The second season finale of The Golden Age aired on Monday. The week has not even ended and HBO, which produces the series, has already ordered a new batch from Julian Fellowes, the coveted screenwriter who was asked for an American-style Downton Abbey. “We are very proud of what Julian Fellowes and the Golden Age family have achieved,” the channel said, promising a third season that will maintain the large scale of the production. What good news for a series that is as enjoyable as it is frustrating.
Fellowes took seriously his task of updating the Grantham family mold to the reality of late 19th century New York. It was a process of change for high society, which had to accept the arrival of the new rich in the face of the decline of large families. This was symbolized by the two main houses, each with its floor dedicated to service and where no woman can dress herself or serve herself a simple cup of tea (which the viewer, no matter how much working-class consciousness he has, dies eager to see the elegance of period classism).
On the one hand, at the van Rhijn house they live off the rent. There is a tyrannical widow of conservative values ??(Christine Baranski), who has her single sister subjugated (Cynthia Nixon) and who tries to control a niece that she barely knows (Louisa Jacobson) but saves from misery. On the other hand, the Russells, their new neighbors, build the largest mansion in Manhattan. He (Morgan Spector) makes a fortune as a businessman and investor in the railroad system while she (Carrie Coon) wants to use the new fortune to dominate a high society that excludes her for not descending from the crew of the Mayflower.
On paper, The Golden Age has all the elements to be more enjoyable than a good earl gray with a cloud of milk. The costumes, for example, should go directly from the set to the museum, because of how vibrant some of the female characters’ dresses can be. Baranski and Nixon are two eminences of acting based in New York and Coon and Spector have a treasure in their hands: a commendable marital chemistry, where they convey both understanding and physical attraction.
However, this copy of the Downton Abbey recipe suffers from the effect of Gus Van Sant’s Psycho. Where before there was life, there was drama, there was a well-understood choralism, here is a dull story. There is not a single romantic or steamy plot that has had even a hint of spark, interest or sauce. Fellowes should be ashamed for losing opportunities like that of Aunt Ada’s suitor (she spends a lifetime waiting for the man of her life so that later the romance is written on autopilot), that of young Russell (Harry Richardson ) with an older woman, Oscar’s (Blake Ritson) hidden problems for being homosexual or the arrival of a distant relative at the van Rhijn house.
By deciding to show the dynamics of two different families, also leaving room for social friendships or the expansion of the social spectrum with the inclusion of the Scotts, the service members are blurred. The disinterest is evident: they must settle for being flat and having half-baked plots. For that matter, they could do without them, if it weren’t for Fellowes’ fear of being considered a classist for excluding them. And, when it comes to the rich characters, they have to settle for unsharpened dialogue and an always harmless dramatic bar. Does Fellowes fear that the audience will syncope if he experiences a little emotion?
The Golden Age promised to be a luxury period series for primetime and has ended up offering a friendly after-dinner soap opera. It is a tea without theine. But, as happens with pleasant productions, it is impossible not to be happy about the renewal, just as it is also impossible not to harbor certain hopes that Fellowes will regain his punch by x-raying the social dynamics of before.
The ending at least had glimpses of that potential with the first genuine romantic moment of the entire series, the changes that are suggested in the van Rhijn home or the plot that may derive from the talent as an inventor of the character of Ben Ahlers. The potential is there.