “She seems to think this is her wedding, but it’s Peggy’s time.” Mrs. Kirkland later tells someone on a sunny street, “We can’t always have what we want.” After a card reading “From the Creator of Downton Abbey,” Larry, in a top hat, leans close to Marian in a dark corridor and says, “You continue to amaze me, Miss Brook.” Over can-can dancers and a brass band, Peggy’s voice says, “I am having a boon here that most would never dare to dream of,” and then, in close-up and near tears, she tells William, “I will not jeopardize it.” He answers, “Not even for me?”
The last stretch turns the season into a declaration of war. Agnes wears a tiara in a hall hung with bunting, George, in white tie, faces a woman with her back to the camera, and a voice warns, “We must right the ship before it takes us all down with it.” Flames flare, a bearded man stands behind a desk covered in papers, and someone calls something “an act of war.” Gladys reads a newspaper and tosses it aside, Agnes reads a letter, Bertha speaks in a library, and the line “We have no choice. This is war” closes the run. Nixon described the mood in similar terms to Entertainment Weekly: “What was a cold war has become a hot war.”
The final word goes to Agnes, sweeping through a front hall with Ada and the butler Bannister (Simon Jones) close behind, announcing, “This situation requires me to take leave of my manners.” Nixon told Entertainment Weekly that Ada’s main job this season is “to try and pull the reins back,” and that tug of war could drive the whole season, a show that spent three seasons on slow social chess suddenly promising open hostility. It could tip the series into something louder than it has ever been, which is the risk, but a cast this deep can probably carry a little shouting.
What Do You Think? Does George actually come home, or is the Rockefeller fight the only thing keeping him in the same room as Bertha? Who do you think says “This is war,” and is the Cleveland dinner the battlefield? And with a job opening in Washington, will Peggy and William make it to the altar with both careers intact?
See you on the next binge!
