THE GILDED AGE is headed into the final few episodes of its first season. The pilot is a little daunting in length, but once you get into it there's lots of great material from creator Julian Fellowes. So this week I'm going to focus on some of the things they're doing.
Sometimes for me the hardest thing to remember is that every character needs to have something that propels them, some desire or want that drives both the way they interact with everyone they meet and every scenario they face. It can seem a little too straightforward to think of it that way; we've all got competing desires that motivate us. And great writing can offer that, too, and all of the contradictions that come with it.
But watching GILDED AGE I'm reminded of how thrilling it is when a character is so completely all in on one desire. From the moment we meet Carrie Coon's nouveau riche Mrs. Russell, she is focused on one thing: becoming part of the wealthy establishment of New York City. It motivates virtually every choice she makes, even to the point of rendering her villainous. After keeping her daughter Gladys in a gilded cage for much of the season, in 107 she finally relents to allowing her to have her coming out when doing so means that matriarch of the old wealth Mrs. Astor will finally have to visit her home. When Gladys realizes why she's gotten her freedom...oof.
Mrs. Russell has other drives on the show as well. She loves her husband and supports him fiercely. She controls Gladys not only for what her marriage can mean for their family, but to ensure her happiness (even if it is not of the sort Gladys might like). But her central drive is that quest to rise.
And in 107 we see just how far that drive extends. Mr. Russell is suddenly in quite a lot of trouble, after a train derails and the employee responsible produces a note that suggests in fact Russell is to blame. It's not the first moment in the series Mr. Russell has truly needed his wife's support, but it's the first where his situation threatens to derail her plans. And she responds with no thought to him, telling him he needs to get this resolved because she is about to succeed in her quest. It's a horrendous moment, and Fellowes does a wonderful job of underlining that by having Mr. Russell call her on her shit in no uncertain terms. (The scene, which starts at 16:00 in 107 and goes less than a minute, is so good.)
It also highlights for the first time a significant difference between the two of them. Even though he is just as fierce about his business as Mrs. Russell is about social success, Mr. Russell's deepest drive is actually family. He's the one that thinks she's being too hard on Gladys, and at the same time the one who destroys Gladys' first suitor because Mrs. Russell asks it. Both choices are all about supporting family. In 107 his son tells him he wants to be an architect; and while he starts from a very Mrs. Russell-space of We're Not Talking about This, by the end of the episode he has agreed to sincerely consider it.
So now we've got our power couple with strong but now clearly divergent desires and a rich source of conflict between them. In other words, we've got a great engine for more story.
I've said versions of this before--I hope it's clear, when I'm writing about these shows I'm first and foremost thinking things through for myself!--but for me this moment is another reminder of the power of a clear, strong desire. We know who characters are through the choices they make, and the bigger and bolder they are the clearer that is and the more we root for them (even if we hate them).
And at the same time big desires and choices also tend to draw out the same in other characters. Mr. Russell has no lack of desire or actions of his own but still, Mrs. Russell's choices draw him out in a new or perhaps clearer way. Maybe it's like pinball; the more "action" you can put on a character, the more momentum it's going to give to other balls with which it collides.
(Okay so in pinball you usually have just the one ball banging around. Blerg. You get my point.)
If you're looking for something to try, take a script you're working on or perhaps an episode of TV that you're about to watch, and just follow the desire of any one character in it. What's the character's first choice? Does it tell me what they're up to (or at least that they're up to something)? How does it play out? And what collisions and new directions for others does it generate along the way?
