The Gilded Age on HBO Max is a new period drama worth adding to your watchlist. Bridgerton season
While we’re all waiting for Bridgerton season 2 in our foot-tall wigs and cap-sleeved dresses (no, just me? ), a new historical drama could offer enough tangled relationships and power-hungry socialites to keep me entertained. Also read Apple claims that the App Store bill will result in malware and frauds’ on iPhones
Julian Fellowes’ HBO Max’s The Gilded Age (one of TG’s best new series to watch in January 2022) is set in late-nineteenth-century New York City. The programme, as the name implies, exudes the economic triumph of the super-rich who preferred metropolitan palaces to country estates.
With the successful railroad, steel, and coal-mining businesses expanding rapidly, the social scene is being penetrated by “new money,” and it’s no wonder that the “old money” families don’t look kindly on the persons who earned (rather than inherited) their fortune moving in across the street.
I’m a sucker for historical fiction, especially when it’s based on true events. The Russells, new money railroad tycoons, are inspired by the Vanderbilts, while the old money Van Rhijns are said to be derived from the Livingston family, who brought wealth to New York in the 17th century from Scotland and the Dutch Republic.
Meanwhile, the Astors, a real tribe that accumulated tremendous influence during the Gilded Age, have ultimate say in determining social standing and prefer old money. Despite her numerous adversaries in town, the Russell matriarch strives to gain the favour of the Astors. Glamourous charity events, chattering house servants, never-ending corsets, and improbable romances give colour to the never-ending social rising.
The Gilded Age brings the Bridgerton vibes home
Every one of the families included in The Gilded Age are incredibly wealthy. As we look inside their Upper East Side residences loaded up with furniture scalped from European sovereignty, I believed there’s no chance these orante chateaus existed in a similar New York I live in at this point.
Yet, that is the reason I love The Gilded Age up until this point – it’s a sample of Bridgerton’s elitism, yet in a spot I call home. Incessant gestures to particular neighborhood characteristics or milestone namesakes catch what’s unique (or not) in a similar city 130-ish years after the fact.
The show was initially birthed as a side project to Downton Abbey, however as Bridgerton is one the best shows on Netflix the present moment, I’m happy HBO’s reaction turned out to be autonomous of Fellowes previous period dramatization.
From what I’ve seen up until this point, The Gilded Age isn’t a smidge as hot or indecent as Bridgerton, however the evil side of status-chasing saturates each scene. Rich individuals are merciless with regards to getting what they need, and in this period, passing on a party greeting is viewed as the most ridiculously horrendous scorn.
Why you should give the The Gilded Age a go
It’s these nuances concealed behind wonderful ensembles and my affection for Christine Baranski that nearly fill the Lady Whistledown-sized hole that Bridgerton left when I completed season 1 more than a year prior. Once more, The Gilded Age isn’t close to as alluring, and I spent a significant amount of the show’s runtime Googling the period’s set of experiences realizing I wouldn’t miss a makeout meeting assuming that my eyes floated to my telephone. Perhaps that is not something to be thankful for, but rather it’ll hold me over until we get to see a greater amount of the Bridgerton family’s rollercoaster connections.
The Gilded Age’s 10 episodes show up each Monday on HBO Max through March 28, 2022. It’s incredible luck, as Bridgerton season 2 shows up on March 25.