The Gilded Age Season 1 – TV Series

Episodes 01

“Never the New”

In 1882 New York City, industrialist George Russell moves into an elaborate Stanford White-designed mansion with his wife, Bertha, and their children, Larry and Gladys. Across the street, sisters Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook await the arrival of their niece Marian, who is leaving Doylestown, Pennsylvania following her bankrupted father’s death. Peggy Scott, a graduate of the Institute for Colored Youth, offers assistance when Marian’s purse and train ticket are stolen. Marian’s aunts allow Peggy to stay over during inclement weather. Agnes offers Peggy employment as her secretary on condition she informs her parents of the arrangement; Peggy agrees and later meets with her mother, Dorothy, who wants Peggy to reconcile with her estranged father. Agnes’ son, Oscar, and George’s son, Larry, meet at a party hosted by socialite Mamie Fish. Both meet Marian upon returning to New York. Bertha attempts to break into high society by hosting a lavish party, which Marian secretly attends. No one notable shows up, however, and Bertha vows revenge.

Episodes 02

“Money Isn’t Everything”

Marian’s lawyer from Doylestown, Tom Raikes, moves to New York City for a new job. He is romantically interested in Marian. Peggy, an aspiring writer, sends query letters to potential publishers, but has not yet received any replies. Marian arranges for Peggy to privately consult with Tom regarding a legal matter. Meanwhile, Bertha attempts to be included in Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Fane’s upcoming charity bazaar by offering her ballroom as a venue. Instead, the event is held in a hotel at great expense, and Bertha is snubbed. Enraged, she and George attend the bazaar and George proceeds to buy everything, effectively shutting down the event. On the business side of things, George makes a plan with Alderman Patrick Morris, in which Morris and other aldermen will buy George’s company stock on margin, then pass a law that will allow George to build a new train station in the city, resulting in everyone making huge profits.

Episodes 03

“Face the Music”

George learns the law will not pass and realizes the aldermen are manipulating the stock to their advantage. The legislators sell short, promising to deliver shares at a lower price expecting them to go down. In retaliation, George buys back as much company stock as possible, driving the aldermen into poverty by forcing them to buy at the now higher price. The Christian Advocate offer Peggy an opportunity to be published but with several racist demands. Peggy declines their offer. Oscar plans to court Gladys Russell, much to his lover John Adams’s chagrin. Ada is approached by Cornelius Eckhard, who once proposed to her, and who Ada’s father turned away. Agnes tells Eckhard that she knows he only wanted to marry Ada because he thought her a “meal ticket.” When he learns Ada has no money of her own, he stops pursuing her. Tom proposes marriage to Marian. She does not give him a definitive answer, and she knows Agnes would disapprove of the match. The aldermen beg George to stop inflating his company’s stock price, but he shows no mercy. Facing complete ruin, Alderman Morris kills himself.

Episodes 04

“A Long Ladder”

George offers to help the Fanes recover any money lost in the stocks debacle on the condition that Aurora helps introduce Bertha into the old money circles. Peggy receives interest in her writing from New York Globe editor T. Thomas Fortune, who hires her to write an article about political affiliations. Bannister gets the opportunity to see what life inside the Russell house is like after Ada’s dog escapes during his walk and is found by Gladys. Sylvia Chamberlain, a widow, tainted by rumors that she was originally her late husband’s mistress, attempts to make friends with Marian. Turner, Bertha’s lady’s maid, fails to strike up an affair with George. Bridget tells Mrs. Bauer that she was sexually abused as a child and her mother did not stop it. Peggy argues with her father during a visit to Brooklyn, during which Marian arrives unannounced with a bag of used shoes and offends the Scotts. While attending a concert for the Red Cross with Bertha and the Fanes, Marian runs into Tom. She insists he win over her aunts before accepting his marriage proposal.

Episodes 05

“Charity Has Two Functions”

George persuades Bertha to invite Gladys’s latest suitor, Archie Baldwin, to dinner. Peggy has not forgiven Marian’s assumptions about her family. Mrs. Armstrong visits her invalid mother in a small tenement apartment. Bertha looks to Ward McAllister for assistance in climbing the social ladder. Aurora, Bertha, Marian, and Tom travel to Dansville to see Miss Barton speak at the opening of a Red Cross branch. Peggy travels with them to write an article and to keep an eye on Marian at Agnes’s request. Miss Barton acknowledges that wealthy people use charity to better their standing in high society. Tom kisses Marian, and Peggy purposefully interrupts them. Privately, Peggy tells Marian that she once fell in love but her father disapproved. Marian apologizes to Peggy for thinking she needed charity. Oscar recruits Miss Turner as a spy in his quest to marry Gladys. George gives Archie an ultimatum: accept a lucrative job that George has arranged with J. & W. Seligman & Co. and stop pursuing Gladys, or refuse and never work in finance again. Archie, shaken, abruptly leaves. Richard Clay arrives to inform George that a company train derailed outside Millbourne, Pennsylvania and the number of casualties is still uncertain. George and Bertha prepare to address the crisis.

Episodes 06

“Heads Have Rolled for Less”

With five people confirmed dead, George sets out to discover the cause of the train derailment, eventually learning that someone inside his company passed off substandard axles as new ones. Bertha is voted onto the board of the Red Cross, enraging Anne Morris. Peggy discovers her interview with Clara Barton has caused an increase in Globe subscriptions. Gladys and Carrie Astor bond at a party hosted by Mamie Fish, with Carrie making suggestions for Gladys’ coming out ball. Marian juggles keeping secret Larry’s prospects of finding employment as an architect and eliciting a Red Cross donation from Mrs. Chamberlain, who confirms the validity of the rumors surrounding her and her husband. Bertha hires van Rhijn butler Bannister to serve an English-style luncheon for Ward McAllister, greatly offending Russell family butler Church. Though Bannister lies to get out of his work, Agnes discovers the truth after receiving a note from an unknown sender. She interrupts the luncheon but leaves when confronted by the other guests. Armstrong witnesses Oscar meeting with Turner outside the Russell house and reports back to Agnes. Bertha learns a railroad employee is claiming George instructed him to use the substandard axles.

Episodes 07

“Irresistible Change”

George unveils plans for a new train station powered by electricity. Larry asks George to let him study architecture; George initially refuses but later decides to consider it. Bertha sets a date for Gladys’s debutante ball. George may face charges of manslaughter for the crash. Agnes sends Marian to inform Bertha about the assumption Turner is having a sexual affair with a man, but Marian withholds Oscar’s name. Bertha catches Turner flirting with Larry and quickly dismisses her. Marian keeps trying to persuade Agnes that Tom will be a suitable husband but makes no progress. The city readies for Thomas Edison’s electric power distribution ceremony, during which he will activate his Pearl Street generating station. Marian is left at home when Bertha chooses to instead fill out her party with Tom and Cissie Bingham (rumored illegitimate daughter of Henry Flagler). Peggy attends the event with Fortune. Edison turns on his electric lights to the amazement of all present.

Episodes 08

“Tucked Up in Newport”

George prepares for trial while Bertha plans Gladys’s coming out party. Oscar travels to Newport with the Russell family to entrench his courtship of Gladys, but John Adams thwarts him out of spite. Aurora expresses her distrust of Tom, but Marian decides to accept his marriage proposal and plans to elope. Watson, George’s valet, has been watching the home of Mrs. Flora McNeil. When she asks him why he is doing so, he introduces himself with the name Collyer, at which point she quickly leaves. Miss Armstrong intercepts a letter from Tom to Peggy, forcing Peggy to confess to the van Rhijn-Brook family that she had a stillborn son and a marriage that her father forcibly annulled. Agnes will not fire Armstrong, so Peggy resigns. Bridget finds Jack at his mother’s grave, where he recounts how all his family members are dead or estranged. Through Marian, George Russell discovers his stenographer, Miss Ainsley, and George Dixon framed him for negligence, leading to a dismissal of the charges. McAllister takes Bertha to see Mrs. Astor’s grand Newport home while she is out, but Mrs. Astor returns early and Bertha suffers the indignity of being rushed out the back.

Episodes 09

“Let the Tournament Begin”

Bertha calls on Mrs. Astor, but she is snubbed and uninvites Carrie to Gladys’s debutante ball. Carrie, furious, gives her mother the cold shoulder. Marian readies to elope with Tom, with the help of Peggy and Sylvia. Under threat of exposure, Monsieur Baudin confesses to George that he is merely a French-trained chef from Wichita, Kansas, named Josh Borden. Despite George’s protests, Bertha fires him. On the day of the elopement, Tom stands up Marian, and he now aims to marry into money. Peggy learns that her son is alive and has been adopted. She and her mother leave for Philadelphia to search for the boy. George and Bertha use every tactic to get the old money crowd to attend their ball. Mrs. Astor makes amends with Bertha by coming to the ball and getting as many of her friends as possible to attend, including the van Rhijn-Brooks. The ball is nearly derailed when Borden’s replacement gets drunk, but Borden returns at a moment’s notice and is rehired by George. The ball is a success, and Ada assures the broken-hearted Marian that better days will come.