‘The Gilded Age’ Is Too British to Love the American Dream

In the third season of HBO’s The Gilded Age, a frothy costume drama set amid the robber barons and socialites of 1880s New York, a servant suddenly comes into money. So much of it, in fact, that he’ll never have to work again. But instead of seizing his new-found freedom, the man keeps his windfall a secret and continues toiling below stairs. He simply can’t imagine leaving a household staff that has become his surrogate family.

Even for a show that’s famous for its silliness, this is a ridiculous storyline. No one in their right mind would choose a 19th century servant’s labors as a hobby. It isn’t surprising, though, to see The Gilded Age telegraph such complacency among the lower classes or alarm at the prospect of sudden social mobility. Created by Downton Abbey mastermind Julian Fellowes, a bona fide aristocrat and Conservative politician in his home country of Britain, the series aspires to be more than what it is: a historical soap par excellence decked out in prestige drag. Successful or not, it’s a reflection on the American Dream of equal opportunity as pursued by the self-made strivers of its era. Season 3, in particular, suggests that Fellowes does not wholly approve.

This is the season where things start to get real for the show’s quintessential dreamers: George (Morgan Spector) and Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon). Born into undistinguished families, this cartoonishly ambitious couple hustled to make George a titan of industry. Season 1 saw them and their nearly grown children, Larry (Harry Richardson) and Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), move into an ostentatious mansion on old-money 61st St. Bertha set about scheming to rule high society the way her husband dominated business. By the second season finale, her triumph in championing the new Metropolitan Opera had cemented the family’s arrival. But in the new episodes, Bertha’s obsession with…