Review: The Gilded Age, "Head to Head" | Season 2, Episode 3
Cutthroat tactics in the opera war, cold shoulders in the Russell marriage, and Oscar Wilde's worst play
For most of us, tonight’s episode is all about Carrie Coon’s icy stare. Sometimes calm and collected, sometimes shaking with rage, Bertha sustains her freezing disregard for an impressive amount of the run time. But let me direct your attention as well to Robert Sean Leonard’s warmth. Leonard plays the vicar with such understatement that it’s easy to lose sight of the skill of his performance. Is there any character in this show more humane and lovable? And it’s all down to the way he pays attention, especially to Ada, while deflecting all the other ways people in this show want to draw attention.
So let’s begin with this gentlest of plotlines, before we get to the fireworks (and frostbite). Agnes is not excited about having Reverend Forte to luncheon (“We have to listen to him drone on all Sunday morning; surely the Lord cannot want more from us than that”), but then reconsiders upon realizing that the occasion might be a chance to get Dashiell and Marian together. At the luncheon, t…