The Gilded Age season 2 finale: Breakups, shakeups, and make-ups

“Our day of reckoning is finally here!” We’ve made it, Big Hat Hive: the finale of The Gilded Age round two and, at long last, the epic final battle of our season-spanning war between the Academy of Music and the Metropolitan Opera. And the ep kicks off immediately with a battle cry: “She’s a thief! Mrs. Astor has taken my Duke of Buckingham!” Bertha (Carrie Coon) roars upon receiving word that her token royal has decided to side with the enemy and will be attending the Academy’s opening night instead of joining Bertha’s box at the Met.

And she’s not the only one reeling: House van Rhijn is also very much freaking out, not just over the passing of Ada’s beloved Reverend Forte (Robert Sean Leonard) but also the loss of the family fortune per Oscar’s dumb-dumb business investment. Though their financial advisor assures them that they’re not as “ruined” as Agnes (Christine Baranski) has been catastrophizing, he does suggest that she sell her mansion for more modest lodging, maybe somewhere downtown. (Gasp!)

As you can well imagine, this does very little to appease Mrs. van Rhijn, who has been laying the riches-to-rags histrionics on thick: “So this is to be the end of my story. I survive my feckless brother and marry a man who was not easy so that I might live a life that was dignified and secure, but instead I am to be turned out of my bed to beg for my bread on street corners!” (Theater kids, you better start practicing this speech for those drama-club auditions.)

Now that the family’s finances are a hot damn mess, Agnes & Co. sadly have to tell the staffers that they’ll be losing their jobs once the house is sold. Peggy (Denée Benton) can fall back on her gig at The New York Globe, and Jack Trotter (Ben Ahlers) is making progress with his clock invention—his patent application has officially been approved and Marian (Louisa Jacobson) has connected him with Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) for business advice—but the older personnel, like Armstrong, are worried about their prospects.

One bit of good news: Agnes’ concerns about how they’re going to pay for Marian’s wedding are alleviated when Dashiell (David Furr) offers to foot the bill himself. But that doesn’t quite mean that Marian’s own concerns about the engagement are dunzo.

Back at the Russells’, Bertha is trying to figure out a plan of attack against Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) and her Academy-loving infantry. But Mr. Gilbert (Jeremy Shamos) has made a strategic misstep: He’s already leaked that the Duke of Buckingham will be Bertha’s guest of honor for the Met’s opening night, even though Mrs. Astor is hellbent on poaching him. Gilbert warns her that the public will simply attend the opening of whoever they believe most, so Bertha will need to metaphorically lace up her combat boots.

She gets just the ammo she needs, however, when Marian lets it slip to Larry that it was actually Mr. McCallister (Nathan Lane) who facilitated the duke’s change of allegiance. She summons the Colonel Sanders cosplayer to explain himself. He spills that Mrs. Astor wooed the duke not only with a hefty sum of money but also her connections: “She’ll open New York for him, she’s opening America…more than you can.” Bertha immediately goes to her hot train daddy to get him to sign a big fat check to wave in front of the duke’s nose, but he refuses. They’ve spent more than enough dough on the opera house already, George (Morgan Spector) tells her. She’ll just have to make the Met a success without him.

And hers isn’t the only battle waged this week: After being informed by a customer that the school board has pushed up its meeting without notifying any of the Black educators, Mr. Scott (John Douglas Thompson) gathers Peggy, Dorothy (Audra McDonald) and the rest of the troops to infiltrate the assembly. After bringing forth all of their research and arguments, the teachers are victorious—well, sort of. Two out of the three Black schools will remain open. After the familial tumultuousness that the Scotts have weathered this season, it’s nice seeing the trio reconcile over their shared win.

But their group reunion is offset by a breakup: that between Peggy and her married editor/makeout partner Mr. Fortune (Sullivan Jones). “We both have work to do and we need no distractions,” she tells him before resigning from the newspaper. What will she do now? Our girl is gonna be a non-homewrecking novelist. Yay!

And the breaks keep coming. You guessed it: Marian and Dashiell are splitsville. After the latter accidentally pulled a Ross Gellar and referred to Marian by another woman’s name (that would be his late wife, Harriet), Marian realizes that the widower is very much still in love with his former bride and that she herself is very much not in love with him. Her feelings aren’t like those between Ada and Luke, she tells her aunt, who tearfully responds: “That makes me proud, to be the rule by which you judge these things.” Weeping, bye.

That leaves Marian free to attend the Metropolitan’s big opening night with Larry—yes, you read that correctly. Ms. Brook is going against her Aunt Agnes’ wishes and skipping out on the Academy affair altogether. And it looks like she’s far from the only one: Everyone from Aurora Fane (Kelli O’Hara) to Mrs. Fish (Ashlie Atkinson) is defecting from the low-attendance Academy shindig (“Is this it? Really?” Mrs. Fish shades) to join the Met brigade, much to the old guard’s horror. And, yes, even the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb) sides with Bertha, showing up dramatically late to join the Russells in their central opera box. (BTW, suck on that, Turner!) It looks like that secret little visit Bertha made to the Duke’s hotel earlier clearly paid off, but exactly what did she offer him to sway his fealty?

Following Bertha’s big victory, Larry walks Marian home from the opera and has some success of his own: finally laying a smooch on her. This writer doesn’t entirely see the chemistry that other viewers are harping on about but their ship name will be “Marry,” which is obnoxiously cute. Their makeout is interrupted, however, by news that both Ada and Agnes are waiting for their niece with an important announcement. It seems that the Reverend Forte wasn’t just a hot man of god—the dude was a secretly loaded hot man of god, thanks to a grandfather who made a fortune in textiles back in Boston, and that fortune has been left entirely to Ada.

House van Rhijn breaks out in cries of relief: They don’t have to sell their house, they can keep their staff, and, in the words of one Renata Klein, they will not not be rich. Even Bannister (Simon Jones) cheers—that is, before checking if that’s okay with his new boss. Yup, now that Ada’s the one with the deep pockets, she’s the Head Bitch in Charge in the Van Rhijn residence. “Things may be a little different in the future, Agnes,” Ada beams into Christine Baranski’s horrified face. And scene!

And that, my friends, is the end of The Gilded Age season two. Will we get a third? I’m praying to the big-hat gods as we speak.

Stray observations

• Sure, Marian and Larry might on paper be the hot new couple of the week, but it’s Chef Borden (Douglas Sills) and Mrs. Bruce (Celia Keenan-Bolger)—who adorably attend the Met opening together after Bertha gifts the housekeeper two free orchestra seats—that we’re squeeing over.
• We barely got an introduction to Bertha’s new lady’s maid this week, but we did get a swift but sweet goodbye to George’s valet: Watson (Michael Cerveris) has officially taken his leave and will be spending the rest of his days with his daughter and grandchildren.
• Speaking of George, we sadly didn’t get a whole lot of Hot Beard in the finale but him flirtily telling Bertha, “When you talk [angry] like that, you make me nervous,” is straight-up sexier than most Bridgerton episodes.
• Mrs. Fish reads The Sun because “where else can [she] find all of the divorces?” Icon.

Stream The Gilded Age now on Hulu.