Pour one out for your Sunday evenings and your HBO Max password-sharing arrangement, because *The Gilded Age* has officially been renewed for Season 4. Yes, the show about obscenely wealthy people in corsets fighting over opera boxes and dinner seating is coming back, and honestly? It's the most relatable thing on television right now, provided you ignore literally everything about it.
For the uninitiated, *The Gilded Age* is Julian Fellowes' American answer to *Downton Abbey*, except instead of a charming Yorkshire estate, we get 1880s New York City, where the only thing more elaborate than the chandeliers is the passive-aggressive warfare between Old Money and New Money. Think *Succession*, but with better hats and no one saying "f--- off" every four seconds. The show follows the Russell family, led by robber baron George (Morgan Spector) and his ferociously social-climbing wife Bertha (Carrie Coon), as they attempt to bulldoze their way into a society that would rather die than let them in. Meanwhile, the van Rhijn-Brook family across the street represents the old guard, clinging to their dwindling relevance and their cousin Marian (Louisa Jacobson), who keeps accidentally being interesting.
Season 3 ended with enough cliffhangers to fill a Gilded Age mansion, and the renewal means we'll finally get answers. Will Bertha's opera war victory stick, or will the old money crowd find a new way to snub her? Will Marian finally pick a suitor, or will she continue collecting proposals like they're commemorative plates? And will anyone ever explain what Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) actually does for a living besides being tall and supportive? These are the questions that keep us up at night, along with wondering how much a single gown on this show costs compared to our entire rent.
The renewal isn't exactly a shock. HBO has been aggressively investing in prestige period dramas because they're cheaper than dragons and appeal to the demographic that still knows how to operate a cable box. Plus, *The Gilded Age* has something for everyone: lavish costumes for the fashion girlies, ruthless business dealings for the finance bros, and enough thwarted romance to satisfy anyone who's ever been left on read. It's a show where the stakes are simultaneously absurdly low—who gets invited to a ball—and absurdly high—entire family legacies hinge on whether you acknowledge someone's greeting at a charity bazaar. In other words, it's exactly like modern American life, except everyone's wearing gloves and no one's doomscrolling.
Critics have been mixed, with some calling it slow and others noting that it's basically a soap opera in a corset. But the fans don't care. We're here for the scheming, the side-eyes, and the sheer audacity of Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) acting like she personally invented the concept of society. The show is a comforting escape into a world where problems are solved with a well-timed whisper at a dinner party, and the biggest betrayal is someone wearing the wrong shade of burgundy to your at-home.
So what can we expect from Season 4? More of the same, probably, and that's fine. The writers have a deep bench of historical drama to pull from: labor strikes, financial panics, the slow creep of modernity. Maybe we'll finally see the Brooklyn Bridge get some respect. Maybe Bertha will run for office, because why not. Maybe Marian will marry someone and then immediately regret it, as is tradition. The only certainty is that the costumes will be stunning, the dialogue will be cutting, and we will all feel slightly worse about our own lives by comparison.
**Final take:** *The Gilded Age* is a ridiculous, beautiful, deeply unserious show about people who take themselves very seriously, and that's exactly why we need it. Season 4 can't come soon enough. Just please, for the love of all that is holy, give us more scenes of Bertha and Mrs. Astor passive-aggressively complimenting each other's floral arrangements. That's the real opera.