Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/HBO
(Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Gilded Age Season 2, Episode 7.)
Oscar van Rhijn might not be the worst villain on Max’s The Gilded Age (that honor clearly goes to Miss Turner and her poisoned soups), but nevertheless, this doe-eyed aristocrat’s disarming appearance has long masked his inner sketchiness. Oscar isn’t a bad guy, per se; he’s mostly just a gay man trapped in impossible circumstances, living in a world that forces him to keep his true self a secret. The end result of that struggle, in Oscar’s case, is selfishness: Since last season, he’s been hellbent on trapping a rich heiress into an unwitting lavender marriage. This week, he finally got his just deserts and then some.
Throughout this season, Oscar (Blake Ritson) has been wooing the charming socialite Maud Beaton (Nicole Brydon Bloom), whom he met through his cousin Aurora (Kelli O’Hara). Maud seemed sweet enough, and the two got on swimmingly, but there have been a few tiny red flags along the way. The more Maud talked about her father’s lucrative business dealings and how tired, so tired, she was of being involved against her will, the more Oscar seemed to want in. Eventually, this led to a meeting with the businessman Mr. Crowther about an upcoming venture to take over the Chicago-Atlantic Railroad. Oscar was keen to invest, and once the partners bought him out with an eye-popping return, he was desperate for more of the action. Those even vaguely familiar with how scams work could have sniffed it out from a mile away, but alas, Oscar did not.