Review: The Gilded Age, "Close Enough To Touch"
On last week’s review, jk posted a comment that raised an important question. Is it realistic that the servants invest so much of their personal identity, honor, and emotion in the social affairs of their employers? Not all of the downstairs folk in The Gilded Age do, of course—there’s always an Armstrong—but Julian Fellowes clearly leans into the familiar convention from generations of upstairs/downstairs melodrama that it is part of the personal honor of an individual in service to take the wellbeing of the family as seriously (or more so) than their own. How much of this is retrograde sentiment, and how much might be authentic to at least some contemporary experience?
This week’s midseason-finale-esque episode (how do you like that coinage?) provides a perfect moment to consider this question. The Russell servants foil Turner’s plot to sabotage Bertha’s dinner for the Duke and share a congratulatory toast after the night goes off without a hitch. The van Rhijn servants are…
ncG1vNJzZmidoJ7AsLDInKSenJmqum%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xop2iqlau2psOMrZ%2BeZZeeuaWxw2aYoJ1dmLmwv8RmnKenpZy1