Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/HBO
(Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Gilded Age Season 2, Episode 4.)
HBO might not have invented the “Hot Priest” phenomenon, but it’s worshiped at that trope’s altar for years. From Samantha Jones’s lust for “Friar Fuck” on Sex and the City, to Jude Law on The Young Pope, to now with The Gilded Age, the premium cabler-turned-streamer has celebrated the special kind of desire that only the clergy can inspire. Case in point, Reverend Matthew Forte just showed up this season on The Gilded Age and it’s taken no time for him and Ada to plunge into the land of furtive looks and quiet hand touches. If you’re expecting a slow-burning, Victorian-era-romance-novel kind of affair, however, think again. Just a few episodes in, and we’re already… skipping to the marriage proposal?!?!
None of it makes any sense. Sure, Ada (Cynthia Nixon) and Matthew (Robert Sean Leonard) have clearly been smitten from their first meeting—and for the record, he is allowed to have romantic relationships—but they only just went on their first date last week, a platonic outing to an art gallery. This week, she’s throwing him a fundraiser and he’s asking her out again to join him in a box seat for the tragic love story Aida. But then, just after she accepts his date, our eager priest goes ahead and proposes—and Ada says… yes. Woof.