TL;DR: The Gilded Age Season 4 is the show’s boldest and most confident season yet, powered by a stellar ensemble and a deliciously scheming Oscar and Enid. A few slower-burning storylines barely dent the experience, making this an essential watch on OSN+.
There is a special kind of joy in watching a great show realise just how good it has become. For its early seasons, The Gilded Age carried the weight of being “the other Julian Fellowes show,” constantly measured against the Crawleys and their polished English intrigue. Season 4 has shed that burden entirely. Fellowes, once again sharing much of the writing with Sonja Warfield, no longer needs to prove that 1880s New York deserves its own spotlight, and the swagger shows in every gilded frame. Across eight new episodes, HBO’s lavish period drama trusts its ensemble, raises its stakes and drags beloved characters into darker territory without ever losing its sparkle. The result is the richest, boldest and most satisfying chapter of the series so far, and a season that fans will be talking about long after the final ball ends.
A presidential dinner turns old money vs new money into glorious warfare
If you have ever watched two endgame raid bosses circle each other before the fight begins, you will recognise the electric energy between Bertha Russell and Agnes van Rhijn this season. The neighbours had settled into something close to a truce, but the impending visit of President Grover Cleveland, played with charming restraint by Jim Gaffigan, hands them a shiny new trophy to battle over. Hosting the President is the ultimate social flex, and Carrie Coon and Christine Baranski play the rivalry like two grandmasters who already know each other’s openings by heart. The writing is clever enough to make this more than a comedic subplot, too. Beneath the silverware and seating charts lies a sharp observation about how status in this world is still measured by proximity to powerful men, even as these women carve out remarkable influence of their own.
Baranski remains the show’s crown jewel, a walking arsenal of exquisitely timed one-liners that land like rapier strikes. Her chemistry with Cynthia Nixon continues to anchor the van Rhijn household, with Nixon’s Ada supplying the tenderness that makes the house feel like a home rather than a fortress of disapproval. Ada’s storyline this year is quietly gorgeous, as a woman who had peacefully accepted widowhood discovers the possibility of a second chance in the most unexpected of places. Nixon plays that flicker of hope with such delicacy that it becomes one of the season’s most moving threads. It is exactly the kind of warm, deeply human storytelling that Fellowes does better than almost anyone working in television today.
Oscar and Enid are the scheming power couple fans deserve
The single most entertaining development in The Gilded Age Season 4 is the arrangement between Oscar van Rhijn and the former Mrs. Enid Winterton. Blake Ritson and Kelley Curran have always shared a mischievous spark, but turning their partnership into a marriage built for public consumption unlocks a Succession-grade transactional chemistry that is an absolute blast to watch. The logic is beautifully cold: Enid’s inherited fortune rescues Oscar from looming financial ruin, while the van Rhijn name grants her the social legitimacy her previous marriage never managed. Neither pretends this is a fairytale romance, and the show finds endless comedy and delicious menace in two people who understand each other’s angles perfectly. Every scene they share crackles like a chess match where both players are secretly planning three moves ahead.
What elevates this beyond pure camp is how precarious the whole arrangement is. Enid was once a lady’s maid, and the question of whether New York’s elite will ever truly welcome her adds tension to every invitation and every pointed glance across a ballroom. Oscar, meanwhile, guards a secret about his own desires that could bring the entire facade crashing down at the worst possible dinner party. That shared vulnerability turns their alliance into a thrilling high-wire act, and the season wrings every ounce of suspense from it. Ritson and Curran are having the time of their lives, and their gleeful villainy is the delicious seasoning that makes this already rich season irresistible.
The Russells prove that a marriage in crisis can be magnetic television
Season 4 opens with Bertha far from New York, standing beside her daughter Gladys as she prepares to give birth to her first child with Hector, the Duke of Buckingham. It is a smart, striking choice that places an ocean between Bertha and George just as the wounds of their separation from last season remain fresh. George, played by Morgan Spector with that brilliant coiled-spring intensity, buries himself in his office, his club and a personal crusade to unmask the man who nearly killed him in the Season 3 shooting. That hunt gives his storyline a thrilling noir edge, like a detective mystery tucked inside a costume drama. When Bertha returns and reaches out for reconciliation, the show handles their reunion with real maturity, acknowledging that love is powerful but never a simple reset button.
The secret ingredient is the extraordinary chemistry Coon and Spector have built over four seasons. Even apart, the Russells feel like two halves of the same unstoppable engine, and their estrangement plays as a gripping, temporary storm rather than a final breakdown. Society still sees them as an unbreakable alliance, which fuels one of the show’s finest recurring themes: the gap between how a marriage is performed in public and how it is lived in private. It mirrors Oscar and Enid’s dynamic from the opposite direction, giving the whole season a wonderfully satisfying thematic backbone. These two could argue in a moving carriage for an entire episode and I would happily watch every second.
Peggy Scott’s story soars with the spotlight it always deserved
Denée Benton has long been one of the most captivating performers in the cast, and Season 4 finally gives Peggy Scott the narrative space her talent demands. Engaged to Dr. William Kirkland, played with warm, steadfast devotion by Jordan Donica, Peggy could easily have been handed a simple happily-ever-after. Instead, the writers craft something far more compelling, asking whether becoming a wife in this era means sacrificing her flourishing career as a published author. Kirkland’s love is never in doubt, which is exactly what makes the conflict feel so grown-up and resonant. The challenge is the shape of the life society allows them, and watching this couple navigate those choices together is some of the most rewarding drama of the season.
Phylicia Rashad is a magnificent addition as Peggy’s meddling future mother-in-law, a formidable matriarch whose presence could make even Agnes pause mid-sentence. Her scenes inject a crackling generational friction that sharpens everything around her. If there is one small wish here, it is for a few more moments between Peggy and Marian, whose friendship has always been one of the show’s most heartwarming bonds. With so much happening in both of their lives, those reunions would have been a lovely bonus, but Peggy’s central journey is so strong that it hardly matters.
A sprawling ensemble that keeps delivering surprises
With a cast this large, a few storylines inevitably move at different speeds, and Marian Brook’s arc is the clearest example. Louisa Jacobson is pushed into some of the most challenging territory her character has ever faced, sparked by a chance carriage ride that reignites her long-buried feelings for Larry Russell. Jacobson rises to every moment, and while much of her story’s biggest momentum builds toward the later episodes, the payoff makes the slow burn worthwhile. It is the kind of patient storytelling that rewards viewers who settle in for the full season. Taissa Farmiga’s Gladys takes more of a supporting role this time after her central Season 3 arc, though her scenes exploring marriage and motherhood leave you hungry for more.
Then there is Jack Trotter, whose rags-to-riches journey remains one of the show’s most endearing delights. Watching Ben Ahlers’s newly wealthy Jack take etiquette lessons from his former colleagues in the van Rhijn household plays like the best kind of training montage, complete with a mentor squad that knows exactly how absurd high society truly is. It is a charming reminder that The Gilded Age has always cared just as much about the people downstairs as the people dining above them. That generosity toward its entire ensemble is a big part of why the show feels so lived-in and beloved.
Bold consequences make this the show’s most confident season yet
The most impressive achievement of The Gilded Age Season 4 is its refusal to hit the reset button. Many long-running dramas treat each new season like a fresh save file, quietly erasing last year’s heartbreaks to protect the status quo. Fellowes and Warfield take the braver route, letting the shooting, the broken engagement, the financial ruin and the marital rupture of Season 3 ripple through everything that follows. George, Marian, Peggy and Ada are all shaped by what came before, and the show treats those scars as fuel for richer storytelling. The result is a season with genuine emotional depth that rewards every hour fans have invested in these characters.
This is also where the show’s glorious melodrama truly earns its keep. The twists are big, bold and soapy in all the right ways, because this is a world where dinner seating arrangements carry the stakes of a royal war council, yet they never feel like cheap shocks. Characters respond to every blow with stubbornness, grief, pettiness and grace in equal measure, which makes them feel thrillingly real. That masterful balance lets the show swing from laugh-out-loud comedy to genuine heartbreak within a single episode without missing a beat. The Gilded Age Season 4 premieres November 1 on HBO and HBO Max, while viewers in the Middle East should keep an eye on OSN+, the long-time regional home of HBO originals and previous seasons of the series.
Verdict
The Gilded Age Season 4 is a triumph, the work of a show operating at the very height of its confidence and craft. Its ensemble is simply outstanding, from Coon and Spector’s magnetic estrangement and Baranski’s lethal wit to the gloriously wicked partnership between Ritson’s Oscar and Curran’s Enid, while Peggy Scott’s storyline finally receives the weight and attention it always deserved. The decision to let last season’s damage linger gives this chapter real emotional depth, making it darker, richer and more rewarding than anything the series has done before.
The only minor quibbles come from the sheer size of the cast, with Marian’s arc saving its biggest moments for later and Gladys stepping into a smaller role. Anyone who loves character-driven period drama, sumptuous costumes and powerful people scheming over champagne will find this season utterly irresistible.
