Well, well, well, look who’s decided to add some drama to their drama! I am just as scandalized as Adelheid the lady’s maid to see the return of Turner to the scene in The Gilded Age.
You may remember Turner as Bertha Russell’s sexy, backstabbing lady’s maid from season one. She tried to seduce George, failed miserably, made a deal with Oscar van Rhijn to help him land Gladys as a wife/beard, failed miserably, and got herself fired. She was the closest thing this show had to a villain, other than Bertha Russell herself. And once she was gone, we really didn’t have anyone who felt threatening to the social-climbing, world-devouring Mrs. Russell.
Mrs. Astor is honestly too genteel to really be a threat to Bertha. They all talk about being afraid of her, but she folded at the first sign of a social threat to her daughter. Bertha is a fire-breathing dragon next to Mrs. Astor’s yapping chihuahua.
Agnes van Rhijn, who in the form of Christine Baranski should be the foil for Bertha, is used as nothing more than wallpaper in this show. She sits in her parlor, reads her correspondence (from who???), and complains about the “new people.” She barely even gets to sneer at Bertha. It’s a real waste of Baranski.
New cast member Laura Benanti, as the widowed Mrs. Blane, might develop into an enemy given that she’s gleefully using Bertha’s son Larry for sex. It would be great fun to watch Broadway veteran Benanti take on Carrie Coon’s Bertha, but I fear The Gilded Age won’t let us have that pleasure. Mrs. Blane lives in Newport full time, after all, and Bertha mostly remains ensconced on Fifth Avenue.
Thank the drama gods, then, that Turner has resurfaced as the newly-married Mrs. Winterton. She’s not only super-rich now, she’s actually Bertha’s superior because her husband is Old Money! That scheming hussy has leapfrogged her former employer to become Old Money by Marriage, leaving New Money Bertha in the dust. Get it, Mrs. Winterton!
I think Turner-Winterton looks amazing in her new fancy clothes. And she’s got the languid mannerisms of money down, too. But when she’s alone with Bertha, she loses her chill and the servant-class claws come right out. This is a tactical error, and I fear Turner-Winterton will live to regret it, much to our enjoyment. She immediately threatens Bertha Goddamn Russell, right to her face! And she reveals that she and George had a tryst. While this isn’t entirely true–he threw her out of bed–it’s also not 100% false, and George never told his wife about it.
This is the first time we’ve seen Mrs. Russell truly upset, isn’t it? Bertha is SHOOK. The fact that her maid was in bed, naked, with her husband and he allowed her to continue to wait on Bertha is a betrayal. Bertha ices him out, stops eating with him, and almost stops helping him with his union-busting work…although she comes around on that. Money first, always.
Eventually Bertha chooses violence, as we always knew she would. George must prove his worth if he wants to get back into her good graces (into her bed, in other words). He’s got to find a way to get Bertha in touch with literal royalty so that she can one-up Mrs. Winterton. Oh, it’s ON.
This level of actual intrigue makes it almost worth caring about which opera house will win out in the end. (It’s the Met.)
