Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/HBO
(Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Gilded Age Season 2 finale.)
It might be a universal truth that what comes up must come down, but in The Gilded Age, it seems that even nature itself bends to the van Rhijn household’s will. Just one week after the family’s sole male heir squandered the family fortune on a bogus investment—threatening the family with a not-destitute-but-also-not-luxurious existence—it turns out their futures are once again secure, all thanks to the untimely death of spinster Ada’s newfound love. If only Alanis Morissette had been around in the 1800s to see this.
Just when Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) thinks it was time to give up any clothes that require a maid to button, her younger sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon) shares the bittersweet news: Apparently, her dearly departed husband Luke Forte (Robert Sean Leonard) was not only a reverend but also the grandson of a textile magnate, and as such, he left her in charge of a massive sum of money when he died last week from cancer. As relieved as Agnes seems to be that she no longer needs to let go of her staff, she seemed less thrilled when she realized that said staff now reports to her younger sister and not herself. My, my, my how the tables have turned…