Warning: This article contains spoilers about the penultimate episode of The Gilded Age season 3, “Ex-Communicated.”
Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) is having to face a lot of uncomfortable truths on this season of The Gilded Age — but on Sunday night’s episode, she was confronted with her biggest one yet.
Agnes has willfully ignored the fact that her son and heir, Oscar Van Rhijn (Blake Ritson), is gay. In part because Oscar does his utmost to conceal the fact from not only his mother, but the vast majority of the upper class society to which he belongs. It is the 19th century after all.
But in the penultimate episode of season 3, Oscar is distraught, having lost his friend, lover, and source of employment, John Adams (Claybourne Elder), in a freak carriage accident. Oscar meets with John’s sister, who reveals that John kept a photo of Oscar in his drawer. It’s clear that Adams’ sister understands what the men meant to each other, and she tries to give Oscar the summer house that John left for him with a letter indicating transfer of ownership.
Cynthia Nixon, Christine Baranski, and Louisa Jacobson on ‘The Gilded Age’.
Karolina Wojtasik/HBO
When a weary Oscar returns home, Agnes nags him, as usual, telling him he “can’t be too sad.”
Mired in grief, he lashes out, asking, “How should I be, Mama?” He then elaborates on how he sat in the back row of John’s funeral instead of being up front as he wished to be. When Ada (Cynthia Nixon) tries to talk Agnes down, saying, “Oscar is mourning the loss of his savior,” Agnes can’t take that for an answer.
Instead, she asks, “What’s wrong with you Oscar?” to which he replies, “Do you really want to know, Mama?”
The moment is the first time we’ve seen Oscar even hint at his sexuality in his mother’s presence, acknowledging the charade they both participate in to keep up appearances. As he escapes to his rooms upstairs, the camera lingers on Agnes’ face, a thoughtful and pensive look that suggests she knows exactly what he means.
“She finally has to admit something that she never wanted to even consider because it’s so taboo,” Baranski tells Entertainment Weekly. “It would be so horrifying to her. And yet, when he plays out that scene and goes up the stairs a broken man, it’s heartbreaking for me to realize that he can’t speak to me about it.”
Louisa Jacobson and Cynthia Nixon on ‘The Gilded Age’.
Karolina Wojtasik/HBO
“She’s so far from her own child in terms of understanding and empathizing,” Baranski continues. “It is just the horror of it — he has lived with this probably his whole life, and I can never speak to him about it.”
Baranski adds that the scene was quite challenging to play, having to exist so much in the space of what is unsaid and can never be said. For Agnes, it is not only a moment of admitting the truth to herself, but also one where she realizes how she’s failed to be a safe space for her son.
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Louisa Jacobson on ‘The Gilded Age’.
Karolina Wojtasik/HBO
“There were just many emotions, but a profound sense of sadness that it cannot be spoken of,” she reflects. “And we don’t speak of it when he leaves. We don’t even lift our eyes. I remember putting a letter back in an envelope. Marian goes back to sewing.”
Agnes must continue to adjust to their rapidly changing society and her new status as second banana to Ada and her wealth. Perhaps this moment signals that one day a greater reckoning and moment of honesty between her and Oscar could come.
The Gilded Age airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, on HBO.
