aelarsen
During my long hiatus from the blog, I watched the first two seasons of Netflix’ Shonda Rhimes series Bridgerton. I always intended to write a couple posts about it, but at this point it’s far enough in my rearview mirror that I don’t remember a lot of what I would have said about it, and I don’t...
aelarsen
After my series of posts on The Gilded Age, I was pondering if I have the time to keep posting, and while I was looking over the blog, I discovered a draft post I wrote a couple years ago but inexplicably never managed to put up on the blog. All I needed to do was do a quick edit and it’s ready...
aelarsen
As I wrap up my last post on HBO’s The Gilded Age, I had a couple random details from the show that aren’t enough for a whole post, so I’m just going to toss them out here. Stamford White In the first season, when the Russells have just moved into their new mansion, their architect...
aelarsen
The late 19th century in America is not often depicted in film or television (in contrast to the Late Victorian Age in Britain, which is a pretty popular setting), and even more rare is any depiction of the position of Black people in the post-Reconstruction era. So I really like the fact that The...
aelarsen
Nathan Lane’s Ward McAllister plays a secondary but still important role in The Gilded Age, so I thought that this rather interesting guy deserved his own post. Who was Ward McAllister? Samuel Ward McAllister was an entirely real person, and the show’s depiction of him is reasonably...
aelarsen
One of the plot lines of Season 2 of the The Gilded Age is ‘Maud Beaton’ (Nicole Brydon Bloom) scamming Oscar (Blake Ritson) of the van Rhijn money, bringing him and Agnes (Christine Baranski) to the brink of ruin. This is worth a post. There were quite a few scammers who targeted everyday men and...
aelarsen
The central plot of Season 2 is the struggle between the Knickerbockers (Old New Yorkers) and the New New Yorkers over access to a rare and socially precious resource, opera boxes. Allowing for the fact that the show’s narrative focuses on the fictitious Bertha (Carrie Coon) and George (Morgan...
aelarsen
So the Historian is going back to the movies, or at least to the tv shows. I’ve been extremely busy and I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for further reviews, but I’ve been watching Julian Fellowes’ HBO’ series The Gilded Age and felt like I needed to write about it. The Gilded Age...