Spoilers ahead for the Season 4 premiere of The Gilded Age.
Shortly after its premiere, The Gilded Age joined the ranks of HBO shows that got the world talking. Luckily for fans of the period piece, Season 4 has finally arrived on the network (and streaming with a HBO Max subscription). While the show sometimes gets flak online for not having enough drama, I'll admit the premiere episode had me biting my nails for two different reasons. Let's break it all down.
It remains to be seen if The Gilded Age finally gets a Downton Abbey crossover, but Season 4 started off with a bang. The premiere was titled "Ring the Bells" and put two major characters in peril.
The first of which was Louisa Jacobson's Marian Brook. After attending the after party of Oscar van Rhijn and Enid Winterton's wedding, Marian gets into a carriage with Larry Russell. The horse gets spooked by the storm, starts running out of control. I really thought they were going to get into an accident, but it turns out that the real "danger" was Marian losing her inhibitions and the pair sleeping together at a hotel. She's now worried about the news getting out, and her reputation (and chances at marriage) being ruined forever. Different set of stakes, but I'll take it.
Then there was the drama with Taissa Farmiga's Gladys. She was shown struggling to give birth in the Season 4 premiere, and I thought for a minute that the character might end up being killed off. The stakes got even higher when she started hemorrhaging from the breech birth, and let's just say that I didn't have faith in the medicine of 1880s enough to save her life.
Luckily both she and her young son survived the birth, but not without sacrifice. The doctor ended up performing a hysterectomy to save her life, meaning that she (obviously) can no longer get pregnant. While not life-threatening, but potentially puts her marriage to The Duke in jeopardy. If something happens to their child he might be inspired to find another wife who can help produce an heir.
Fans want a number of Gilded Age characters to make a splash in Season 4, and it should be interesting to see how things play out. The Gilded Age Season 4 already seems like its making some big changes to the beloved series, and I'm eager to see how things shake out over the next few months.
The Gilded Age airs new episodes Sundays on HBO as part of the 2026 TV schedule. Folks who thought the show doesn't have enough drama might want to tune back in and see if they change their mind.
