Dear Downton Devotees:

Dani and I have become fans of the new Julian Fellowes series The Gilded Age. After a breakneck first episode, we were a little disappointed at the lack of narrative or character empathy, but we had so enjoyed Downton Abbey, we pressed on, hoping the show would settle down and start feeding us stories. By episode two, our disappointment gave way to infatuation. Last night, episode five dropped, we watched – I plan to get my money’s worth from my new HBO Max subscription.

For those just tuning in, The Gilded Age, like Downton Abbey, follows families of enormous wealth. Unlike Downton, the ‘gilded’ have obtained their position through ruthless capitalism. In Victorian and Edwardian England such opulence was borne of bloodline. Never mind how position and power were obtained, Fellowes traces a keen and rewarding storyline that reveals both strength and foolishness among the wealthy and plain-speaking insightfulness but equally fallible behavior among their house staff. Saints and sinners dwell upstairs and downstairs, and we the voyeurs are invited to peek in on their public and private lives.

While Fellowes is not a historian, his work seems to capture such detail as to provide an almost documentary backdrop to his fictionalized dramas. We are given such vivid detail and potent dialogue, all disbelief is anesthetized. This is the world as it was, Fellowes leaves little doubt.

Beginning in 1870s New York, Gilded’s major tension so far (we are only four episodes in) is between the establishment class, comprised of direct descendants of Mayflower passengers and Revolutionary War heroes, and the new industrial tycoons amassing such wealth that their crass bankrolls are overwhelming fine breeding. As was the case with Downton, the vast and teeming poor labor and suffer on the periphery. We know they are there, but we don’t particularly care; their stories are dreary and sad and would distract from the exhilaration provided by peeking in on the rich and powerful and their servants. Still, they are part of the story—not on stage, but crucial characters. One cannot help but understand how the impoverishment of the unseen class makes possible the extravagance we witness.

As you can guess, I enjoy Fellowes’ work. He embraces a demystification of the past, keeping the characters and plotlines human enough to be familiar to the modern mind, while maintaining grandiose, almost grotesque elements, piquing our curiosity as to how the one-percenters once lived. They’re neither better nor worse than we are; they just have way more money.

Subversively, this approach raises serious questions regarding the rise and fall of empires. Gone is the illusion that the great men of history should be glorified for strong moral character or deep spiritual motivation; they were driven by the same hubris and lust as their modern counterparts. This was not an age to which we should desire a return. Exploitation, misogyny, racism, disseat, abuse and the like are brazenly lurking under the thin patina of carefully curated goldleaf. In the end, the viewer does not long for their time; theirs was as corrupt and fallible as is ours. No longer wistful for a bygone past, we become eerily content tending to what is ours today.

As Solomon wrote, “Know well the condition of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds; For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations” (Proverbs 27.23-24). Finding no extra greatness in the past, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor