‘The Gilded Age’: Carrie Coon & Taissa Farmiga Talk Gladys Becoming a Bertha

Don’t tell George, but Bertha may have been right this whole time. Bertha (Carrie Coon) and Gladys Russell (Taissa Farmiga) made huge strides in their relationship in The Gilded Age Season 3, Episode 6 on HBO. With Bertha’s help, Gladys, the new Duchess of Buckingham, one-upped her controlling sister-in-law and realized she’s more like her mother than she thought. And for the first time, Gladys is feeling that’s a good thing.

Here, Coon and Farmiga tell us how Bertha and Gladys are entering a new era of their relationship, one Coon says Bertha always knew they could reach. Bertha once believed Marian (Louisa Jacobson) was more of a Bertha than her daughter, according to Coon. But now, Gladys’ Bertha side is coming out in recently renewed Gilded Age.

Bertha traveled to England to “make everything right” after Gladys sent word to her father, George (Morgan Spector), that she was miserable in her new life. Her much older sister-in-law, Sarah (Hattie Morahan), had been domineering her and Hector’s (Ben Lamb) life since they arrived to Sidmouth Castle after their New York wedding, going so far as to choose what Gladys wears and who can be on her staff. But Sarah isn’t the Duchess, Gladys is. Bertha reminded her daughter of that and taught her how to step into her power during her visit, and Gladys rose to the occasion in a deliciously Bertha-esque moment later in the episode.

At dinner, and after Bertha had shown her the ropes of working and leading a room, Gladys impressed her mother, husband, and their dinner guests with a swipe at Sarah, who had forgotten her place after rejecting Gladys’ idea for a new forest on the estate in front of their party and then having the gall to stand before the Duchess at the dining table.

“Sarah, are you quite well?” Gladys asked the aristocrat with a gentle sting. “Why shouldn’t I be?” Sarah replied. Gladys won with her reply. “I thought, when you stood without waiting for me, you must be ill,” she said, sounding just like her mother. “I’m so glad if I was wrong.” Gladys was right; Sarah broke the rules of aristocratic etiquette by standing and telling the ladies it was time for the next part of the evening. The highest-ranking woman of the room says when, and that’s no longer Sarah. Hector took his wife’s side, showing his sister that times have changed. There’s a duchess in the house now, and Sarah is no longer in charge.

Who knew she had it in her? Bertha, for one.

Karolina Wojtasik/HBO

“Bertha always knew she had more to impart to [Gladys]. She just had to get over this first marriage bit,” Coon tells TV Insider of this episode. “I think she’s very proud of her. She’s always believed that Gladys had more capacity than Gladys believed. She always wanted more for Gladys than Gladys wanted for herself. And so I think it’s very gratifying to see Gladys start to step into her own power as a woman, as a married woman, as an aristocrat.”

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Bertha’s family (and viewers) have been shocked by Bertha forcing her daughter into a loveless marriage, but she has maintained that she sees potential between Gladys and Hector. As Marian said before the wedding, one of the Astor sisters formed a love match after getting married, and the other started with a love match and is now careening towards divorce. Episode 6 started to hint that Bertha might be right about romantic potential between Gladys and Hector when Gladys’ interest in the estate started opening Hector’s mind up to changes at home. Could Gladys end up in love and be a duchess to boot? That’s quite a future.

“Ultimately, whatever you think of Bertha’s tactics, what she did, she did for deep love for her daughter,” Coon says. “And so, for her, she feels very like she’s done something that helps her daughter be more secure.”

Farmiga tells us that this episode is a “beautiful” moment of “connection” for the mother and daughter and implies at healing in the future.

“Bertha’s playing the long game where she’s trying to set Gladys up on a pedestal so that she can continue to choose the things that make her happy even if the first choice isn’t the one that Gladys wants,” Farmiga says. “Towards the end of the season, the way we find Gladys actually achieving that, that status of freedom is very much in a way that is guided by Bertha. It brings her closer to her to her mother, which I think is something Gladys would never want to admit, but her mother was right.”

“Episode 6 is a beautiful, beautiful connecting episode between the two of them,” Farmiga goes on, “and Bertha comes to the new location where Gladys is and she takes her hand and she proves that she loves her. She’s like, I know it’s tough love, but it’s love.”

Gladys understands that now. Will George?

The Gilded Age, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO