The Gilded Age review — Julian Fellowes’ lavish period drama returns for a diverting third season

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There is snow on the streets of 1880s New York — and an icy atmosphere in the rooms of one Manhattan mansion. For decades Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), an acid-tongued widow, was the mistress of the house and one of the city’s most influential socialites; her sister Ada Forte (Cynthia Nixon), meanwhile, was the meek spinster living in her sibling’s home and shadow. But after the former’s sudden loss of fortune and the latter’s unexpected windfall from a shortlived marriage, the mahogany tables have turned, leaving the servants unsure of who’s in charge.

Julian Fellowes’ lavish low-stakes high-society melodrama The Gilded Age returns for a diverting third season that gently shakes things up — while acknowledging that meaningful change can be elusive in a parochial world bound by codes and conventions.

Playing to its strengths — namely Baranski’s haughty looks and withering put-downs — the show spends a good amount of time observing the upheaval in the Forte (formerly van Rhijn) home, where Ada’s attempts to assert herself and impose abstemious house rules are repeatedly undermined by Agnes.

Across 61st Street, Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), the steely wife of industrialist George (Morgan Spector), continues her attempt to take Manhattan by essentially selling off her daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) to the visiting Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb). While he needs the Russells’ cash to preserve his crumbling country pile, the new money arrivistes (or at least the status-obsessed Bertha) desire the cachet of being related to a real British aristocrat.

The economy of marriage (and divorce) is one of this season’s preoccupations. But the show balances such cynicism with frissons of real romance. One strand involves the furtive courtship of the Russells’ eldest son Larry and Agnes’s niece Marian (Louisa Jacobson). More compelling is the storyline revolving around Marian’s friend, author Peggy (Denée Benton) and her dashing new doctor friend (Jordan Donica), which offers an interesting glimpse at social politics in the small but historic community of Black elites in Newport, Rhode Island.

There are subplots set in the servants’ quarters, though the show seems to have more interest and affection for their employers’ troubles. The exception is footman-cum-inventor Jack (Ben Ahlers), whose entrepreneurial spirit hints at a dismantling of upstairs/downstairs dynamics in the decades to come. “In America you don’t have to live like your parents lived,” he tells a peer who warns him of getting above himself.

If Fellowes still proves to be a master of subtly cutting snubs and slights, his writing around themes of class, race and sex is often unnecessarily blunt. But, the confluence of trivial matters and real issues, silly characters and some seriously good performances (from Coon and Baranski especially) succeeds in keeping this upper-crust saga from going stale.

★★★☆☆

Episode 3 on Sky Atlantic on July 7 at 9pm. New episodes weekly and streaming on NOW. On HBO in the US