[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to a special one-shot deep dive into the first three seasons of HBO historical drama The Gilded Age with the Lorehounds, your guides to the proper etiquette for forcing your daughter to marry a Duke.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Alicia, your penniless cousin from Pennsylvania, and I have with me today two guests.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a two integral, Loremaster members of the network, Brian, A. D. Sixty-three, A. K. A. Usal, the Foundation of Assault, and his real-life sister, Lisa, A. K. A. Red Zippy, you'll know them both well if you spend time on our discord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Brian and Lisa, for being here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Glad to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Brian, we're going to be hearing more from you again, talking about Aliens soon, too, with Stu, with Stu, everyone.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Looking forward to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way this episode's going to be structured is we're going to first give our spoiler free hot takes on the series overall.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be talking to those of you who aren't sure whether or not this is a show for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll also provide some historical background for the series.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then after the spoiler break, we're going to talk through the main stories and characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be talking through all three seasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: But of course, mostly focusing on how season three ends.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just to set us up here, the official plot premises, the conflicts surrounding the new money, Russell family and their old money neighbors, the Van Rhyme family in eighteen, eighties New York City, high society.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, are you just one at a time, spoiler free over all thoughts in the show to whom would you recommend it and why let's start with you, Brian?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: To me, it's going to be top ten, not sure exactly where it is going to land, but it's just really great mix of drama and just poking through some thoughtful, a lot of thoughtful history.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to stress thoughtful because they have historians as consultants.
[SPEAKER_04]: They've read
[SPEAKER_04]: And it just shows where you see class among all races, identity, racism, homophobia, and many other elements that are peaking through the entire series.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just really, really well done kind of drama.
[SPEAKER_04]: And people who are not only, I think, interested in costume drama would be interested in this.
[SPEAKER_04]: But anyone who has any kind of inclinning of how do we get here?
[SPEAKER_04]: And identity of who am I?
[SPEAKER_04]: How do I navigate through society?
[SPEAKER_04]: Just really well done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me turn it to you, Lisa.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your overall spoiler free thoughts and to whom would you recommend this series and why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, hello.
[SPEAKER_00]: My brother, yes, handles the very, you know, historical grounded take on the recommendation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would also chime in and say that it is also going to be probably on my top ten list.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, I'm also reminded of folks that loved
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, Downton Abbey or the Crown, but it is soapy in nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, right, one understand class and, you know, and canodling behind people's backs and what they're doing and who side they're on and really looking beyond the veil of how people really live.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm aging myself by saying dynasty, palace.
[SPEAKER_00]: classics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know nowadays, Bridger Tire and I'll share it in that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, I also enjoyed the soap opera part of it as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think Dynasties are good comparison because it is, you know, regardless of the family setting, it is about similar dynamics, the, you know, the legacy passing through family.
[SPEAKER_01]: gaining and maintaining power things like that and society.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so are you a big fan of historical dramas in general?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or were you a fan of, for anyone who doesn't know the gilded age is from Julie and Fellows who is best known for Downton Abbey.
[SPEAKER_01]: So are you a Downton Abbey fan?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'll let my brother answer this question first because he can answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm intrigued.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so yeah, the two of us grew up in a PBS loving household.
[SPEAKER_04]: So my our uncles and our father we got exposed to PBS shows like Henry the eighth and the six wives the nineteen seventy
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll rerun, this is rerun.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we were in our early teens, probably, uh, uh, iCloudius roots, um, and merchant ivory films, right, uh, remains of the day, room with the view, all these kinds of, uh, similar themes popping up about power and maneuvering yourself to gain more power and rising, uh, in society.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we grew up in that kind of TV movie kind of genre.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've heard it through where, you know, I watch over and over Pride and Prejudice, and since the beginning of the age of innocence, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, ma'am, a re-entry net, which is a French production, I believe, but it's an English, and it's really well done about her and her struggles, especially in the early.
[SPEAKER_04]: So season two is out, I'll have to hunt it down, but it's another good title out there for people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have, I mean, I've also, I guess I, like my mom and I were into watching these PBS shows and movies and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess I share that sort of background.
[SPEAKER_01]: As for this year,
[SPEAKER_01]: I've watched so far the first episode of Miss Austin from Jane Austen's sister's point of view.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was told that I had to watch Lost in Austin.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I keep it away.
[SPEAKER_01]: May or may not be a Jane Austen fan.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is one of my, I really enjoyed the movie that came out French film that came out this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jane Austen wrecked my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Putting it on my list.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know Brian, you are interested in history in general, would you say that you have an interest in nineteenth, late, nineteenth century history where this show is set.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm totally geeking out on this for a couple reasons.
[SPEAKER_04]: One is, you know, we grew up in Cleveland.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that is the birthplace of John D. Rockefeller.
[SPEAKER_04]: And an acronym, which is known through a way, the rubber capital of the planet, when the creation, right, of bicycles, but especially it was the automobile.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to build tires.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, bottom of build tires that made a fortune for these for these folks.
[SPEAKER_04]: So growing up in Cleveland, I started to read about John D. Rockefeller and JP Morgan and Carnegie, you know, I was born in Pittsburgh, so I had an interest before we moved to Cleveland.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we had, I had just an affinity to steel and all these.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I have this
[SPEAKER_04]: interest in kind of this business, gilded age, you know, industries and rare roads.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then there's an interest in British history, specifically with political, military, diplomatic and society.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Lisa and I, I think Lisa can agree, we were glued to the TV set when Princess Diana married, right, in
[SPEAKER_04]: And finally, you know, specifically the American guilty age for listeners.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a historian of American political history with the specialty on the presidency.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in our backyard in Ohio was the James Garfield National Historic Site.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I work there as a volunteer in a national park ranger.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was the president.
[SPEAKER_04]: in eighteen eighty-one so only three years after the show started he was president he was assassinated in that year and so I had to learn the political history and society of their early guilty age and I was hooked yeah yeah it's it's like living
[SPEAKER_00]: in the gilded age around where Ryan and I are from, you know, I'm living in Akron.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have Stan Hewitt, which was the cyberlings for rubber and, you know, we've got the good year, the firestone, the good rich, you know, it literally I can like walk out or drive out my driveway and about a mile down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am seeing these gilded age.
[SPEAKER_00]: mansions, or these progression area mansions, where we grew up, Euclid Avenue was Millionaires Row, and all those folks that were watching who are in New York vacationed and had homes in Cleveland, and the net worth of Euclid Avenue, I think, far exceeded.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're living in New York or Rhode Island.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'm living in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's living history for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Lisa, what is it about this show?
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you say, what sets this show apart from other historical dramas?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would agree with what Brian said.
[SPEAKER_00]: My brother said earlier is the fact that they actually do take great care in the getting historical accuracy and really taking note of all of these really specific, you know, details historical details.
[SPEAKER_00]: I so appreciate that and also growing up with my brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very difficult for me to go to historical dramas or watch historical dramas without my brother like, no, that's not how they did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That did not happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the fact that my brother likes the show is always a thumbs up for me as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's historical accuracy, spare no expense on the costumes and everything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But really what drew me in is of course I'm a Julian Fellows fan, but for me it was the cast.
[SPEAKER_00]: My background is in film and theater and so when I learned that
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, throughout the few seasons, there's thirty-one Broadway actors.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the cast for me, especially Karekun and Kristi Mian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, great cast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think those were the first two and end, of course, also the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, also it's in the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was Sex and the City fan back in the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have, I watched the first season of the new show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do plan to finish it off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad they're just doing three seasons, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I could not.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the first movie, I was religious, religiously addicted to sex in the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched the first movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not watched a single episode of, what is even the name of?
[SPEAKER_00]: And just like that, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, never watched no interest.
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched the first season.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts with, sorry, spoiler for the very beginning of the first season, but it starts with a big dying and it's like, oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, the video this this show from my perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm also it's in my definitely top ten we were just talking before we started about Rankings at the end of the year and how I think my definitely top ten is longer than ten right now, but this is in my definitely definitely top ten.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we were just talking about the role of historical dramas and getting us excited for understanding the context of why things are the way they are today, you know, one thing that stands out to me is that there was a bit in a previous season about the Brooklyn Bridge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did not know that actually
[SPEAKER_01]: the primary driving architects behind that was a woman Emily Warren ruling and I you know you learned facts like this it was an engaging story line regardless I was completely sucked into that but then of course after that I go back and I'm like oh I'm looking this woman up I'm looking up the surf you know the the history around the bridge and things like that and
[SPEAKER_01]: Just really opens my eyes in a lot of ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk about, I'm saving one of my favorite characters Peggy for the end of our discussion, but just through her storylines, everything that we learn about the wealthy black society of New York and Newport Rhode Island at this time, it's just
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the doors this opens, but it's also, it is fun, frothy drama with characters that I like, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, one hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the feel good feel bad, you know, dromody.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate them, but I love them, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: As my brother knows, I often don't know anything happens in the world unless they made a television show.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[UNKNOWN]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we were Lisa workly talking about before the podcast about, you know, there are pure self-there.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you don't get the history right, I'm not going forward with this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am a philosopher.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm not a philosopher.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm of the philosophy where if it gets you interested in reading something more about the history, then it's a winner.
[SPEAKER_04]: This to me, I think, for all three of us, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a winner that way.
[SPEAKER_04]: You just start going and reading more about all this great character, all this rich history.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the cast has said as such too and in a lot of their interviews is, you know, they are filming in locations and they're sitting, you know, waiting for a scene to be shot and they realize they're in the same building that XYZ and so even the cast really gets thrown into the historical relevance of it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's fun to see how they, you know, so what we'll talk about this more as we go, but some of these characters are based on actual historical characters, some, they kind of fudge together so that they can play with their storylines a bit, and others are just kind of amalgamations of types of people who lived at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then they do a little fudging with the dates, too, you know, like something's happened earlier later slightly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's all within the same gilded age period, but they shuffle it around so that it fits the plot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm fine with all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm fine with all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they to make the stories cohesive and to make, because from the TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: perspective they also they need to think about what is each character's arc this season what are the themes that we are focusing on this season and and how do we make this cohesive and not just a grab bag of historical events right yeah yeah exactly on the same way at least it's like if you are moving time line a little bit uh it's just great it's just so engaging it's like fine just go for it whatever works yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so for anyone who isn't a historian just to set the time period a little bit, it's the gilded age is the specifically in the US, particularly centered in New York from the eighteen seventies to late eighteen nineties.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this was followed by the progress of era from the late eighteen nineties to the nineteen twenties.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the English equivalent at this time was the Victoria Nage, which was eighteen thirty seven to nineteen one, you know, it's the rain of Queen Victoria.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was followed by the Edwardian age from, you know, one, two, nineteen, fourteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, so we're talking Victorian era in the UK, gilded age here, setting up for the aggressive era.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is a particular, on both sides of the pond, it is a particular era of interest for me personally because it's just, is a time of such change, rapid change.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything, everything is in flux.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything from political parties to mechanics, transportation, finance, society, technology, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when you reflect, we're not political podcasts, but when you reflect it today, you get to see some of that, but I think
[SPEAKER_04]: People back then were probably more used to all this fast changes.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's scary.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, but it changed seem to be a little more normal back then than maybe even today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember my mom talking about an ant of hers who said before she passed away, you know, I lived through the most exciting time that will ever happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, your computers now and everything, but yeah, I live through so much change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, one of the books, Brian recommended to me was the Victorian internet, which was about the invention of the telegraph.
[SPEAKER_00]: and to have read what a game changer that was for them, you know, to be across the Atlantic and be able to communicate back and forth and, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: how they're experiencing the change, you know, and the anxiety and the excitement that comes with it, you know, we're experiencing for sure in the internet age, but, you know, that's a great summary of what this time period was like for everyone back in the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So much change.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we are going to be talking through some of those as we get into the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll say, just to set this up for those who haven't watched yet, I think it's been a great show all three seasons, but season three is the one that's really catching fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're at all drawn to historical dramas, definitely watch this and know that season three takes the story to new levels.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, I would say Bridgetton fans, this is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's less, it's less overtly sexy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still, I would still say it's sexy, especially, you know, I don't know, like Georgian and Bertha.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say, you know, Bridgeton is fun and frothy, but I do ultimately prefer the more grounded takes and that's what this is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it still has all that delicious character drama that gets me sucked in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so worried like, what about Jack and the clock?
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, it's for lack of a better phrase, I can'ty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's right to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, to see the costumes and the homes and how the balls and dinners and teas are all presented, you know, both in Bridger ten and gilded age.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just gorgeous to watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to shout out another top favorite of mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a PBS show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you guys watched it, Sanditon.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had three seasons highly recommended.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's based on Jane Austen's unfinished novel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say if you're a fan of the Guild of Age, definitely watch this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is also because it's based on an unfinished game.
[SPEAKER_01]: Austen novel, it is also more grounded, but it does also be it's set in England on a beach town, Sanditon.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it does also feature a black character in the main cast where we're seeing her experience through her eyes and her family and where she comes from and yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has echoes allowed the similar themes but from the other side of the ocean.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nice, nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, as usual, a lower-hand podcast episode just makes my must-watch, must read less, even longer.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Your job is done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as I mentioned before, this show is created by Julian Fellows.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's best known for Downton Abbey.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also won an Oscar in two thousand one for the film Godsford Park.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so Downton Abbey for those of you who are fans of that, that is set in England from nineteen twelve to nineteen twenty six.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is set like thirty years before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know there was a time when he was first conceiving of it, he thought it might be a prequel with Korra's story, because Korra, the mother in Downton Abbey's American.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's not a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first fall for Timeline, she would have been too young at this point that he wanted to set it in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he said, it was possible that we could get a young violet in the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think, yeah, I think it's also just because, you know, if it's Korra, we know exactly where her story is going.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know which characters been stood in for her in this series.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, now we have more mystery, where is her character story going?
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if we do know the real history.
[SPEAKER_01]: Indeed.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, when we get to kind of glad us and and hector, well, I'll throw in the, you know, a little bit of the tragedy of the British Air Restocracy in the teenage eighties because we're beginning to see the decline.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which sets up Downton Abbey the story there perfectly because that's like right after this decline and how do these families cope with this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to watch the final film from Dan to Downton Abbey, the Grand Finalees releasing September or twelve?
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last one was set during the twenties with Mary filming a film in their house.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was like totally up my alley.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But so Julian Fellows, he is actually a member of the aristocracy himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is officially the Baron of West Stafford, which is, he's a life-peer not her editor, Terry, and he was appointed by the crown in twenty eleven, but he does come from a fancy fancy background.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a Tory or conservator in the House of Lords.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did vote for Brexit.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's progressive in certain other ways, like his wife, Emma Joy, Kitchener.
[SPEAKER_01]: She would have become the Countess of Cartoon and Brume and Kent if women were allowed to inherit titles.
[SPEAKER_01]: But only...
[SPEAKER_01]: in the royal family, can you inherit a title, not the quote unquote lesser nobility, non-royal nobility, and so the title went extinct instead, which is, and he spoke out, you know, he's, you do sense a bit of feminism, and he does despite being a Tory, he is also a feminist, I feel comfortable saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I would agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and it's interesting, it's just one of many declines you see is that the increase of creation of these positions, these duptums that are not blended aristocracy.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they're just like, hey, here you go, I'm gonna give the to you and the blended aristocracy, what?
[SPEAKER_04]: Who are you?
[SPEAKER_04]: This new stop, it's like freaking them out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are not the rules that I was taught.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, you know, I give him a lot of credit drilling and fellows for at least so you brought up that he read about Black Gotham and the New York City Black elites and he
[SPEAKER_01]: hired historians, as you were saying, but also, you know, he's like this show is set in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: We I need an American writing partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he worked with Sonia Warfield, who also was one of the writers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she references of power, which I loved personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you guys watch that one?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, I have not, but heard of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely, it's one of the, I mean, it's an animated series for, I mean, not like pre-schoolers, but kids, you know, like pre-teens maybe, but it's one of the better ones for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very well written.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, gilded age is set, this show season one is set in eighteen eighty two, and we are up to, I guess I meant eighteen eighty four in season three, eighty four, eighty five, one of those two.
[SPEAKER_03]: Eighty four.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, with panic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the good news is in July, even before the season finale, it was renewed for a fourth season.
[SPEAKER_07]: And yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's been earning HBO money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently it's one of the biggest hits in the network, even when the new season's not airing people are, it's one of the most popular shows in the network.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's gotten unwrought in tomatoes season three has a ninety five percent from critics eighty one for audiences seventy three percent of on medic critic seven for audiences or eight point four and i'm db which i'm db people are tough so eight point yes right high yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's I think it says something about the escapism, too, and it's popularity right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, you can just turn your mind off a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll enjoy this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But still, like we were saying, because it provides context, it also makes you think about things that are happening now, too, but with a bit of distance, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you see in the today's like populism about oligarchs and
[SPEAKER_04]: millionaires and billionaires.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, oh, I can watch a TV show that has this highest level of rich, super rich people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually in the alien earth episode one breakdown, I did a comparison of J.D.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rockefeller, who you're saying, you're never from the age of thirty.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was at the age of nineteen thirty and Elon Musk, who's a richest man today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a
[SPEAKER_01]: Financial breakdown compared to a character from Alien Earth and it's a bit dystopic.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that was a great analysis for for those on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I think it's for people too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, go down to score people and read it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the percentage of the pies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, anyway, but we see where it starts.
[SPEAKER_01]: We see where it starts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to shout out, I played a clip of the music at the beginning, but I want to shout out the composers, Harry Gregson Williams, and Rupert Gregson Williams, the theme song so iconic, and the music throughout is just really brings it all to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great theme, and you know from the first few notes, you know, are the world that you're stepping into, and so it's excellent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big fan of the
[SPEAKER_00]: proposition to make composers as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it starts with that great fast tone with the railroad and it's perfect for this time period.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything is going fast.
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything is changing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just set to tone really well.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Lisa, you also brought up the costumes, the lead designer, Kasia Olika, my own.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was already nominated for an Emmy for season two.
[SPEAKER_01]: It got six, I mean, I was for season two.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's really when people started to be like, hey, this show is really something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Season three is probably going to get more next year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, a hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as popular as it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And having worked in a playhouse in one of the largest costume shops in the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you that the craftsmanship and the care and the attention and the detail is just impeccable and it's just absolutely a joy to watch and I know the cast talk endlessly about how much they appreciate.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one thing I've learned about actors is that they really don't start feeling their character until they're in their costumes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the fact that there is a costume designer on the show that really, really takes great care with them and really puts them in that era.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really makes the show work as well as it does, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I love details, like the fact that she, because the Van Rines are the old money and more conservative, they are always wearing slightly dated fashions for the year in which it's set.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas because the Russell family is a new money, they're always wearing the most fashion forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's slightly ahead of the year where it's set.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you guys like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Give the characters more dimension.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the episodes are about four to five minutes to an hour, twenty each, a really very, they're generously linked.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have nine episodes in the first season and then seasons two and three had eight episodes each, presumably they'll continue like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you both feel about that balance of episode length and the number that we get per season?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to say, unlike some of the pacing problems that I have with other HBO shows, the House of the Dragon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: They pace it really well, although one of the things I've noted, and we can talk about it a little bit later, is I'm not quite sure they don't delineate how much time has passed, but then again, House of the Dragon is the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, eight seasons really works.
[SPEAKER_00]: The writers do show winners do a really good job of pacing it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: It seems to be about the right number and eight.
[SPEAKER_04]: I always kind of like, oh, I wish would like be ten.
[SPEAKER_04]: But they really, I think, put a really good pace on the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't feel really
[SPEAKER_04]: hurried or you're wondering like what what's going on there's one segment we'll talk about relating to George and birth up but it's really I think well done and I'm okay if you give me an hour I'm just I'm here for the ride
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, although season three is past much better than, you know, I mean, I maybe the first two seasons, you know, they could have done a little bit more with a number of episodes they had, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Season one was laying a lot of the groundwork.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think yeah, it was, I mean, I wouldn't call it a week season by any means, but of the three is the weakest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you just have to have all this set up.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're also just trying to figure out all the characters and all the connections and kind of takes away a little bit.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think mentally with what's going on on the drama.
[SPEAKER_04]: But once you're in season two and three, you kind of get into it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like you can just you can just play with it a lot more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, okay, I haven't here the Pukillus scale reading.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we think it's negative?
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I'm going to insert myself here as a Laura Holmes fan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where, what is the Pukula rating?
[SPEAKER_01]: Pukula reading?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Marilyn Pequilla, she does not like violence, but it also pertains to like emotional violence, you know, psychological violence.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a rating of, she says Clockwork Orange is a five.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's never seen it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think Clockwork Orange is a five.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would give it a three.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think something like American Psycho is a five.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I think walking dead is a five.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the boys is like a seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: All the charts.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for making sure that's clarified, because I'm sure other people are wondering too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is the day to be a minus one.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a gunshot wound.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the gunshot wound and there's a fight, but normal fighting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe there to
[SPEAKER_00]: kiss or a little peck on the cheek.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not counted in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless it's actual violence.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we have the carriage scene, which was quick, but it wasn't a big deal.
[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't graphic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, limbs weren't flying around and there was no blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, characters might die.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's just the normal nastiness of life, but it's not leaning into that even when it does get into social issues, we see characters get put in scary situations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we see them taking back into the warm comfortable womb of the people who love them for the most part.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think the writing reflects a time period where you're not talking about feeling so much, at least among other people, maybe within your family, as we've seen throughout the entire seasons.
[SPEAKER_04]: But in public, it's like, yeah, I'm not going to talk about my feelings.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not talking about tragedy.
[SPEAKER_04]: You have that Victorian model that you're still following.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, do you have any final spoiler free thoughts that you want to share with anyone who might not listen past the spoiler warning?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, again, that the acting is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: It not only is a great show, but what elevates it, in my opinion, is the acting on the show is just chef's kiss.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just to be able to enjoy, again, I go back to these Broadway superstars, these Emmy Tony Award winning.
[SPEAKER_00]: folks that are Felicia or Shads and it's divine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes it that much more fun to watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: For those who may not be interested in custom drama, I say to you, give it a try because I think you might be pleasantly surprised the acting and the drama.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a certain modernity too, as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just by definition of when and where it's set.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that's a great note to take a quick break on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we get back, we will be talking full spoilers for all three seasons of the guilty age.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you haven't watched, I hope we've convinced you to go and do so.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll be here when to you've caught up.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: See you on the other side.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, welcome back.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just to set this stage before we talk through kind of more character by character, but a fuller plot premise is the American guilty age was a period of immense economic change, great conflict between the old ways and brand new systems, and huge fortunes were made and lost.
[SPEAKER_01]: In eighteen eighty two, young Marion Brooke moves from rural Pennsylvania to New York City after the death of her father to live with her aunts Agnes, Van Rine and out of Brooke.
[SPEAKER_01]: A company by Peggy Scott, an aspiring writer seeking a fresh start, Marion inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a sion of the old money set, and her stupenously rich neighbors a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George in birth of Russell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exposed to a world and the brink of the modern age, Marion must choose if she will follow the established rules of society or forge her own path.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's begin with the aunts in question, two of the biggest names in the cast, Agnes von Reyn and Ada Brooke later, called Forte.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are played by Christine Burenski and Cynthia Nixon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Overall, thoughts on these two characters Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, for me, Agnes, Christine Baransky is my day Maggie Smith.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you loved Maggie Smith and don't have any who doesn't, who doesn't, you will love Agnes and Christine Baransky.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this shall be your love for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: She gets all the best lines in the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote a few down from this season, we get so Aida goes on a temperance spree, which luckily she lets up on by the end of the season.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Agnes is having none of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, well, perhaps I will find my place in Newport with Aurora, and I'll spend the rest of my days with society's cast-offs and women of ill-reput.
[SPEAKER_01]: at least they'll have wine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's perfect pause too.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or from season one, first Mrs. Chamberlain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now them, why don't we just go outside and roam in the gutter?
[SPEAKER_01]: It will save time.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's talking about Mrs. Chamberlain was a season one character only played by Jean Triple Horn who was just kind of served as a warning for the rest of the female characters about
[SPEAKER_01]: what can happen if you don't live within the strictures of society, within your marriages, and that's a theme throughout, and then the other them is of course the Russell's.
[SPEAKER_01]: When will we go roam the gutter?
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll save time.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they symbolize this old money
[SPEAKER_04]: literally across the street you've got new money and you're freaking out and Agnes is just fabulous about just commenting right?
[SPEAKER_04]: She's our narrator in some ways for the old money and the decline of that old money, but she's so proud.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: So proud.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we see this was season three.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we got to talk a little bit later about the historical society.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is pre civil war, seventeen hundreds kind of family.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you don't mess around with them because they controlled this New York for a long time, but you really begin to see the freak out of new money literally knocking on your door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can see it almost as, you know, as much as the new money is coming in and the entrepreneurial ship and so forth and the opportunity, but I think Agnes and her family are more like, yeah, but we have America because of my family, you know, you're ready to cross the pond or, you know, raise your money and become rich unless my family did all of the hard work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and we're the heroes of this country.
[SPEAKER_00]: We started this country, so attention must be paid and honor must be paid.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's, there's an aspect of that that's fair, but yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very witty, very biting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, and there's also this idea that, you know, we were forced to do these suffer through these things because they were the right thing to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: How dare you marry for love when neither of these two sisters were allowed to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Agnes was, you know, she had a not terribly happy marriage, but it got her son and money.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ada, the reason why she never got married until season two, is that her father blocked her for marrying her first love when she was younger, which is a theme we see coming back again and again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it is the quintessential or I can't I can't I'm having a lot of words that I can't say right, but and I loved in season three where Marion is really torn about getting married at all and maybe she'll just become a Spencer and that scene that Ada has having lived up until she married a four-day
[SPEAKER_00]: That, you know, no, you really don't want this life and, you know, it's, it's a really great example, but in between the sisters of, you know, the, the power shift and the dynamics and the sibling dynamics between the two and how power lasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ada is in the beginning and how she grows into her own agency and her own power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then of course Agnes has to deal with that as well, because I've always meant in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it played beautifully, of course, by the Nixon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I haven't saved swap fortunes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny the whole bit where the entire staff of the house is confused because not only has Agnes always been the one in charge because she married into that money, but also she just has the more domineering personality or does she have the more domineering personality because she's always been the one in charge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it's
[SPEAKER_01]: from Colombe and Be Together, yeah, working in Olo Stos.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, and it's interesting to see in this most recent season.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, Ada's story last season.
[SPEAKER_01]: She finally finds love that her husband Luke will take the pastor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he dies of cancer.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_04]: You see the happiness and then the happiness just ripped away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but then it becomes better to have loved and lost than the right one did all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she saved her family out of it with his money.
[SPEAKER_01]: He left her.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was wondering because this is around the time that early radiation treatments were first being developed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been kept waiting for them to, I don't know, I thought they, you know, ate, I got so into that temperance movement this season.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh, I'm so sick of her trying to make everyone sign this pledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, why doesn't she get into cancer research?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I guess that has not yet been brought up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's an interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Aside, and all of this is that if I were to take, you know, to do a rewatch, the whole medical side of it, I know that will really come up for us in the episode where George is shot, you know, and all of a sudden, medically, what was available and what was kosher and okay to do and, and your right was cancer research and, you know, where was the medical progression?
[SPEAKER_00]: in justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Russian.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this was around the time when the first American doctors started experimenting with X-ray treatments for breast cancer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe a character gets breast cancer.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, three years before we had, I believe it was Edison had an early kind of
[SPEAKER_04]: detector, which didn't really, it basically was like a metal detector that if you, you know, they used it on present Garfield, in a day one, a day one where they just moved over the body and you could try to find the, yeah, try to find the bullet.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, so I wonder, yeah, it's really an early stages of technology would be very interesting, medically to see what was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good thing we have a doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why we're Laura Hounds, and this is why I enjoy the company of my brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was excited to see Ada's spiritualism storyline.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pick up this season.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they could have gone a bit deeper in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We see her.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a time when spiritualism was really popular around in the U.S.
[SPEAKER_01]: and in other places in the world too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she meets with a madam, Jessica, the play by Andrea Martin.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we find out basically, you know, Madame Deschcova says, oh, he's speaking Italian.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, my husband doesn't speak Italian.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke, a fourth age.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that was a misprint in the paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he gets called out.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I would have loved to have seen them go into in that storyline, though, was there's a documentary from last year called Look Into My Eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's about people today who act as mediums and spiritualists and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not going to change your mind whether you believe it or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll leave thinking the same thing about whether it works or not, but what you notice from that is that it provides a kind of therapy from people on both sides of the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's something I would have liked to have seen them dig into a little bit more with Ada's story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a really good psychic would have explored more of that I think with Ada at some of her shall we say grief counseling that essentially that's what Ada is going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: How how to deal with it and who can she talk to about it and she feels this is actually someone she can talk to and a more.
[SPEAKER_00]: professional or empath type of psychic would have really been able to explore a little bit but of course this character had no interest really in that just wanted you know her money and continued visits.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so proud of Ada when she when the light bulb went off for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alicia, as you said, when she realized that she had just read about her husband's death and the newspaper and, you know, and all-der-up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for Aida to stand up for herself and realize it's been taken advantage of and just, you know, just stand up and, you know, and leave and be angry.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I was a great scene and I was really proud of Aida's growth when that happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And exactly right, it's so prevalent in this time period where you have sances.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's also, I can't remember the term, but there is also in this popular in this time period where like you could read the head.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are bumps in the head, the shape of the head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, for analogy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was also very popular in this time period.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it's a big industry.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's today.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still quite popular.
[SPEAKER_01]: People want it's because it still operates as a type of therapy today or people want you know direction or something to frame things their experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as human beings were always going to be fascinated with what happens after death and what happens in the afterlife.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's always a core of us being human to know what happens after we die.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would take collectively, Ada and Agnes are two of the characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen change the most over the three seasons of the show that we see Marion entered their household as, you know, this breath of fresh air, you know, this wind of youth, but also a progressive force within the household, of course, bringing in Peggy who we'll talk about later.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on the other side, the rustles are shaking up society and white society at least, and how agnes especially can deal with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Marian is a really interesting character to me because she seems to be able to exist in both worlds quite well.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, she has enough reverence and respect for the old money and of course her family who is supporting her
[SPEAKER_00]: emotionally and financially and so forth, but to your point, you know, she's progressive and I think one of the interesting threads that I see in her is maybe at what point will she be like, okay, wait, so you're saying if I actually do marry, even though she's been engaged three times, she hasn't gotten married and it's like
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but will I be able to continue to work?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I, you know, or my partner will have to be someone who will be able to go along aggressive ideas and wisdom and and value and power that women don't have in this society.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, she's a great character.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I'll be the one to say, Maryl Streep's daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to take a bit more into Mary and story and these three engagements that you mentioned in a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: But just to wrap up with Agnes, you brought up earlier the historical society.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a new character, Mrs. Foster, who I was very worried about when she showed up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, she's after Oscar.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's after Oscar.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: but she wanted to invite Agnes to the board of the New York Historical Society.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brian, is this a real, was this a real institution?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, and it dates back a long time.
[SPEAKER_04]: And like this, these nonprofits, you're gonna have to lean in on finances and where do you go?
[SPEAKER_04]: The finances you go to, the money.
[SPEAKER_04]: class.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's old money, it's new money, but it makes sense to have maybe old money.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're knocking on their door first because they appreciate the history.
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been there longer.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's also part of this identity and a cultural identity for the city.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I felt the same way that there was going to be something going on with her.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I was glad to see that it gives, it really gives Agnes something to really lean on because all the change that she has seen in her household.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so disoriented, in society as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it fits her perfectly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was a brilliant, brilliant arc for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly where she belongs, you know, to be asked to be a vice president in the historical society is so meaningful to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you love seeing that because Ada understands what it's been like to not have any agency sway enjoyable hobbies, recognition, or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think because Ada understands what Agnes might be feeling now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm one of those that believes Ada had a little something to do with Mrs. Foster coming in and saying, no, no, you know, Agnes, we want you to be a part of the historical society.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ada knows how important something like that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and to do that for her sister, I think also shows how much they love each other, how empathetic it is, and you know that Agnes recognizes that in Ada as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she knows how important it is to her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, Agnes, I've won, you compared her, of course, to Maggie Smith's character in Downton Abbey.
[SPEAKER_01]: One upside is that Christine Baranski is considerably younger, so I think we will...
[SPEAKER_01]: I have this character for longer, you know, Maggie Smith, her character for anyone who doesn't know she passed away in the last movie and then the actress herself sadly passed away shortly after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Agnes is going to be around given singers.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love also her relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: She has a loving relationship with her son, but also they get definitely get frustrated with each other and can have willfully not understand each other at times.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she also, they have like a one-two punch with the singers too, where she sets them up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like she says, when you say these words, you stab me on the side, and he says, then it's lucky you have a skin of an ulcerist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, those who also, yeah, they can parlay back and forth beautifully as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have great lines.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's talk about Oscar Van Rine play by Leslie Ritson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sort of an off-home territory blood starts.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think Brian of his character arc over these three seasons?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's one of the things that this show brings about is it's a show about identity and in two levels, one about yourself and you're asking who am I?
[SPEAKER_04]: How do I maneuver in society?
[SPEAKER_04]: And the second part is class and we'll talk a little bit about that as we get to the new money.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oscar is a great personification if you look at all the characters right you're they're asking all those questions but for Oscar oh my gosh like I am a gay man in a Victorian society
[SPEAKER_04]: We did get, I believe, I can't remember if a season one Oscar wild made interference.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we're, he did not his trial did not happen until the, I believe, eighteen, nineties.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we kind of speed that up, but we get a little poke saying, hey, hello, I'm Oscar wild, you know, I kind of understand Oscar what you're going through.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm,
[SPEAKER_04]: It's such tragedy and difficulty trying to have him maneuver and seeing him lose the love of his life like that in the character accident and quickly pivot, you know, to start maneuvering himself with trying to figure out what to do next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because we see him first he's, you know, he has his love was like John items the fourth who is not not the president, but supposed to be a descendant of that John items.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's also obviously a forcibly closeted gay man simply that was just the way things were.
[SPEAKER_01]: They, you know, they are clearly in love.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't be together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So John Adams has to marry someone and Oscar kind of loses him in a way, but he's like, I need to do the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to get my beard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he thinks he's founded in this woman, Mod Beaton, who seems like a fun, pretty woman who will be a great companion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she takes him and his family and other investors who, the staff to that no longer trust Oscar,
[SPEAKER_01]: takes him for all their worth basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is why we had that switch in positions in the Van Rine household between the two women because, yeah, Agnes invested in her son and, and it did not pay off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, we get that turnaround this season where John Adams helps Oscar re-establish himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, Oscar first, what did he do at the beginning of the season?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I was not born to work or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like I'm something about yeah, what is that you know I was born to be really wealthy, but not born to become rich, you know, right, right, I know how to write money.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just am living in the money is more where he's comfortable.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: You see a lot of that in this particular class of people where they, you know, their fathers
[SPEAKER_04]: make the money or their parents make the money right away the father really on this time period and then the sun just kind of lives it off you know and just lives the highlight right right until we we see him
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, eat some humble pie, and with John Adams' help, re-establish himself as an actual businessman where he's finally earning his own money by helping other people manage theirs ironically.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then John Adams, just as they're having this moment, you know, I should have known, as soon as he said to him, what did he say?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I thank you so much for everything I say here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, oh my God, something is gonna happen because...
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, at least to those two characters, you know, at least they had that closing moment, you know, where they would really share their love and appreciation for each other and had that and and Oscar, you know, just recognized yet again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, he doesn't believe how much John actually loves him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see that even after the death when Oscar meets with a sister and his sister, John Sister was like, no, you were his world, you were his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wants you to have this and he wants you to be happy and everything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I really found that very, very touching.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, when I saw things getting really good with Oscar and he's doing well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, thanks, John, and everything's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, yeah, you're right, Alicia, I should have seen that coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't just take the stuff.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So out of nowhere, they're like the literally, the carriage was not there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That seemed to death, but we were not.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and that was really common in this time period.
[SPEAKER_04]: carriages and horse accidents even trolleys drawn by horses in New York City the the trolleys didn't stop for men you had to literally hop off but for women it will stop but upper men so it's like it's a crazy serious scenario
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, but then Oscar, he's ending this season on a high note surprisingly for the first time, maybe he's he's been given a cottage.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was left a cottage in John Adams will by his sister who understands this situation and is supportive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he also ends up finding or rather Larry ends up finding Mod Beaton, the woman who swindled him in the first place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's now working at the Haymarket, which was a real place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you brand you know about the Haymarket much about it?
[SPEAKER_04]: Not, not as much, but it totally makes sense to have a place like this, for sure, where you have a, it's almost like a club, but not really, you know, they called it like the moon on Rouge of New York.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly exactly where, you know, the upper class go, you don't have to go to the red light districts, necessarily.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's like a,
[SPEAKER_04]: Pretty, you know, respectful, respectful, unrespectful place to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's understandable that maybe certain people's fiancés don't understand them, but we'll get to that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this for Oscar was a key moment of grace where he found the woman you saw just like how mad he was when he found this woman who just ruined his life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what is he end up doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: He ends up giving her some money to get out and try to get a new start somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I take it to San Dusky Ohio, which I have been to many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: What might she do there in San Dusky?
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, well, I mean, it became, again, I think it was an extension of what Cleveland and the Millionaires wrote for the vacation, you know, for for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So said Dusty, being on like a port on Lake Eury, and we in modern day, Brian and I, we know it is Cedar Point, one of the largest.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: My father used to live near there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So she could open up a little bed breakfast or location thing for the middle of the lower classes or maybe those classes to enjoy the beach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's on a lake.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and I'm wondering with Oscar's story, like we definitely have him set up in an interesting way to fold.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have first of all this new alliance with Miss Turner, so we have to talk a bit about, we we're gonna talk about the Russell's mostly after the next break, but just to set up who Miss Turner turned Mrs. Enid Winterton is.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was birthed the Russell's ladies made until she tried to seduce birth as husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, fire wound up finding a wealthy older gentleman to Mary and is now a wealthy widow but was like birth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was obviously not going to accept her into society because the woman tried to steal her man.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Oscar, he sees a potential alliance there because I think that was the other aspect of Mod Beaton swindled him for money but was he going to swindle her by
[SPEAKER_01]: not being honest that he could never be sexually attracted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was an interesting point in that that farewell scene that will now call it between John and Oscar was John also called Oscar on his
[SPEAKER_00]: hypocrisy sometimes you know and said that you know that you know yes she did all that to you and mod you know swindled you but please you were marrying her for her money or whatever so you know you you you do that kind of thing and so you know yeah I
[SPEAKER_00]: I had trouble with Oscar this season and a good or bad way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was up and down so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wasn't quite sure who he was at his core.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was really taken a back and upset that he lined up with, you know, Mr. Turner at the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really angry about that, and I'm like, can they?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, everything that you should be realizing about yourself, how dare you go back to your old ways and try to manipulate them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I now understand that like we were talking about earlier, it is for his survival.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, because a part of the arrangement is I can be myself in my cottage and you can do who you want to be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one more New York will be together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I now see, I now recognize too that Miss Turner is a delightful foul score birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's going to be a half.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just come to watch Oscar and Miss Turner together and just freaking havoc in birth as life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say, I would say a key difference is that, um, misturn or Mrs. Winter would ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think she knows that Oscar is gay or at least she knows he's not proposing a love match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why he's proposing an alliance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a more so why not let them each get from each other what they need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very transactional on both sides.
[SPEAKER_00]: They understand pretty much what they're getting into and agreeing to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets her wiggled back into society and exchange for influencing his cousin to forgive Larry, which is probably going to happen anyway, but he does, but it did work.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does, but it did a good word.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give him that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, she's going to go regardless, but if I just need a little guilt about going to the ball because of for reasons with her cousin, Ms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fain, we'll talk about, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: My other question about his future storyline is so we see him getting established as a financial advisor and I just have to note for this might be a thing for next season that Charles Dow started trading stocks in eighteen eighty four in on Wall Street.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wonder if we could be getting an origin of Wall Street story next season.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting, right, because and it may be another way of bringing in JP Morgan.
[SPEAKER_04]: So JP Morgan is really the father and some ways of the modern Wall Street finance.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a merchant banker, not many people might not know about that, but
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, I could see I'm wondering if, you know, it's a great segue to bring JP Morgan back into the, uh, into some scenes because, uh, yeah, you got a, if you're a respected business man in Wall Street, you got to turn your head to JP Morgan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if Oscar's going to be at odds with the Russell's next season.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, you know, as we get into Marion next, you know, if she does end up in the Russell family as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: once again, those families against each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely see some conflict to say the least between the JP Morgan and what Oscar is going to do and the Russells.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you mentioned, well, let's talk about Mary and Brooke play by Louisa Jacobson and also we're going to talk about one of the Russells here as it pertains to her Larry Russell play by Harry Richardson.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you pointed out, Louisa Jacobson is Maryl Streep's daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's one of the, she's a few daughters who are actors and they all look the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: You score card.
[SPEAKER_01]: But so she was orphaned to start the series and ants taking her in is what sets the whole story and motion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Lisa, you mentioned she's been engaged three times.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happened is season one, there was a Tom Rakesh who was her parents former lawyer from Doyle's town PA.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he moved to New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said to court her.
[SPEAKER_01]: He proposes to her.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then he leaves her at the last minute for a woman with money.
[SPEAKER_00]: out, yes, very sense and sensibility there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then season two, we had, she was being pursued by, this is where we're starting to see what everyone calls Larian, you know, the two of them together, but she obviously her family does not like their muscles or did not, to their get softening.
[SPEAKER_01]: But she was being pursued by a cousin, which was of course more than acceptable at the time, respectable even, named Dashal Montgomery.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't really in love, but it seems like a good match.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he wanted her to be, quote, unquote, more classic, you know, what is it the homestead of him?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it the trad wife?
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted it to be a trad wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted her to stop teaching, which is like, I would say teaching is her greatest passion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like taking away the core of what makes her feel like herself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was still in love with his dead wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a shame about the kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: She liked his daughter Francis.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's better for Francis that yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she moved on and she says, I'm going for love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was, it looked like as you were saying, a very typical situation for, you know, women like Marion to be into, especially when it's a widowed father with a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, gosh, you want to then marry someone who can just step right back in at least and fill in that family dynamic that society and what you've grown up with.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that was it was a good storyline, but I think that's where again.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's beginning to I think after that break up.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, oh, I'm just no, I'm square off man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And but again, she then explores and explores her own passions and interests and teaching and her work with Peggy, which we'll cover later.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, so yeah, she really begins to become more in herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It, you know, after that break up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: She really begins to kind of find her place.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when they had the school scenes, I was trying to figure out who she was teaching.
[SPEAKER_04]: And correct me if I'm wrong, it seemed like it might be kind of like lower class kids, which makes sense because
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a little early, but you begin to see all these women reformists like Jane Adams and a whole house in Chicago, which was probably about twenty years in the future, but it's the same concept of trying to bring education, and then arts, all these things that high society has lived and breathed, bringing it to the masses and bringing it to the lower classes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And but yeah, she loves it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's going to be interesting to see what develops if she could hold on to that through these relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and then we have her paramour Larry.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has passed history himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: His is a little more because men were allowed to have wilder past history.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they were.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a love affair in season two with an older woman named Susan Blaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess he's going to be teaching her the ropes in the bedroom.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, throughout this season, we had our ups and downs with this couple and it came down to the ultimate conflict where they got engaged.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that night he said, well, I'm going to Del Manico's to celebrate a friend spatula party.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Del Manico's is sort of a more respectable establishment, but where did he actually go?
[SPEAKER_01]: He went to the hay market.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she's told, he went to a house, they'll repute and based on her history, she thinks of the worst.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then she calls it off, doesn't even tell him why.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, I'm calling it off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, tell me why.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he's away on business, so he comes back and finds all this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, she talks to Jack a character.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get to in a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jack tells her like oh I was actually I was yes we went to the hay market it was wild but I was with him all night we just literally sat there and had a beer and talked and so then she goes back to him and she's like okay I'm sorry I jumped to the worst conclusion and he's like what you don't trust me if you don't trust me how can we build a relationship on this and then
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, both of their sets of parents start to get involved, where initially they might have disapproved of this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: They start to, and by parents, you know, obviously, I mean, her aunts and Oscar.
[SPEAKER_01]: But where they might have initially disapproved of this match by this point, they're like, no, you kids like you, we see the good and the other side, and we want this to work out, and they kind of talk them into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the final episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how Lisa, how would you describe where things stand between them at the end of this third season?
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually understand for sure where Marion is coming from and the fact that she's self-aware enough to be able to explain to Larry, I recognize this in myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have trust issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't trust men.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you've been my friend and seen me and helped me through these breakups so that is something that you should have known about me so how dare you even lie to me like on the night we got engaged.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you should have understood that better and known that we shouldn't be starting off with a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, yeah, you gotta get more reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just left her Arizona as I'm sure we'll talk later.
[SPEAKER_00]: She writes like, a line saying, no, it's off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, best wishes just doesn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, the butler offers, oh, you know, we can telegram this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gonna be away for four weeks now.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, he'll read it when he gets back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: So she did not handle that very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I also give points to, I have to say, give points to Larry for also being self-aware.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not often, especially in this time period, as you guys have talked about, you do not have these conversations with people about your feelings and what you're going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for Larry to have the self-awareness and to recognize that, okay, wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: This woman does not trust me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She flipped out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she broke off our engagement over me not being honest about where I was for dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I know that she is not going to flip out when something else happens in my life or something happens in our relationship is a small disagreement going to blow up and she's going to catastrophize everything and that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the fact that he was self aware enough to see that
[SPEAKER_00]: in their relationship as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that they both see their flaws and know each other so well because they were friends first.
[SPEAKER_00]: A relationship very rare back in the day when things were arranged marriages and I don't even think sometimes a couple even kissed until after they were married.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I think makes this relationship so unique and terrific is that because they were friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: and new each other's lives and troubles and challenges.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm definitely rooting for them and I think they will work through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also I think as I was saying earlier, Marion does need a partner, a life partner who will encourage her progressive ideas and her independence in such a way and he's new rules, he's not old rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think it's a great match and I'm rooting for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Larry, he's, of course, at the same time, trying to establish his own career.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll talk about his work with his father when we get to his father after the break.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in addition to being a rising star there, really, he kind of really proved himself there this season.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing, he has embarked on a project on his own, not on his own, with a partner, and the partner's not his father.
[SPEAKER_01]: making his own name in a way.
[SPEAKER_01]: He teams up with the footman from across the street, from the Red Van Rine household, John upstairs, Jack downstairs, Trotter, played by Ben Allers, who has kind of been a breakout star in this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's known online delightfully as clock twink.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is because he's a footman, but he has mechanical mind and he basically invented new mechanism to keep clocks from becoming less accurate over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is the way to put it quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with Larry's help,
[SPEAKER_01]: He sells it for six hundred thousand.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess the six hundred thousand was for the two of them to split.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So he got three hundred thousand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that means that each of them, so he's worth seven million, which apparently makes him has just less money than Aida does now or something like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's, yeah, I think I do remember that's in the same, same ballpark of the family.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing that was bothering me, there's a couple of things about Larry this season where I'm like, boy, needs to grow up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's learning his learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things was he at first didn't want to include Jack in the clock meetings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, of course, you need the guy who understands the mechanisms there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what am I doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jack turned that on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was such a great scene where he finally is in that meeting, you know, and he's like, well, there is not letting me talk, should it even be there?
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, this fellow friends and staff are saying, yes, yes, speak up and Jack just turned it on and said, well, I'll tell you what, let me just leave this clock with you and you can then try it out for ten days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, you go, baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it seems to be learning with each other and growing this as partners and figuring it all out.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Larry was like, OK, he knows what he's doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just going to let him go.
[SPEAKER_04]: He could have just said, no, no, you know, interrupt him.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, but he didn't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's a great game after this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, or braid him after exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then the opposite way also, Larry's the one who like, Jack doesn't even know where to begin to ask for money when they start saying, saying numbers, Jack's face is like, oh my God, and this is a great sign.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The investment is reads it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's funny, maybe, fifteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fifteen bars?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his face, you know, the other guy is like, oh, not enough, okay, fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it goes up to six.
[SPEAKER_01]: But not a penny more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I work.
[SPEAKER_04]: That works.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was, I mean, one of the sweetest things about Jack's story is also that the entire Van Rine household invested in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He, they all chipped in a bit to his patents, both upstairs and downstairs, and he paid them all back royally, even Armstrong, who didn't invest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, she but she gave him one good piece of advice or you know that little push that he needed so yeah, I've been meaning to ask Brian this question is that jack story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it was not unusual for the staff of a household to say there's got to be a better way to do this daily mundane task.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, because that's what Jack's looking at now, which we'll talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to start, I think, you know, inventing the electric mixer.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he just looks and says, you know, what gadgets, what can we do to improve our productivity or our efficiency?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder how many people both in Britain and in America at that class level probably invented things and should have gotten patents or maybe they did file and get a lot of patents or didn't
[SPEAKER_00]: rich people just steal their ideas and get all the money for all the individual.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thomas had to send stolen ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was good for Jack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was happy that that, you know, Jack's first four way into this was that he didn't get ripped off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that wasn't that one of the concerns that they were afraid that Larry was going to steal Jack's idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they all were very, and they were all very invested in Jack and his promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, you know, it's a great example of what America, right, can be where you have the downstairs staff trying to figure something out.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, a lot of these major inventors were not super rich, but a, you know, made enough money to get the
[SPEAKER_04]: tools and start tinking around and then start working with trying to find investors.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it played out very good.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's another example of the thoughtful history where you have a situation like that with Jack.
[SPEAKER_04]: to try to find and he was just lucky enough to be across the street from someone who was willing to do that and not rip you off and take the pattern and make a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Marion would have rightfully caught it off that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I hope you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's, yeah, I like the point that you make Lisa that, you know, the fact that he is working, the clock was because he's trying to get up at a specific time because, you know, he needs to wake up the household and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the mixer is because obviously he spends a lot of time in the kitchen and he knows the chef.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he has a special unique insights at the wealthy would not have because they don't have that kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: contact with the production, the day-to-day tasks.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Necessity is the mother of invention.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly, and I think one of the biggest inventions people forget about now is like the washing machine.
[SPEAKER_04]: with the tub, you know, our grandma had one of those.
[SPEAKER_04]: I remember being in the basement and seeing this big tub with a little roller with a handle, then you would squeeze out the water.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was so important.
[SPEAKER_04]: You save so much time downstairs that you can wash your clothes that fast.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's going to be interesting to this is definitely one of the storylines I'm most excited about for next season to just see him, you know, now he's he was forced out of it was said he's like, this is the only place I've ever called home, but there's the whole discussion about like, well, you can't be our footmen and be wealthier than everyone, but one other person in the house, like, there's something that just feels wrong and often.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is another point where Ada, where do we pronounce it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Ada.
[SPEAKER_07]: Ada, I believe you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That she suddenly, you know, this is where she has to come into her head of householdness and gently push him out the door.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's nice to see Marion going with him to see where he was going to settle and helping him, you know, figure out the ropes and, you know, he's now hired a very small staff, like basically a housekeeper who manages
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure things are clean and he gets food.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's nice and close.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm looking forward.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do hope for the next season that we explore Marion and Jack, because Marion could be a good friend and mentor as we move into.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's like totally awkward in society, but she could play a big role in his life and
[SPEAKER_04]: she could support her causes, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's gonna be a relationship, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you got, you know, seven million dollars.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm doing this great work here I'm teaching.
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, it's, and I could see him opening up one of those rooms into his workshop, breaking Tinker away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it seems like this is a guy who just can't, his brain is his, his a busy brain and he's going to invent this electric mixer and then automatically his brain's going to start picking on the next thing though.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could have a very right future.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love a fish out of water stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm waiting for him for an accident of being a ball and go, what am I doing?
[SPEAKER_04]: Help me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm glad things settled.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had, his love life has been a tale of two maids.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had the Russell made, Adelaide Weber who, yeah, I hated her until the end of this season.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hated Jack with her, so I'm glad it didn't work out, but I'm also glad we'll talk about her in Gladys.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but he's now finally, you know, in season one, the Irish made Bridget in the Van Rine household.
[SPEAKER_01]: He pursued her and she pushed him away.
[SPEAKER_01]: We as an audience found out in season one, it's because she experienced sexual abuse as a child.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think Jack knows this yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I can't imagine that being a conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: She, she confided in Mrs. Bauer, but.
[SPEAKER_04]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think she knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's going to be something to navigate.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am rooting for Jack and Bridget.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you both have a sense of how long Bridget has had a crush on Jack?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think, you know, has it been since the beginning?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I think she always seems to have, especially this season, it was very evident that she had a crush on Jack.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know if she kind of came around to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I definitely thought so last season.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I thought so when she was pursuing him, but then we found out that the weirdness was not about him or something else.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was around for quite a while.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: She had a crush on it for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was definitely jealous of him and Adelaide.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love that they all, they have their kindly German cook in the Van Rine household, Mrs. Bowers, the one that they all confide in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she keeps a lot of the storylines together, and I'm sure in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to have a glass of beer, ten the day.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's up to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's from Hanover, I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's going along, so I'm not giving up on beer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: but she doesn't work, she has poor taste and spiritualists.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe she's actually digging herself a grave with the, with the ad of the Viscis and Ada.
[SPEAKER_01]: She keep her job after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you know, she knows she's a good heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, unlike Miss Armstrong, who does not really have a good heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is head housekeeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, she's the ladies made for for Agnes, which it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: She still has a job and she has to thank Peggy for saving her job last season, even after she's just horribly racist to Peggy over and over again.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the only one who didn't invest in Jack, but he gave her the gift back.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the only one who died at Ada's temperance pledge, which led to another classic exchange where she says to, she says to Agnes, you never notice I don't drink.
[SPEAKER_01]: Agnes says, I noticed you were boring.
[SPEAKER_04]: Classic Agnes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Classic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we think she's Miss Armstrong softening, especially after that gift?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, she genuinely is shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, she seems to be narratively just one of those characters that we're going to see just two stuck in her ways and life has taught her certain lessons and it's difficult to take a lot for her to really change her composition.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think she'll just be that little pokey bear, foul naysayer in the downstairs for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we see that she, she spent, she never got married.
[SPEAKER_01]: She spent a lot of her recent years taking care of a very infirm mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a place the hardness comes from.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like there's a little softening maybe the beginning of peak of what do you think, Brian?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think there may be just a little bit softening around the edges, but I think Lisa's right though, and I think as a show, you need narratively speaking, you need that someone that's kind of more harder to like and to push back on things because if you have like an entire staff of loving, supportive people, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't, you know, you need that drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's the conflict?
[SPEAKER_04]: Where's the conflict?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite low key just in the background relationships that's been developing over the season is between the two households butlers.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have in the Van Rine household to the Van Rines are old money, so they do things the English way.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have an English butler, Mr. Alfred Bannister, and the Russells, they like to do things the French way because that's the new money trendy way to do things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although they have an American Butler, Mr. Church who, yeah, this job is basically Mr. Church, he's another story of climbing out of lower prospects, and so he's very grateful for this job.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's great.
[SPEAKER_04]: I always like when they get together because it's just an opportunity to want to kind of understand what their problems are, running houses, even though they're size of the houses are much different.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have similar problems.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you maneuver situations?
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's just like a network meeting, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: They're networking.
[SPEAKER_04]: Modern, modern parlance.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I always enjoy when they're together just to figure out what's really going on downstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's delightful that they help each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, even when the two houses definitely didn't get along at all in the first season, it's really good that they help each other and learn from each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never watched
[SPEAKER_00]: I started rewatching episode one of season one and the first people that we see are Alfred and a banister in church.
[SPEAKER_00]: They acknowledge each other across the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we know right away second one that these two are
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, congenial and okay, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But why isn't there a period where they were pitted against each other a bit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because of their mistresses, we're pitting them against each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were, hopefully, they were able to kind of like, okay, how are we going to work around this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then just diving into the downstairs across the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was so much we can't get into like a whole story from previous seasons about Mr Watson, the valet who was fallen from wealth and then restored to wealth with his daughter and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a story that's being set up for future seasons is we have the chef who introduces himself as a French chef, Mr. Vaudet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we find out his name is Josh Borden, and he's from Kansas.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, do what you gotta do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad that Bertha forgave him for that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see a romance brewing with Mrs. Bruce, the housekeeper on the Russell side.
[SPEAKER_01]: But while he is finally widowed, we find out that she has a husband who's basically an mental institution.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I assume that's something we're going to see more of how it would that look like in the nineteenth century.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, see that would be interesting.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, exactly how psychology and psychiatry in the early in guilt and guilt of age operates and
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I felt really sad about this relationship because I want to make a work, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, oh, you know, and then you find out that she has a husband.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I, yeah, it would be really interesting to see if we get behind the scenes with that husband who's in the institution and how it works.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say that down Abby and Julian Fellows spoiled me on the whole downstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love those characters and down Abby.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did not care as much about the ones in the Russell household.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did quite well with the Van Rine, you know, as we just talked about, but you know, the downstairs folks in the Russell household were probably my weak link.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, Broadway performers, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those great, but there is a much really good storyline for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think they didn't, especially, you know, we had the Mr. Watson storyline, but now he's gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think they, yeah, that's why they're probably setting up for the future more
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, more story because we just haven't had as much attention paid to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, and I made that into my notes that we had in some ways less drama with the staff this season because there's so much drama upstairs.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I also wasn't really hooked with the storyline about the leaker to the press.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, okay, but it wasn't really
[SPEAKER_04]: hooking me as much as all that I learned good stuff that was happening.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, okay, whatever.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure birth is upset about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're going to take a break and get into the wrestles on the other side of the break.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to head upstairs across the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: See you in a sec.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, we're back and let's start as the season started with Galatas Russell played by Taisif or Miga and this is mostly based on a real historical character named Consuelo Vanderbilt and I'm going to unleash Brian to tell us a bit of history about that if you like
[SPEAKER_01]: But just to set it up, she starts the story and sees him one as a debutant.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she becomes in season three, one of the famous dollar princesses where she is forced, she wanted to marry a boy named Billy Carlton.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Billy chicken now, Billy sucks by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was totally awful.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you, Sam?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm bored with Billy.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, horrible whim.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so frustrating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm glad that.
[SPEAKER_00]: She deserves better.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was a tough watch though, the fact that she, so she is, her mother has big ambitions for her to marry a British noble, because at this time, obviously, the British need money in the American Twentile.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she marries Hector Veer, fifth Duke of Buckingham, played by Ben Lam, who is also the Christmas Prince, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, thank you for pointing that out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was driving me nuts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't know if I know this guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and we it helped me soften into, especially now the what he's become now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh yeah, not that clocks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and and so basically he wants money, she doesn't even want a title, but her mother wants her to have a title.
[SPEAKER_01]: She wants to be the mother of a Duchess and based the negotiating's done through the parents and Gladys is not happy about this and she's crying walking down the aisle and she's being walked down the aisle by George her father who had promised that she could marry for love the way George and birthed it so that was that was a real tough emotional start to the season
[SPEAKER_01]: And we know also that she, as I said, is based on Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married the real Charles Spencer Churchill, the ninth Duke of Marble, and again, in real life, based on her mother pressure that to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was, yeah, I do want to talk more about that, Brian.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, Laura Hounds unleashed.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, this is not unusual for the landed aristocracy in this time period to find, you know, money in America because you had for the British aristocracy land was everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: land meant status, which meant power.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, but the problem was even starting in the HNAs.
[SPEAKER_04]: Christ was going down, rents were going down, they were over mortgage.
[SPEAKER_04]: So Hector had to find a new infusion of cash.
[SPEAKER_04]: So he goes to America and finds one.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's really interesting, you know, Gladys, I think, is a parallel to his mother, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because she had to break into new society and help create a new society or overturn the four hundred.
[SPEAKER_04]: And she wants the same thing for Gladys, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: She wants her to break into British aristocracy.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they can be in post set set the standards be part of that group.
[SPEAKER_04]: So again, again, that
[SPEAKER_04]: class identity of the show where you get to be, kind of, identify the culture, where, you know, you set the standards to create a common identity.
[SPEAKER_04]: So she wants that for her daughter.
[SPEAKER_04]: You get to be hot, not being with all these rich, pal, well, not so rich now, or less rich people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But these, yeah, like there were celebrities of their day, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly, for sure, and they still are influential, but they're getting marginalized, starting in the eighteen eighties.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're getting more marginalized.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're seeing it.
[SPEAKER_04]: The nobles are seeing it.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're seeing it before their eyes that things are falling apart and what they do, those are scrambling for money.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, throughout the season, I was just heartbroken for Gladys.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, you know, oh my gosh, she really deserves it.
[SPEAKER_04]: She really deserves it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you could also see with her father, I think he wanted her to find love and ideally to stay in New York City.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because he adores her.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he goes to England.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's like, I'm never going to see you again.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's just so tragic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they played that so well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was absolutely devastating, you know, Gladys was in denial for so long, like literally even in her wedding dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was in denial that this really had to happen, you know, that no one that there was no winning against birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was gonna have to go through with this marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the scene of the wedding and her crying, which again from what I understand was based on Consuelo Vanderbilt, you know, who felt the same way, who was married off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it just was absolutely heartbreaking and Larry and George as I know we'll talk about later, but they were also heartbroken for gladis.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they wanted to be able to marry for love.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was definitely worried about gladis because very typical this hasn't changed what parents want for their children and
[SPEAKER_00]: Gladys never seemed to have the disposition that her mother has, you know, you need a lot of competence in bravado and quick thinking in order to be a birtha.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I never really saw that in the personality of Gladys.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was really, I was so worried that Gladys was going to get just crushed and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will talk in a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that it's been nice to see Gladys go, oh,
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, you know, she has it forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the lessons and some of the, you know, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the real history of Consuelo Vanderbilt is that she wasn't, indeed, forced into this marriage and cried down the aisle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she later wrote, I mean, she was this, this was recorded by other people at the time, but she also wrote an autobiography.
[SPEAKER_01]: That gives a lot of information about her story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she was married to this man for a long time and they had two kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then they became separated at some point because it was never about love.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was making a real name for herself in British society.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were living in separate households.
[SPEAKER_01]: And eventually, finally, the marriage could be annulled.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that happened is her mother stepped up and said, I pressure her into this marriage.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an easy moment.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what's interesting is you are seeing these marriages to no surprise fall apart in an up and divorce.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think in her case, I think it was around the eighteen nineties late, eight nineties that they were shoes able to get away from that marriage.
[SPEAKER_04]: and same thing and it was happening all over Europe too.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think some of the French rebels were getting marrying American aeroses and they getting divorce to end fifteen twenty years down the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we'll see she eventually the consuelo vendor belt eventually ended up with a dashing pilot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll see if any dashing and pilots.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it also the fact that they they don't call her consuelo vendor belt.
[SPEAKER_01]: They call her Gladys Russell.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they can do whatever they want with her story.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Lisa, Lisa makes a good point as we're talking about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think part of it's like a generational thing, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: The birth of, you know, had to make money, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Long with her husband.
[SPEAKER_04]: They had to scrap for it and rise.
[SPEAKER_04]: Burn it or earn it exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you have Oscar and you have Gladys who don't have the skills.
[SPEAKER_04]: to earn it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Larry's a little different, as we'll catch later, but they're both like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so to kind of learn it in a different way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, one of the most satisfying storylines this season was infuriating, then satisfying with her journey with Lady Sarah, fear play by Hattie Marerhan, who
[SPEAKER_01]: In real life, the real Duke had an aunt called Lady Sarah who played this role in the real Consuelas life.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the show, it's his sister and she's just basically, I am in charge of this household and this American upstart isn't coming in and taking my place even though by marrying the Duke, she is the Duchess and, as I said, there can only be one Duchess.
[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently that story, where she finally stands up to her, it says, are you unwell?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you would not end dinner before I say so, unless you're unwell, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's apparently a real story that Consuelo said to Lady Sarah the Ant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a Queen Victoria story.
[SPEAKER_00]: She either ate very fast or very slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, no one at the table can like here stand up and leave, you know, after waiting for Queen is done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I think she ate very fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she put down in like, fifteen minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We done with her meal and stand up and everyone else is just enjoying themselves and all her being and drinking in China.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh my gosh, we can't finish our food.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it was great to see that play out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Glad to say, are you on well?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was great with Bertha coming over to exert a little importance there and just, and now to step in and save her daughter, but to like give her daughter the pep talk like, you know, you were my daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know you can stand up to this bitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remind you of the household you grew up in, you know, they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: They modeled that behavior for her and, you know, and so for Bertha to say, honey, you know how this household should be run.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've lived in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love that she had this ally on the British side, Lord, milled me, and he even at the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, he doesn't say you go girl, but he basically does.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't think exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: My one complaint about Gladys' story, though, is the Concewello was apparently an intellectual, and we haven't really seen what his Gladys do other than Fred about boys.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, because I wrote this as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, Hector also is a guy that just is more of a laidback kind of dude.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, he's not hanging around.
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't see him become vice-warri of India.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just not gonna happen, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: You're not gonna be, I don't even know, I guess maybe he's in the House of Lords, I guess, but he's not a political animal, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's not, so what does two of them, you know, yeah, what is glad it's going to be doing?
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess she's going to, one thing I think was we look forward to, you know, the next season is going out and I believe this is true about the Vanderbilt is that she had, she did go out to the land at a state and met with people and they bonded pretty well.
[SPEAKER_04]: They liked her a lot.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think maybe we'll see some of the people who are farming.
[SPEAKER_04]: On the estate, maybe that's what will happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: Should be interested in farming, but that's not very dramatic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this was a recurring storyline in Downton Abbey.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we know Julian Fellows can do it well.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be interesting to see what new take twist, take he puts on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Considering it's, as we said, thirty years earlier and yeah, he's not going to repeat the plots from before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing about Gladys is we already mentioned Adohide, but she became likable when she was, she became Gladys' ladies made and she was Gladys' only American connection living in the UK until Lady Sarah fired her and sent her away so she could have a British maid that she could control her through.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then birth is like, no, she gets her American back.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's Duchess and she should have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, say and be the ladies made so.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought the stars in her hair were lovely, okay?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, well done.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a new age people learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny to see, you know, even fast forwarding through Downton Abbey to the twenties and seeing the lady Mary pushing fashion buttons and people like, she come to her house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that was such a big deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so turning to Gladys' parents, George and Bertha Russell played by Morgan Spector and Carrie Cune.
[SPEAKER_01]: In some ways, I feel like they are the heart of the show, like their relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the tough thing about this season, seeing them at odds so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was, remind me, was it a love match for them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it has no Ben.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we know that they are not historical figures, but they are, you know, birth of Russell is based on Alville Vanderbilt, Consuelo's mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Alville Vanderbilt is, was indeed someone who knew money, who pushed her way on society and eventually took it over, as we started to see happen at the end of the season.
[SPEAKER_01]: And George Russell, he's based on a lot of the so-called robber barons of this period.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say also Vanderbilt, but more so mostly he is modeled off of Jay Gould.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the interesting thing about this mix is it makes it hard to tell where their marriage drama is going to go because Jay Gould had a very happy marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Alva Vanderbilt got a divorce.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So do you have any predictions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, we know Bertha won't go down without a fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think we'll talk about it a little bit later about the effect of Georgia's brush with death, but yeah, a great power couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: Great allies and great partners, which I think began the fall apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's always been that George has handled the business and he won quite more others or birthed with those kinds of things, but he always always respects her for what she does, but the break comes when birth
[SPEAKER_00]: takes that same kind of control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you, how do you don't need to worry about the family and the kids?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just know, let me handle it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and thinking that that was okay, because that's how George handled the business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, for birth, her family, her children are her business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she made a lot of decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: It made a lot of plays.
[SPEAKER_00]: It made a lot of deals.
[SPEAKER_00]: And did not even tell George what was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the meantime, as Brian alluded to earlier, George had a very, you know, a very close relationship with cladists.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that Bertha was making these business decisions for the madness without any sort of consent or agreement or discussion.
[SPEAKER_00]: with George is what created the downfall.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even when George did say, I want her to marry for love, and I want her, and you're being too hot on her, earth would have none of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the wave here that George would have with his business, even when the clays and the larys would tell him, no, that's never going to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: George is attitude is, yes, I will make it work by share well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And anyway, but birtho, as he had said, I think in the last episode where I am that way, I'm ruthless and business, but your ruthless with family, your ruthless with people we love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can't be that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He now understands, you know, that this matters to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's what happened, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we got to see some insight into birth also when we got a merit weaver sighting as birth a sister, Monica O'Brien.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a glimpse into where birth came from.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Lisa, you had a very excited reaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, I mean, again, we all know those of us who watch a lot of television and film, you know, sometimes you hire an actor very specifically because, you know, even if she's only going to have a few scenes, it will an impact.
[SPEAKER_00]: And her reverse one of my practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see that as something I hope will pop back up in season four.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it will be Mayor, we were coming back at anything, but there's obviously something.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, in the childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was great to see that peak with her sister coming in for the wedding.
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved she she thought she was going to get away with wearing one dress.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a birth address built coffee on her.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't worry.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: We found out and this is historically accurate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Birth a change is five times a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: She changes the right letters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, because she can, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because she has money to buy five dresses for a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but she's also expected to, is who's trying to make the her sister and her sister is like, this is not the world we come from honey.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what games you're playing, but nobody needs that many dresses.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's exactly what Lisa was saying.
[SPEAKER_04]: It just because that character, you can see the kind of lower class roots that she comes from.
[SPEAKER_04]: And of course, all the Vanderbilt herself comes from, I believe, the South.
[SPEAKER_04]: And not huge amount of money.
[SPEAKER_04]: She had to scrape up and she had to marry up for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't know if we know Bertha is from the South.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't really know much about her other than from humble beginnings and this is her sister.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is our first real insight, I think, into.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's a great insight to her background.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now notice the rest of society is all like she has a sister.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, we have the storyline that you said you didn't love with the French ladies made Miss Andre who is selling Russell secrets.
[SPEAKER_01]: So obviously, birth is going to need a new ladies made next season.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I reacted to that storyline simply because I'm a Bridgerton fan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the entire reason and existence of British in is because of the, you know, the newspaper and the prophet pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm like, oh, yeah, no, yeah, you know, it's just happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: You who are no lady whistle down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Been there done that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I wasn't you who was saying you were very excited about the tale of two opera houses storyline that we got in previous season.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Opera fan and it was great to include that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think mostly in season two where you had a great example of old money versus new money.
[SPEAKER_04]: where you had the Academy of Music, where the, you know,asters and the Vanderbilt sets where you went.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's where the premier opera singers would go.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, then comes in the rustles.
[SPEAKER_04]: And let's build a new, I'm not welcome here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's build a new one.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm a nicer place.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you see the fight in season two of trying to get people from the old money into this new Met Opera.
[SPEAKER_04]: And now it's, you know, a world-class opera, one of the best on the planet.
[SPEAKER_01]: My grandmother used to dance at the New York Mass.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's like the nineteen.
[SPEAKER_07]: Very cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There definitely was some criticism of that storyline in the season because we know how it ends, you know, because it was based.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we know, yeah, eventually going to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, with another shows, yeah, but how did she win?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a highlight of season two for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: That whole timeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where we see, we see birth that's one of the main ways in which she's being catapulted to the front of the pack.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a great vehicle for her to get a head and get into society like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, well, well, birth is getting ahead in society and their son is starting his own businesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: George Russell, who's been the breadwinner of the family and the financial force behind them all, he's his business is running into some trouble this season.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I know you wanted to talk Brian about the bank crisis.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was the panic of eighteen eighty four, and it wasn't as bad as some of the other ones that were before and after, but it did create problems.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was part of a kind of growing depression, like one in ten businesses at this time, failed.
[SPEAKER_04]: Farmers were really struggling to make ends meet.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it made sense then with an in Wall Street.
[SPEAKER_04]: It had the President, he loses his grant, Grant and Ward.
[SPEAKER_04]: His son helped create Grant and Ward, which was a Wall Street broker firm.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was kind of like a scheme.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it went belly up.
[SPEAKER_04]: And President Grant lost all his money.
[SPEAKER_04]: and he was a literally a millionaire in the morning.
[SPEAKER_04]: It had like ten bucks is wallet at the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was that fast while he's president.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, no, this was after his return.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that helped him say, OK, I'm going to write my memoirs.
[SPEAKER_04]: So then it will sell and then my kids and my wife can live on with good money, any work with Mark Twain and the rest was history.
[SPEAKER_04]: But so it was a mercantile bank and it was the grant and war that started some panics in Wall Street that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it made sense that George really had trouble finding money capital for his railroad ideas because people were not going to do that in a panic.
[SPEAKER_04]: at this time.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it fit really again another example of a thoughtful history there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and they use another real life historical figure who you referenced earlier, JP Morgan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he apparently we see in this season at one point he gets all of his colleagues to come to his remote house and then says, and now you're trapped here until we all make a deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently JP Morgan did full stunts like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: And as I alluded to earlier in the podcast, being a merchant banker, he was the guy who basically went all these rare roads, wanted to go kind of more public and sell stocks.
[SPEAKER_04]: He was the guy who helped do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he was a well respected person, all the businessmen, all Wall Street respected him.
[SPEAKER_04]: He wasn't the richest man on the planet.
[SPEAKER_04]: But he was making like, ready for it, fifteen million dollars a year.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he would do it because he would get stock from the railroad or get fees for brokering these new entities.
[SPEAKER_04]: So like the Vanderbilt's, they went into railroads and they made a deal with JP Morgan to create a public
[SPEAKER_04]: trust itself railroad stock.
[SPEAKER_04]: So he was the guy so it totally makes sense that he would bring everyone to his retreat and they would listen to JP Morgan.
[SPEAKER_04]: He was the powerhouse.
[SPEAKER_04]: He was the most respected man in Wall Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, played by the great Bill Cam.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: The cast is brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have all the names of the characters in here, but there's the cast is so huge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't been shouting them all out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we also have, and I believe this is a fictional character, Mr. Russell's, his personal secretary up to this point and has Richard Clay, but basically, I mean, I think
[SPEAKER_01]: I think George does him a bit wrong and basically saying you, if you can't get this done, you're out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then at the end of the day, Larry, his son proves that maybe he wasn't one hundred percent doing his job.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we see how quickly Clay turns on George.
[SPEAKER_01]: after and basically tries to ruin his business and thank the gods, Larry's out in Arizona and decides like, no, I really want to get a new survey done of these copper mines and finds out.
[SPEAKER_01]: There we copper, which was a very in-demand metal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remain so, especially at the time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, copper was used for, yeah, the telegraph wires and electricity wires.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: They did the copper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of surprised that George didn't see that coming, like, oh, you know, clay knows where all the bodies are buried.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're not surprised with them, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or do it in more nicely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not the most smart move that you could do because I think it was emotional, maybe, a decision there.
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then we somewhere in all these business dealings is probably the source of a mystery set up for next season, which is, okay, you were bringing up Dallas, who shot Jay R?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who shot Jay R?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who shot Jay R?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who shot Jay R?
[SPEAKER_04]: Who shot Jay R?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, now we, the question for next season is who shot GR?
[SPEAKER_01]: He has, he suddenly, someone just shows up in shoots and point blank.
[SPEAKER_01]: And luckily, someone else, we're going to be talking about Dr. Kirkland, who happens to be a black physician, Howard grad, which just by the way, Howard is often called the Harvard, the black Harvard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just goes to show how far back and how deeply rooted Howard is in American history.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it luckily he was across the street for reasons we'll discuss.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he ends up coming over and saving George's life with quick action, just being good at his job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though this was a great risk to him because if a white patient died, the black physician could have faced even the death penalty I would think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, criminal and civil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Damage of torture.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: But so can I keep out here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to throw in that this is a moment, by the way, we're marrying Ernst Berth as respect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he's just like willing to get her dress bloody, helping out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, I need someone to put pressure on the wound.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Mary, you're just just being a part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Origin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's exactly that's the important key right there to for her to change her minds about Marion.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's really well done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Brian, please, teach us about medical history.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so I was when Dr. Kruellen went into the room, I was like, okay, you got to do this right because so he went in there and basically just saying don't wash your hands, don't wash your hands and he didn't.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the home I worked at, James Garfield, he was shot.
[SPEAKER_04]: hit the back, ricochet of one of his ribs and lost behind the pancreas.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the bullet was not near the wound.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the doctors poked and probe to using their hands and their instruments that were not washed, he and he died of infection.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was really cheering that they did not bring in a water for Dr. Kirtlanda Wash's hands.
[SPEAKER_04]: They pulled out the instruments and a cloth who knows when these were last used.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, the cloth was kind of clean, but, you know, it's like, yeah, who knows when this was last used?
[SPEAKER_04]: So he poked and used his hands and, you know, Marion went in there and she would did wash her hands and the both doctors were right, a hundred percent when they said infection is going to be the problem because it is because they just didn't really think about germs in that way.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this was eighteen-eighty-one when Garfield was killed.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was only three years.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it fit.
[SPEAKER_04]: They did a fabulous job.
[SPEAKER_04]: Kudos to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I think that Dr. Kirkland may be sometimes when you are not like the white doctor comes in later and he's in he's very impressed and he does more and like could be a case of infection.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes when you are not in the center of the establishment, sometimes it pushes you to be a bit more progressive in your treatments, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did note that it seemed like he was, because I think sterilization was just beginning around this point, not washing your hands, as you said, but just that he was maybe being a little more careful, even than Dr. Wood of Ben, especially because his life is on the line, too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, and I did notice his use of instruments rather than putting his fingers in the wound that the doctors did for Garfield.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I thought, now this is smart.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, he's really, I think, as you said, Alicia, he's kind of up with maybe using the instruments a little bit more and, and of course, suturing and things like that, which, you know, it was impressive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you guys make of a comment that he made right when Dr. Crotland was helping George.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, oh, I've treated hundreds of bullet wounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's something the white doctor would have in your experience with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he probably has more help.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has a he knew what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could tell and he did make that comment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've seen hundreds of I've treated hundreds of bullet wounds.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I wonder, I guess he was too young during the Civil War, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He was, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is almost twenty, uh, twenty years ago.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, so wouldn't be the Civil War.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a well-to-do family.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the doctor of the Black community and not everyone is going to be well-to-do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so we get George and birth that they wind up George shows up at the her she gets to take over the big ball of the season from Lena Aster for reasons we'll discuss in a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: And George shows up to basically put on a good face.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want people to know that he was shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was this whole emotion and emotion in the middle of the night, all the half, you're peeking out their windows, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: People are rushing in and out in the club and they're, you know, yeah, that's not going to get out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good thing Miss Andre is gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't like he's this is feels like the beginning of toxic masculinity, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I didn't get shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in pervious.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want to know the people are against him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want that out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want it to harm his business because obviously he is the business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if he's, you know, when you're deaf, then stalk and everything goes, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a good point.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to keep a lid on the health of the
[SPEAKER_04]: creator and CEO.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he shows up on the at this ball and puts on a smiley face and then birth that seems shocked after word that he's like, no, I'm still really managing you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still moving out and he's like, you made me turn on my daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't see how I can forgive that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there hope for them next season?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I had a real problem with this scene and I rewatched it several times and I really think for me being the Lord how nerd that I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way that George and Bertha talked to each other or the way that George talks to Bertha throughout the time, you know, being supportive of her and the cadence and the way that he looked at her, he's like, you know, we're all here together just as you wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the way he said it was
[SPEAKER_00]: seemingly supportive in the way that he's been with his wife for the past two and a half seasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't get that at the ball.
[SPEAKER_00]: There had been a fundamental change in Georgia's world of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't get that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why I really had a hard time understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the next day, it's so, you know, no, I'm still mad at you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where did that come from?
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, what I brought up earlier about Gladys, his
[SPEAKER_00]: He made a comment to her, I think at some point that, you know, at the ball, he did say that I do have a new way of looking at things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And birth I felt that was an affirmation that, oh, I now see birth or why you did what you did in the Duke and Gladys and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how she interpreted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how I interpreted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next morning, you know, George was like, no, that's not what I meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I do not think that what you did was okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my worldview might change a view is that you have too much power and don't care much about people you love.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was his paradigm shift.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, where did this come from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we had a thoughtful discussion about that on Discord about that scene.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm also was in the same boat as Lisa.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was a bit drawing psychologically.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it makes sense of what happened, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think narratively I think I was a little jarred.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe we needed a bridge a little scene where there was some conflict or maybe an argument, but maybe a discussion.
[SPEAKER_04]: that would bridge us to the next day.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I have to, because of that, I had to create a couple theories.
[SPEAKER_04]: One, Ross, you know, George did see at the ball, his daughter, who he adores, who's now in England, and he wants her in New York City.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's seeing all these lovely couples, and it's like, oh man, this, you know, may any changes his mind, the other theory,
[SPEAKER_04]: I wonder if he was high.
[SPEAKER_04]: He was all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He took a lot of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we didn't have a lot of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: So he might have been drugged that he was more, hey, I'm going to go with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, this is great.
[SPEAKER_04]: You did a really good job, birth a good job.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, because we were talking also on the discord about that close-up of the Lord, and the worries that there might be an addiction plot line.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, and season four.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think it's common.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in the other camp where I wasn't surprised by it, and I think part of it is also just because of the history, but also I thought like why thought like
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be a sour ending to one of these storylines because this is not the final season.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought maybe it would be Dr. Kirkland.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really didn't want it to be in that it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, this made sense to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't think, you know, the way he was behaving before he went to the ball.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't think he had suddenly changed his mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought that he was putting on his face for the public.
[SPEAKER_01]: but I really hope that they go to the J. Goode, gold route with the next season where they make up it because they're such a fun couple.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're both powerful characters and to see them work together, and that's the best part.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be David here who tunes in on these production values that morning scene even looked
[SPEAKER_00]: so different.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it was planned out and, you know, and, you know, they're such rich color in everything and the production and the sets and the costumes and then the morning scene was just like, do you have lighting in here?
[SPEAKER_00]: It just, it didn't even look, you know, artistically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, belonged to the episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I think my first discord comment was, oh, did you realize you're getting a season four and then came back?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: As you said, Alicia, they are the heart of this series.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they should, I don't want, if they're a part and end up, he's living at the club for the entire season.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just going to be bad, I think, for the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm really rooting for them to be together.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they'd know it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder if, you know, this, we were thinking Oscar might end up being a
[SPEAKER_01]: foil for them both with his alliance Turner and his maybe getting closer to JP Morgan with his financial advising maybe something like that pushes him back together or I was hoping that that you know that Gladys would bring them back together now that she's in a better place in her marriage is not quite too miserable as you feared yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, fingers crossed, fingers crossed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love to see Carrie Cune and Morgan Esther working, sorry, Morgan Spectre working off of each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're chemistry in their fire, they're both.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you just to wrap up a discussion of the white society, we made some references to the classic old money, even, and we even said, like the question of old money when it comes to Lena Aster, she was also on her own, a bit of a social climber who married into money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, she's based on the real Caroline Skimmerhorn Lena Aster.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so she, it was known for the most of the Golden Age as the head of we've used this term.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've thrown it out there the four hundred.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, Ryan, what's the four hundred?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, uh, Lena was instrumental in stitching together and defining
[SPEAKER_04]: culture in New York City.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the four hundred are the shall we say approved list of people that could come together, maybe it's balls, maybe it's fundraisers, but they are accepted society of these four hundred, four hundred people.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's it's be it's closed off and birth a nose it and she has to fight to get inside and break the four hundred.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see in real life, yeah, Mrs. Astor, she lost influence especially because she, she wouldn't step aside much the way that Lady Sarah wouldn't step aside for gladis she wouldn't step aside for her niece in real life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we see some other factors at work we'll talk about in a second, but her ally in all of this in the creation of the four hundred in real life,
[SPEAKER_01]: the person who invented the term the four hundred is Ward McAllister played by Nathan Lane who's always been a favorite mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says he said basically I think four hundred people can fit in Mrs. Esther's ballroom so only those four hundred people matter.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was also another Southern social climber and he but he was known for his taste and for his thorough knowledge of the etiquette and high class entertainment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So everyone would turn to him to look to him to see
[SPEAKER_01]: how we're things done and growing these parties and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can understand to a certain degree why he thought like, I'll write a book about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this again is a real book.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wrote called Society as I have found it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this was written in eighteen nineties.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they pulled forward a little bit this part of the plots.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, Brian, what are your thoughts on his book and the reactions to it?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: I wonder if he wrote it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if it's like a personality flaw where he wanted to kind of get the attention, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes he writes these scandalous books for money.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it's money, maybe it's notoriety, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And as he said in the series, I just wanted to show people kind of open the door to show how maybe crazy this society is.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, it's not a smart move clearly because he gets banished, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: So I wonder if it's a certain psychological thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: He felt, you know, he wanted maybe there was something.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know as much about McAllister.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't know if it's psychological flaw, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think it was probably a fame thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He ended up not even getting that much money for it, but I don't think personally he would have done it if he had realized in real life, I'm saying, if he would have realized how far from grace, it would cause him to fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he didn't expect people to react so badly to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if it's a few worse, they made it more of a gossipy book in the show than it wasn't real life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And real life, it's more dry pie etiquette.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are some things he says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was all Harry Truman, wasn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, the Truman Capote.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, the Truman Capote.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the same thing where he wrote about, you know, about all of the New York socialite city, you know, dying within they cut him out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, you know, I guess our biggest insight into it is how, you know, McAllister said, I made you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The society would not exist.
[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I don't know if there was just that little bit of, hey, you know, give me my due, you know, but yeah, how can you not think it would be invited back into society after writing that book?
[SPEAKER_01]: And in real life, the break with Mrs. Aster, they were, you know, they invented the four hundred together.
[SPEAKER_01]: They ran the four hundred together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the break was absolute in real life too to the point where when he died, Lena Aster was giving a party that night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she decided not to cancel her dinner party and she did not attend his funeral.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I wonder if it, as Lisa was saying, you know, if it was, you know, after time you're in the society you just get like an insular view of the world.
[SPEAKER_04]: And as we were saying, clearly you didn't have an idea even the little tidbits and juicy bits would have any effect.
[SPEAKER_04]: So maybe he was insulated because it was in the society he created and hung out.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, for
[SPEAKER_04]: ATA for talking probably, you know, fifteen years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's, it's, you got to be careful, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other real life historical society figure we have to talk about, my personal favorite, Mamie Fish played by Ashley Adkinson.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so great to, I know we've listened to the official Guild of Age podcast, which I absolutely recommend they go into depth, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot with it, and I also recommend the Gilded Gentleman, which is somewhat affiliated.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we, I've listened to interviews with Ashley Adkinson, and it's clear she absolutely fell in love with this character, Mimi Fish, and it really comes through in the performance.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's so fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: These weird parties, she throws in the show like the doll party or the piano.
[SPEAKER_01]: all real stuff the real baby fish did and she just like didn't like air she could just get away with anything because she was yeah she was well married she had money and people were just like uh yeah our eccentric aunt is throwing another party are we gonna go of course we're gonna go she could speak truth to power too which is the one that really had any sway over this is after
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Show that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say I do have a contribution to people's list of things to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a new book called Glitz Glam and a damn good time.
[SPEAKER_00]: How main fish queen of the guild of age partied her way to power.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just started reading it and it is fabulous.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, that sounds good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's the other container for the best lines in the series too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, seals every scene she's in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I love seeing her.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then we, and we get the darker side of what's going on, the changes society, well, it's being brought to the light, I would say, and this is what's really at the heart of the shift of power from Mrs. Aster to Mrs. Russell, and that's the question of divorced women.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas we see the beginning of the show where I was talking about with Ms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chamberlain, how they're just shunned.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we see, we start to see Aurora Fain, played by Kelly O'Hara.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's, Agnes is niece by marriage, but she's called like a cousin of the Van Rines and the Brooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's, she's a close friend of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's been a close ally of them the whole show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And her husband, who is actually the blood relation of them, Mordhorton, he wants a divorce.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's going to force her to apply for the divorce and the grounds of his infidelity because obviously only way to get a divorce is the wronged person says you are unfaithful and soes for divorce.
[SPEAKER_01]: But still.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's her reputation, even though he's like, you can have the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, yeah, but you're going to keep all of our friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to keep my whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't be able to leave set house.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was such a great terrible depiction of the reality, you know, for for one at that time, that was
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was really heartbreaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure we'll kind of tie in the whole theme of marriage and divorce and how birth that was like, I'm going to break this, you know, society rule and start welcoming divorce into the part, but yeah, whereas fabulous played like you said by the fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seven-time Tony nominated actress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who also sings opera and she's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't her fault.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's the one that is getting all of the punishment.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's a good giraffle bad for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was great to see Agnes stand up to Charles, her now ex-husband and choose Aurora over her world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just be like, no, I don't care who I'm related to.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was like the bright move and a courageous one.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, the storyline, it just,
[SPEAKER_04]: I was filled anxiety when that when that those characters popped up on the screen because it's like you know it's going to be just so unfair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're talking to her.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even worse in society's view is what's happening with Mrs. Aster's daughter, Kerry Aster, maybe a report site.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she is Kerry Aster's getting divorced for her in Fidelit.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Kerry Aster is a historical figure, but she did not divorce or have this controversy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is added for the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm fine with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to see the duel.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't her husband and her lover want to do something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, when dueling was going out, they were, I don't know, they were dueling.
[SPEAKER_04]: They won't do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't give a toxic masculinity.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then this is, it's interesting because we see these characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: So because this character is so tied to Mrs. Astor, you know, there's a whole question of will she show up to birth as bald the end when it's birth is said.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm inviting the divorced women.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she does in the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's, and also the fact that Agnes would be another one of the people who would drag her feet about this the most, except that it's her best friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if they weren't, it's always like this with people.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are judgmental until it happens to someone you love for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was that great scene where Ada stands up and then tells them we're, you know, we'll all come with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is like we will.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was also a good way to strong our Marion into going to the ball even though she was at odds with Larry.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to support Aurora.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and societies we keep saying, going through all these changes, we've referred to temperance, and at least you had some more thoughts to put in temperance into context.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what you write.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is that you write all the different things?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know, temperance is one of those things that is in the women's sphere, being at home, and it's the wives that were affected, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: They were the ones getting beaten up.
[SPEAKER_04]: They were getting abused.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so if was women who championed the temperance movement, because it directly affected them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So their husbands would spend all the money.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: They would bankrupt their their household.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: And cause and cause shame to the to their family if the husband came and drunk or directed drunk was drunk at a ball or dinner.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong as we
[SPEAKER_00]: talk about how that then blends into suffrage because I think that was a way that while they had different goals for different reasons, the women behind the temperate movement and then women's suffrage in the right to vote kind of went hand in hand because it went down to female independence and the ability to make their own decisions and have a voice and have a address in what's happening in their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because women were having some drinks at balls and things like that, but they weren't allowed to go to these public houses where I think there's where a lot of the, a lot of the
[SPEAKER_01]: men who were becoming what we were called today alcoholics and being abusive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's where a lot of that was taking place.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was interesting to see Ada be the one to take up this cause because this is not something she had an experience with and she's like, well, my husband was a Christian man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would have wanted this and Agnes is like, your husband drank wine.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not the cause.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I was like cancer treatments.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, I didn't.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was just an example right of her trying to explore who she was.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe she just tagged end of that because like some others like, I'm really, I don't think that's your thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I always glad to start to see her shift more toward, well, this New York Historical Society, we already talked about obviously, but also the suffrage movement where they've highlighted, you know, the suffrage has been a topic for seasons two and three and they highlighted
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah J. Gardner in season two and Francis Ellen Watkins Harper in season three were both real life historical leaders of the suffrage movement both black women and this was a rare space where white and black especially women might mingle yeah although as I highlighted in this season there were black women and men who are afraid if we fight for women would have black men who have only just recently gained the right to vote what if they're losing it because at the same time
[SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing these Jim Crow laws being implemented decline in civil rights.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Brian, you want to talk to us more about that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, this is exactly right where you had a chance for women of all races together together.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, this is the end, you know, with reconstructions done and what historians have called, this is the time period of the Nadir.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the beginning of the low point in the ushering of Jim Crow.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is the year before a civil rights case, the civil rights cases, which isn't really talked a lot about in our public sphere, but that was a huge deal where it basically said if you're an individual or a private business, you can discriminate.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it basically made the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional.
[SPEAKER_04]: of eighteen seventy five.
[SPEAKER_04]: So this now opened up segregation.
[SPEAKER_04]: So now you can do whatever you want.
[SPEAKER_04]: And New York City is no exception.
[SPEAKER_04]: We keep thinking about the South, but the North had its own problems as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: People were thoroughly throwing black people out windows in New York City.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're shooting them perhaps.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, it's like yeah, whatever.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so you have this rise of Jim Crow and the rise, yeah, as you said, the civil rights and just declining and getting worse and worse as the years go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that brings us to the last batch of stories that we'll talk about in our epic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, of course, we're talking three seasons history and drama, epic cast.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as I've been saying, Peggy Scott has played by Denay Benton, has been one of my favorite characters from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the actress.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the character, but also I like the window that she provides in this story, in the stories that are built around her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her story is largely separate from the rest, which is why we're speaking about her last, which is historically accurate, because she said there's there are the few places like the suffrage movement where there might be mingling.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in general, they also kind of invented this her becoming, you know, she comes with Marion at the beginning of the series and they're caught in this snowstorm when they're traveling from Philadelphia by train.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she has to take refuge at the Van Rine household that night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she ends up getting to, I mean, Agnes is not a racist woman by nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she just never really had exposure, obviously, to what they would call then colored people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she says, you are an intelligent woman who studied this school that's I used to support in Philadelphia.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I need a secretary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you come be my personal secretary?
[SPEAKER_01]: So she moves into the house and that opens up some back and forth between those storylines.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have her parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad we have more of her parents this season.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was great addition.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have Dorothy and Arthur Scott, played by Audrey McDonald and John Douglas Thompson.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, Audrey McDonald, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Arthur Scott, he is a well-to-do freedman, so he was a slave who was freed and then built this business, a very successful pharmacy business.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see that we will get into the discrimination against him within the Black community for that past and for the darkness of his skin, but also we see
[SPEAKER_01]: His him wanting to hold onto their place in society and the effect that that's had on their family when before the show started Peggy married someone she loved and they had a baby and the marriage was annulled and she was told that baby died at birth and found out later it was given away for adoption and this is held against her for the rest of her life if from anyone who finds out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The season two struggle in that marriage
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and then that family, how do you forgive, you know, for Peggy, how do you forgive your father for, you know, doing that to you to trying to enroll your marriage, not supporting your marriage, taking your child away from you and lying to you about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that was a lot of what we saw in season two.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, for Audra as well, Audra.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know also Peggy's mom Dorothy as well, you know, how do you how do you have a marriage?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I I'm not quite sure that she knew that either I don't remember, but I it really was something in season two that that family really had to deal with and whether or not they wanted to forgive Arthur for the choices that he made on their behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was a big friser that they had to mend last season.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see, we talked a bit about Peggy's gradual acceptance of most of the Van Rine household and how she makes an impact there with people just being like, oh, wait, maybe we shouldn't be racist.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who would think?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she was good at standing up for herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other times that Armstrong was especially vocal about her race.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peggy really defended herself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's an impressive person of her own right.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's pursuing her own career in journalism and fiction, which is close to my own heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see her making, she's quite, obviously, she's based on people like, it broke or item, what's her name I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wells.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, she is getting her name in the paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where we get her next brush with Rattro.
[SPEAKER_01]: The based on a real person, T. Thomas Fortune, played by Sullivan Jones.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the editor and chief in the show of the New York Globe, which changed names several times.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a real paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a real person.
[SPEAKER_01]: This whole thing about him being married and taking advantage of Peggy is obviously a show invention.
[SPEAKER_01]: but we see them trying again this season, which is a great opportunity for Dr. William Kirkland, peg, new boat, to come back and be like, no, no, shutting that down.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was, and Peggy, Peggy is such a confident person that's just a joy to see her maneuver all these tough situations.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the fact that she's also, I think, part of Julia Collins is a
[SPEAKER_04]: Black writer who wrote an unfinished novel I think in the eighteen sixties so they consider her the first African-American novelist in America so that's another composite as well to this
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was this novelist that was alive and tried to write something.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it takes a little courage when you think about it, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: To try to write and try to publish as a black woman, a black woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: A black woman.
[SPEAKER_04]: And a woman.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Great story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to make matters worse within the Black community itself, it's not like it's unified.
[SPEAKER_01]: It never, no group is ever unified.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see within there are the this snobbery from, for instance, Dr. Kirkland's mother, Elizabeth Kirkland, played by Felicia Rashad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hated hating Felicia Rashad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: She did a separate job of making a scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was loads of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, she nailed it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was a great scene where my daughter's dressing down.
[SPEAKER_04]: the Scott family.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, well, oh, you're slaves.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I see.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just a great example of these shows.
[SPEAKER_04]: You said that, you know, class and identity could be among all races.
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a small opportunity.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: My family dates back to the revolution and they were careful to cast in that family, all very light skinned actors.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we see her saying things like, oh, don't let my grand babies out in the sun, we don't need them to get any darker, you know, in the comments about Peggy's father, being a former slave, and in fact he made his own name.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should be more impressive when someone makes their own fortune within their own lifetime.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and inheritance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having survived what they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we wonder if the, you know, if the snobbery of the time with the Kirkland's, you know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a question from Ryan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they not fundamentally understand?
[SPEAKER_00]: how poorly the slaves were treated and how awful the civil war was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, whether he insulated in that way, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it was really to your point, Alicia, you'd think it would be a statement of success and not people down upon.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot, you know, there's a lot when you think about it to unpack there where you have, yeah, I think some of it is insulated.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're in a society where you know, maybe just sons or maybe yourself could go and fight.
[SPEAKER_04]: There was, you know, some black troops in the union, certainly.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was growing, but I do think also is, you know, how do you weigh as a race?
[SPEAKER_04]: That was part of that race was enslaved.
[SPEAKER_04]: And how do you see that?
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it is pretty common right to have to look down, maybe be embarrassed, be ashamed, be shamed.
[SPEAKER_04]: That part of your race was enslaved.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even, you know, it's similar to what we see a lot where immigrants to places, they have what they end up falling into what's called like the shot, the door behind you policy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like why came here legitimately, but we don't want anyone else coming and taking some of those good stuff that I got.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the people that you would think would be most supporting immigration are actually the ones who don't
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, she finds out about Peggy's past and tries to put a wrench in the budding.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I love Peggy's been through so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, let the woman have love.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she meets this handsome Dr. William Kirkland play by Jordan Donica, who I know from the remake of Charmed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's, so he was Arthur Peggy's dad's, you know, Arthur's a pharmacist, Dr. Kirkland, as a doctor, as a name suggests.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he was a family doctor, and he comes to take care of Peggy's classic romance, while she's sick, and then he takes care of her real good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's respectful.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he starts inviting her out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's impressed by who she is as a person.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I think that's the key of a relationship that's going to last.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like in his mom's like, oh, but she's going to be busy with her writing career in her activism and he's and she's not going to have time for children and and Peggy stands up to her and she's like, you know, I'm going to be a better mother in a way because I'm going to teach my children to have these values.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was an interesting conversation in the carriage between Dr. Kurtlin and his mom when he's saying, you know, how accomplished Peggy is and how much he admires and respects her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, you admire and respect her as a woman, you know, which is right, but those qualities in a wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may be surprised how you might feel differently about her.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to put her in the wife bucket, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then later on, we learn that he tricked his mother into attending the suffrage.
[SPEAKER_00]: lecture, and Peggy was like, didn't you tell her what this is about?
[SPEAKER_00]: She wouldn't have come without you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely don't think the mommy issues are gone for Dr. Kurt Wind.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm wondering, as we talk and turn this next subject about how he does finally understand and disregard, disregard, but doesn't hold it against Peggy, her circumstances.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm wondering,
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like a very delicate fine line between him and his mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe Dr. Kurt Lin got some bravery because of the money and the comments that came from the Russell family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, we're paying you for what you've done and your skill set.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're also paying you for your bravery, which we've already had in this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he probably has more money now to make his own decisions and feel he can be separate from his parents and his mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm I question a little bit his motives.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that he loves her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that they love each other, but I think it'll be nice and juicy in season four, you know, that is a gonna last and it's gonna be tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just Peggy, that was the best part of the end of our season three was Peggy finally.
[SPEAKER_01]: we're getting proposed when seeing happiness and the whole single ball on the ball and the slow mo which they never do that's like this is a moment let's celebrate this moment a lot of stuff's happened
[SPEAKER_01]: It was satisfying to see the chain of people standing up to Elizabeth Kirkland, starting with Peggy, herself as we said.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also Dorothy has like, she is his moment in the dress shop, and she's like, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, you will not judge my family, and we will be coming to your ball.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just FYI, we must be Pete and we are coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will go.
[SPEAKER_00]: My tongue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And her, um, we didn't mention it, but Dorothy's had her cousin and, and seems like a close friend Athena Trumbo has been staying with her in Newport.
[SPEAKER_01]: because we didn't even have to chance to get into Newport as the, uh, a bastion of black society, but also society in general during this time Newport Rhode Island.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so a lot of the season took place there, but anyway, Athena does not have her back in this moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, she's like, oh, I'm sorry that she's speaking out of turn.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're made.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, do you really want to be saying that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't, you know, she tries to run her down.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I will not hold my tongue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a great deal.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I was, I was impressed also by Dr. Rutland's father at the end, signing with, signing with him.
[SPEAKER_04]: Woman, like, you need a woman, a cough.
[SPEAKER_00]: I laughed or he said, woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: They buy the great Brian Stokes Mitchell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great television theater, film, Tony winner.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, he was such a mild mannered character throughout the season.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just some nice guy, but to see him finally be like, no, I've seen you stir up way too much shit and we are done with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not the kind of people we are.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I only tolerate it to a point and now it's over.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, you know, that's the final tipping point.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it started with, I think, you know, Lisa, you were talking about George Russell thanking him for his bravery with the money.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he needed that reminder.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a brave man.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and we don't know how much she got, either.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm curious, but we may never know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but yeah, we all are thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's much to check for the clock, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's like, oh, I can't accept this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I am George Russell and what I say goes, you don't think saving me was worth that kind of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: So do you have any other, I mean, there's so much we couldn't cover who referenced the Brooklyn Bridge story in previous seasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: The advent of electricity, we got to see the twinkling lights of the ball at the end here, which is falling up on that story, advent of the red cross, Peggy.
[SPEAKER_01]: her eye-opening trip to the south to meet Booker T. Washington.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Oscar Wilde, as you mentioned, there's so much we were able to bring up, but is there anything else you want to add about the first three seasons and what are you looking forward to most for the confirmed season four?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I wonder I'm hoping to see Agnes have some more some social resurgence because of her role in the historical society.
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely looking forward to Ada, you know, growing in her authority and her confidence for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that'll be fun to watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've mentioned before that I'm very much now looking forward to Oscar and
[SPEAKER_00]: the power couple storyline and, you know, being a thorn in the Russell side and that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have already talked about, you know, my questions about Peggy and William and whatnot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've definitely said we definitely look forward to seeing what Jack is going to be up to and, you know, how his new lifestyle and his adjustment to this new money life is going to be and then Jack and Bridget becoming a couple, I hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, yeah, it's going to be interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: What will they do with Mrs. Aster, you know, in that home?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've broken some barriers clearly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So hopefully season four will explore the aftermath and the after continuing aftershocks of what was been doing with society.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think will be, you know, really, really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but yeah, it will mostly stem on, you know, Georgia birth up for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's going to happen there, marriage?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, all the above, and I'm interested, yeah, to see how Gladys and Hector operate and how much they will focus on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was worried when they, she got married off, who'd never see Gladys again, but I was really pleasantly surprised to see that they carried it over across the pond.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'll be interested to see how much they focus on that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which they do, they film the England stuff on Long Island, but I don't blame them.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, again, all of the above we've talked about so many storylines and potential storylines for next season.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I had to narrow it down to one, maybe it's clocked wink and, and it's picture and, and yeah, just, what does it look like to, like I said, I love a fish out of water story and I just want to see how he
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a new type of breaking into society, you know, like they thought that Mrs. Russell was low class.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he was the footman, but also Mrs. Russell's ex-made is also marrying the neighbors across the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be good for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Imagine Bridget trying to also break into that.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are a couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well made for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those of us who are Larry and fans, you know, interesting to see where that goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel, I think that it will work out for the two of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what will as storytellers, you know, what will they throw into those characters way again?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so there might be a new conflict or something that split them into what we've been talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may be what happens with Oscars shenanigans with the Russell and the JP Morgan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe that's where we'll see some split, you know, and that'll be the major conflict that we'll see next season is the effect of Oscar and his shenanigans with his new wife and the impact that they'll have on the Russell business and then therefore the families.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So stay tuned for a season four, probably in two years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one other recommendation we even discussed throughout there is upstairs downstairs is another great one.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, that's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, our family were big fans of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I never saw it though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't either.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a recommendation for you both as well.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the meantime, while you wait for season four, there's lots of going on in the lower-hounds network.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got foundation season three.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're in the back half with John and Maryland's coverage, which has been, yeah, I think this has been one of the strongest seasons of the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Very good stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just started Alien Earth season one with David and different guest hosts each week.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first two episodes are out now, and Luke and I were the guest hosts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm also going to be starting weekly coverage of peacemaker season two, starting with a right after this episode, we'll have a peacemaker season one recap with John and I, and then Erin from Radioactive Ramlings is going to be joining us for the weekly coverage of peacemaker season two.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very excited about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a Marvel girl, but I am really going gung-ho DC these days, I'll say.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're turned a corner, I hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also watch out in the beginning of September for the Emmy nominations episode part two, we decided to delay that till September sort of a prep before the awards air.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to be talking about the major categories there and the shows we watch how they fared.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have feedback about any of these things, send that to lowerhounds at the lowerhounds.com and also we've talked about about the discord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll find a link to that in the link tree in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: there is a gilded age chat in the general TV forum.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll find Brian and Lisa there as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brian is, Brian, you have been, you are usal, you have been a, especially discord usal, you've been the moderator.
[SPEAKER_04]: Brian, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: We build a great community there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Making the machine run.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, good community.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and also other extra episodes like little mini what you watch in episodes where we talk about things we don't have time to cover in full like a recent weapons episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also have our monthly second breakfast and eleven z's.
[SPEAKER_01]: August is David's month and we are doing routine for second breakfast and it looks like airplane trounced
[SPEAKER_01]: the others in the eighties nineties scoops.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was standing right and I got to recite that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We watched it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like there's a huge a lot of fans for that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that I think it got eighty percent in the vote.
[SPEAKER_01]: even though I thought naked gun was naked gun thirty three and a half not the first right but I thought since the new movie was out that that one was going to be the winner but no people love airplane we wouldn't have naked gun without airplanes so that's right
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, you'll find in the link tree links to our affiliates checkouts and never mind the music where psychology meets music, radioactive ramblings, covering all sorts of fallouts, the boys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they might be covering the second season of what is it called a gen B. Rings and rituals will soon be doing, or I don't want to say soon, but they will be doing season two and more in-depth coverage of rings of power.
[SPEAKER_01]: properly Howard, they're wrapping up their bacon wrapped season of funny movie reviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really especially liked their, um, uh, not their will be blood, the other one, uh, no, no country for old men.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a great conversation about Western's there and what makes a Western Western or an anti-Western.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, my own will shift dust.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are getting into the original Dune Book Breakdown with Luke and I and the Star Wars Ken and Timeline podcast will be back soon with more high Republican content.
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[SPEAKER_01]: thank you all and tune in for aliens alien earth episode four for more from Brian right yes right number episode four that's right thank you both thank you listeners thank you thank you
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