‘The Gilded Age’ season 2 reviews: ‘Lavish,’ ‘confident’ new episodes boast ‘absurdly talented’ ensemble

It has been a long 19 months since we’ve been able to luxuriate in a withering line from Christine Baranski’s Agnes van Rhijn, but fans of “The Gilded Age” may now celebrate as the HBO drama has returned with its second season. After the first batch of episodes ended with Carrie Coon’s social climber Bertha Russell making significant inroads with “old money” New York, these new episodes will find her at odds with the old guard once again as they go head-to-head with rivaling opera houses. The season premiere aired on Oct. 29 on HBO and streamed on Max.

With such an operatic season arc and its many other subplots, “The Gilded Age” has avoided a sophomore slump. As of this writing, the show has a 74 score on Metacritic, indicating “generally favorable” reviews. It is also certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 94% freshness score, with their critical consensus reading, “More topical than before while also owning its frivolous appeal with unapologetic splendor, Julian Fellowes’ operatic soap enters its own halcyon age.” These scores are both improvements over the show’s freshman run, which on the day of its debut earned a 72 on Metacritic and 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.

WATCH ’The Gilded Age’ season 2 trailer: Battle lines are drawn

Most reviewers feel that season two marks a step up over the show’s prior outing, calling it a “finely tailored, lushly decorated soap,” a “lavish melodrama” that “gratifyingly does opulent escapism,” and a “welcome respite” from all the dark series on cable and streaming services. The material is once again elevated by one of the starriest ensembles on television, with critics noting that Cynthia Nixon and Blake Ritson are “particular standouts,” Audra McDonald does “particularly good work,” Coon and Morgan Spector have “off the charts chemistry,” and Baranski “is a commanding force” who turns in some “surprising work.” Some took issue with the latest installment, writing that although “perfectly pleasant,” the season feels “atypically flat” with characters played by great talents that go “underutilized.”

In addition to Bertha’s quest to establish the superior opera company in New York, the eight-episode second season will follow Denée Benton’s Peggy as she makes inroads with her career as a writer, including covering the opening of a school in Tuskegee, despite her mother’s (McDonald) concerns about a trip to the South. Nixon’s Ada will form a connection with a new rector, played by Robert Sean Leonard, while her niece Marian (Louisa Jacobson) will butt heads with Agnes over her choice of suitors. “The Gilded Age” also stars Nathan Lane, Donna Murphy, Kelli O’Hara, new addition Laura Benanti, and scores of other recognizable performers.

See excerpts from some of the critics’ reviews below, and join in the discussion of “The Gilded Age” and more with your fellow TV fans and industry insiders in our forums.

Lili Lofbourow (Washington Post): “In its second season, ‘The Gilded Age’ … abandons lofty and literary ambitions and settles for being the soapier, sillier project it always was. This makes it a massive improvement over the muddled and strangely anticlimactic first season.”

Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair): “In keeping the show light, Fellowes is able to hold everything in the realm of fantasy. No searing social drama is this, nor is it trying to be. In the second season, romances bloom and wither, a duke of England is courted by rival society queens, one family’s financial position becomes suddenly dire, and a member of a household staff invents an alarm clock. It should be a little boring, all this lo-fi bustling and business. But the spell cast is more softly narcotic than it is soporific—it’s relaxing, not tedious”

Kristen Baldwin (Entertainment Weekly): “Much of the joy elicited by ‘The Gilded Age’ comes from watching this assemblage of absurdly talented actors feast on the delectable silliness Fellowes serves their characters… Is ‘The Gilded Age’ a whimsical indulgence or an artful, well-acted work of historical fiction? The answer, dear reader, is yes.”

Lacy Baugher Milas (Paste): “In its eight-episode second season, ‘The Gilded Age’ is more fun, more focused, and more confident than ever, leaning fully—and unapologetically—into its most dramatic tendencies and framing its season around the sort of rich people problems that are both indulgent and completely ridiculous. (But that are somehow almost impossible to look away from.)”

Ben Travers (Indiewire): “‘The Gilded Age,’ in its diluted second season, somehow dies down after its comparably brazen debut. The absence of actual conflict — problems that require more than a polite request to sort out — is so pronounced it threatens to undermine the serene parade of beautiful gowns by boring the pants off of those wearing them. To say nothing happens in ‘The Gilded Age’ Season 2 would be hyperbolic, but only by a thread as thin as a hemline.”