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Season 3/Episode 5,
"A Different World"

While Gladys adjusts to her changed circumstances, Larry runs into a familiar face. Peggy gets an opportunity from an old colleague.

In this Episode…

Mansions FeaturedThe Elms, The Breakers

By Genna Duplisea, Preservation Society of Newport County archivist

This episode is a distillation of one of the show’s strongest themes of characters flailing to find their places in a complicated society.

Gilded Age Season3_Ep5_ben-ahlers — Beh Ahlers as Jack Treacher in the Haymarket Club (Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/HBO)

Jack Trotter finds himself invited by Larry Russell to the hedonistic Haymarket Club, and is suddenly in a space where powerful people can break moral and societal taboos. The Haymarket was a real place, located in the Tenderloin District at 66 West 30th St. at Sixth Avenue, just on the cusp of respectable neighborhoods. It existed in various forms, occasionally under different names, from 1878 to 1911.

Larry even quips that if Jack preferred men, he could procure male company. Homosexuality was still a crime in New York in 1884, so Larry’s comment indicates that Jack has ascended to a social standing in which laws do not apply to him. This is not necessarily true, evidenced by Oscar Van Rhijn’s continuing struggle to live authentically while concealing his sexuality.

Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson) meets with his lover, John Adams (Claybourne Elder)
(Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/HBO)

It is at the Haymarket Club that Larry discovers Maud Beaton, the scammer from last season who made off with Oscar’s fortune after he tried to marry her. She is working as a prostitute; her diminished circumstances are a surprise and perhaps a comeuppance, but Oscar’s friend and occasional lover John Adams reframes the event: “She stole your money, but if you had married her, you would have stolen her entire life. The deception was mutual.”

Oscar’s story echoes that of Harry Lehr, whose marriage to Elizabeth Drexel, chronicled in her memoir “King Lehr,” was a coverup of his sexuality, although Oscar’s character indicates he would have been far kinder to his wife than Lehr was. The freedom Larry seems to think is available to men who love men at The Haymarket is not a true reflection of Gilded Age society; despite the apparent freedom available to upper-class men, Oscar’s life was and would have remained closeted.

Gilded Age Season3_Ep5_taissa-farmiga_7 — The former Gladys Russell, now the Duchess of Buckingham (Taissa Farmiga) in Sidmouth Castle, her new home in England. Ochre Court in Newport, part of Salve Regina University, was the location for this scene. (Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/HBO)

Gladys faces a dramatic change in circumstance, even though her transformation is from being a wealthy woman to being a wealthier one. In England she has no more control over her life than she did in New York, despite becoming a duchess. Social norms are distorted just enough to make her lose her footing, and her sister-in-law, Lady Sarah, fires her maid Adelheid for making a faux pas with Gladys’ hair.

Andrea Martin appears as Madame Dashkova, a spirit medium consulted by the grieving Ada Forte.
(Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/HBO)

Kingscote mourning stationery PSNCA.H.021.182A — Mourning stationery, characterized by a black border, used by Francis R. Rives in 1891. PSNCA.H.021: King Family Letters, Preservation Society of Newport County Archives.

Ada Forte takes comfort in the vague sentiments from a medium claiming to channel her dead husband, Luke. American spiritualism was at its height in this period, with seances, spirit photographs and mesmerism feeding the need of a society struggling to cope with the grief of the Civil War.

Gilded Age Season3_Ep5_kelli-o-hara — Kelli O’Hara as Aurora Fane (Photograph by Karolina Wojtasik/HBO)

While not a literal ghost, Aurora Fane fades to a specter in society, no longer quite welcome as she goes through her unwanted divorce. Mrs. Astor seeks a double standard, diminishing the amorous wanderings of her own daughter, Charlotte, while ostracizing Mrs. Fane to the point of forcing her to leave Mrs. Fish’s party in Newport. While Mrs. Fane will get the houses she shared with her husband in the divorce, she points out to Marian that he will get their friends and the life they had together – she will only get the shell of the life she once had.

Mrs. Fish’s party in Newport would have taken place at her mansion Crossways, pictured above in the mid-20th century. PSNCA.H.025: Robert Meservey photographs, Preservation Society of Newport County Archives.

Marian transforms from neighbor to fiancée, as Larry Russell proposes to her under a canopy of weeping beeches. The grounds of The Elms are the stage for this proposal; although the house is the set for the Russells’ Newport home, this scene takes place in New York. It is private and personal, the opposite of Larry’s sister’s engagement a few months earlier.

Bertha Russell is aghast at this development, and any loss of control over her elaborate house of cards sets her spinning. At the same time her husband, George, begins to lose his grip on his railroad empire, firing his assistant Clay in frustration at Clay’s failure to close a land deal in Arizona. Bertha and George’s marriage is beginning to transform, too, as their conflicting ambitions and growing mistrust weaken their bond.