The Gilded Age: Season Two Viewer Votes

(Photo: HBO)

Bertha continues challenging the old system in the second season of The Gilded Age TV show on HBO. As we all know, Nielsen ratings typically play a significant role in determining whether a TV show like The Gilded Age is cancelled or renewed for season three. Unfortunately, most of us do not live in Nielsen households. Because many viewers feel frustrated when their viewing habits and opinions aren’t considered, we invite you to rate all of the second season episodes of The Gilded Age here. *Status Update Below.

An HBO period drama series, The Gilded Age TV show stars Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, Louisa Jacobson, Denée Benton, Ben Ahlers, Michael Cerveris, Kelley Curran, Taissa Farmiga, Jack Gilpin, Simon Jones, Sullivan Jones, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Debra Monk, Donna Murphy, Kristine Nielsen, Kelli O’Hara, Patrick Page, Harry Richardson, Taylor Richardson, Blake Ritson, Douglas Sills, Erin Wilhelmi, Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald, John Douglas Thompson, Ashlie Atkinson, Laura Benanti, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Christopher Denham, David Furr, Ward Horton, Matilda Lawler and Robert Sean Leonard. The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of great conflict between the old ways and brand-new systems, and of huge fortunes made and lost. Against the backdrop of this transformation, this show’s story begins in 1882 with young Marian Brook (Jacobson) moving from rural Pennsylvania to New York City. After the death of her father, she goes to live with her thoroughly old money aunts, Agnes van Rhijn (Baranski) and Ada Brook (Nixon). Accompanied by Peggy Scott (Benton), an aspiring writer seeking a fresh start, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her old money aunts and her stupendously rich neighbors — a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George (Spector) and Bertha Russell (Coon). In season two, the story picks up on Easter morning, 1883, with the news that Bertha’s bid for a box at the Academy of Music has been rejected. Bertha challenges Mrs. Astor and the old system and works to not only gain a foothold in Society but to potentially take a leading role in it. George takes on his own battle with a growing union at his steel plant in Pittsburgh. In the Brook House, Marian continues her journey to find her way in the world, secretly teaching at a girls’ school while, much to everyone’s surprise, Ada begins a new courtship. Of course, Agnes approves of none of it. In Brooklyn, the Scott family begins to heal from a shocking discovery, and Peggy taps into her activist spirit through her work with T. Thomas Fortune at the NY Globe.

What do you think? Which season two episodes of The Gilded Age TV series do you rate as wonderful, terrible, or somewhere between? Do you think The Gilded Age should be cancelled or renewed for a third season on HBO?

*12/22/23 update: The Gilded Age has been renewed for a third season.