Old money and new fortunes collide across the brownstones of 1880s New York in The Gilded Age, Julian Fellowes's period drama from 2022.
What is The Gilded Age about?
Marian Brook arrives in New York after her father's death and is drawn into the orbit of two very different households on the same street: her aunts, who represent the city's established old-money families, and the van Rhijn-Russell household next door, built on new railroad fortunes. Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector play the ambitious Russells pushing for social acceptance that money alone cannot buy, while Louisa Jacobson's Marian and Denée Benton's Peggy Scott navigate the era's rigid boundaries of class and race from the inside. Taissa Farmiga, Harry Richardson, Blake Ritson, and Thomas Cocquerel fill out a large ensemble spread across drawing rooms, business offices, and society events, with the show's opulent production design doing much of the storytelling about wealth on display versus wealth with old roots.
About the cast
Coon and Spector anchor the Russell household with a mix of drive and vulnerability, while Jacobson gives Marian a curiosity that pulls the audience across both sides of the social divide. Benton's Peggy carries a storyline distinct from the drawing-room intrigue, and the wider cast fills out a genuinely large ensemble rather than a handful of leads.
Context & significance
Created by Julian Fellowes, best known for Downton Abbey, The Gilded Age applies a similar interest in class hierarchy to Gilded Age America rather than Edwardian England. The series holds an 8.1 rating and leans on lavish sets and costuming to recreate the period's contrast between inherited status and newly built fortunes.
Watching The Gilded Age on Ktime
The Gilded Age is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, letting viewers follow its dense social maneuvering in Farsi. The site itself is entirely in Farsi, and a free account login is all that is required to start watching; browsing the show's page requires no login at all.