As my husband and I watched the jam-packed recap before eagerly diving into the season three premiere of our favorite show, The Gilded Age, we both wondered out loud, "I don't remember any of this happening." Even now, despite being recently reminded, I struggle to list off what exactly occurred in season two—there was the war of the operas, a duke, a clock, and someone lost a lot of money.
'The Gilded Age' Season 3 Premiere Changed My Opinion of a Main Character
She's a titan of society
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Published Jul 1, 2025
HBO
But here’s what I do remember: Bertha Russell (played by Carrie Coon), in all her calculated, corseted ambition, climbing the social ranks with terrifying precision. And until now, I saw her as just that—a social climber in jewels, fun to watch, impossible to love. But in the first episode of season three, something shifted. For the first time, I found myself rooting for her not in spite of her power plays, but because of them.
HBO
We don't see too much of Bertha beyond her typical strategizing in this first episode. She moves through her scenes controlling the world around her like a game of chess. Per usual, she has her eyes set on a winning move—in this case, a European duke for her daughter to marry, and in Bertha fashion, she won't take no for an answer. Gladys Russell (played by Taissa Farmiga), Bertha's prize of a daughter, however, has fallen in love with a plain-old society boy and threatens Bertha's entire plan.
And nearly all the characters that touch this storyline support Gladys's perspective. Why can't this young woman marry for love? Her parents, Bertha and George Russell, married for love and climbed the ladder of wealth and society together. A politically arranged marriage in American society where the upstairs-downstairs divide is far less rigid than back in, say, Downton Abbey's England, is backwards.
And yet...
HBO
In one of the episode's last scenes between the mother and daughter, a peek into Bertha's perspective goes far beyond the petty social-climbing busybody. "Don’t you know a bad marriage is a prison?" she asks her daughter. In context of the show, women's suffrage is just a fledgling of an idea. A woman's marriage and status within society are two of the only modals to wield any power. Bertha, this scenes reveals to me, has outgrown her current status. She doesn't just want an opera house. She wants the world, and a strategic marriage between her daughter and a European duke means that Gladys will have access to a world of politicking and decision-making that makes Bertha salivate.
Her husband may own the railroads, but Bertha is the train: charging ahead, laying track as she goes, unstoppable and unapologetically ambitious.
So no, I still couldn’t give you a clean summary of last season. But I will remember this scene with Bertha—hair down, ready for bed, momentarily stripped of her armor—offering her daughter a rare glimpse into the long game she’s playing. For a woman with no official power, Bertha Russell is a titan—and this episode was the first time I realized she’s laying plans that stretch far beyond the ballroom.
New episodes of The Gilded Age season three air every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max.
