The third season of The Gilded Age is almost over. (SOB!) The drama has been incredible so far, and it’s easy to get lost in the most conspicuous elements, like the acting or costumes, and forget that someone has to coordinate it all. Every episode must have a leader who brings it all together into a cohesive vision. Deborah Kampmeier was one of those people. She talked with Fangirlish about season 3 of this HBO and HBO Max period drama, in which she directed episodes 2, 5, and 6. And there was a lot to discuss considering all the drama, romance, and surprises!
MORE: It’s been a while since The Gilded Age, Season 3, Episode 2, so our review will help you recall the details!
“What the Papers Say”
One of the nicest developments of season 3 has been the bigger emphasis on Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) and Larry’s (Harry Richardson) sibling bond. “In this relationship, I love how Larry becomes Gladys’ ally and protector,” Kampmeier says. This is especially true of the second episode of season 3. Particularly, the scene where Billy Carlton (Matt Walker) gives up Gladys.
“I really wanted that moment after Billy leaves to feel like when a child falls on a playground but keeps it together until the moment she sees her mother, and then the tears flow,” explains Kampmeier. “I wanted Gladys to keep it together until she saw Larry.” She also had another fascinating comment. She says Larry becomes “a bit of a parental replacement” for Gladys, “for both their father in how he takes a stand for her, and their mother when he takes her in his arms after the breakup with Billy Carlton.”
As for their parents, George (Morgan Spector) and Bertha (Carrie Coon) are at odds like they have never been before. Between these two, Kampmeier says, “I feel all of the scenes are very connected and progressive.” In the second episode of the season, the scene in Bertha’s bedroom stands out. “I think we get to see where each of their hearts is rooted,” she says. “We get to feel and understand the power of each of their dreams that are pulling them away from the other.” She continues, “For Bertha, it’s almost as if she is her younger self in that moment, aching for her own duke.” This is intriguing. Especially given the comments Bertha has made about when she was Gladys’ age.
Another way this show excels is the attention paid to the storylines for the Black characters. Especially during Season 3. The show introduces Peggy’s (Denee Benton) love interest, Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica), in Episode 2. “I really wanted that instant chemistry and attraction between them,” Kampmeier explains. “I wanted…the newspaper article with the excerpt from Peggy’s novel to be a place where Dr. Kirkland’s interest could land and be revealed.”
She also has insights about the scene between Agnes (Christine Baranski) and Peggy’s parents, Arthur (John Douglas Thompson) and Dorothy (Audra McDonald). She feels that the scene is fundamentally shaped by Arthur’s “insistence on facing the racism that threatened his daughter’s health head-on.“ And “his demand that Agnes acknowledge her own… understanding of the prejudice of her white doctor is a powerful and satisfying force in the conversation.” I heartily agree.
MORE: Read our review of The Gilded Age Season 3, Episode 5 if you need a reminder of all the drama going on in Old New York!
“A Different World”
Season 3 features one of the most romantic scenes The Gilded Age has ever done. That would be Larry’s proposal to Marian (Louisa Jacobson) in episode 5. Kampmeier found the inspiration for the romantic staging while scouting locations. “As we were scouting, I saw this incredible tree. When I went inside its canopy, it was so mysterious and inviting. I turned in a circle in awe as I looked up and around. And I immediately knew this was where the proposal had to be. I wanted it to feel magical and special and dream-like.”
Technical know-how brought it to the screen. “My incredible Key Grip, Chris Skutch, built a turntable to fit inside the epic canopy of the tree. And just as the space called me to spin around as I took it in, we shot the scene with Louisa and Harry and the camera all on the turntable so that the background could circle around them and create the heightened romance of the moment.” Mission accomplished.
While that relationship is reaching a high, another is falling to its lowest point. George and Bertha’s strained marriage is under even more pressure in Episode 5 of Season 3. Kampmeier references the final scene of the episode as “the breaking point for George when he receives Gladys’ telegram. This scene feels like it could be the point of no return for their marriage.” Spector and Coon perform all of this perfectly, in my opinion, and Kampmeier has praise for the entire cast. “All of the actors on this show come so prepared and open to try anything,” she says. “I think what actors do is a most generous gift,” she continues. “They reveal their souls so we can see our own. My job is to create a safe space…for all my actors to do that.”
The fifth episode of this season also thrust one of the main characters into a new setting. Gladys’ marriage to Hector, the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb), means she moves to England to start a new chapter of her life. “We were creating England in the US,” Kampmeier reveals. “The castle was a patchwork of two mansions in Rhode Island and one on Long Island.” She gives credit to location manager Lauri Pitkus and production designer Bob Shaw for finding the locations and designing them cohesively. In the kind of detail I love, Kampmeier adds that “cinematographer Chris LaVasseur kept the lighting very cool…to mirror the grey of Gladys’ inner life. We wanted to lean into her isolation and loneliness.” She adds that, “We wanted the Duke’s gilded cage that Gladys was now trapped in to feel very different from the gilded cage Bertha confined her in at home.”
MORE: Our review of The Gilded Age Season 3, Episode 6 has all the discussion you need!
“If You Want to Cook an Omelette”
However, Gladys’ growth throughout season 3 is evident in the very next episode. “I just love when Gladys asks Lady Sarah at the dinner table if she is well,” Kampmeier says. “And tells her that she thought when Lady Sarah stood ahead of her, she must be ill. I love how Gladys puts Lady Sarah in her place. And then the look Gladys and Bertha share.” So do we, Deborah, so do we! That moment is the most satisfying one to watch for Gladys’ character this season. We’ve been waiting to see some of Bertha’s dominant attitude come out in her daughter, and we were not disappointed! Kampmeier echoes my own feelings when she says, “In general, I love how Gladys claims her womanhood this season.”
The writers explore the theme of women’s suffrage this season, and the show took the thoughtful step of mostly doing that through the Black female characters. “I love how The Gilded Age has given the responsibility of telling the stories of…the obstacles not just women, but Black women, faced in trying to get the vote to Sonya Warfield and Erica Dunbar,” Kampmeier enthuses. “My job is to honor their writing and hold space for these extraordinary Black actresses…to give voice to the truth of their characters.” I feel that this intersectionality adds wonderful layers to this show. Kampmeier addresses that, too. “One of the biggest problems with the suffrage movement is how white women purposely excluded Black women, following a false narrative that the inclusion of Black women would harm the movement,” she says. I applaud this show for drawing on all the complexities of this issue.
Kampmeier directed what is probably the most action-oriented moment of this series: the shocking accidental death of John Adams (Claybourne Elder) at the end of Episode 6. Oscar’s (Blake Ritson) lover was a secondary character. But his presence still had an impact. This moment made me gasp out loud when I first watched it. “We designed a shot that would use a special high-speed motion control rig, called the Bolt,” Kampmeier explains. It “could be programmed and move fast to see the hit of John Adams by the carriage and then circle around and down to reach him when his head hits the ground.”
Filming it this way, “keeping it all in one shot rather than in cuts, would feel more real and shocking,” she adds. She is absolutely right. She also reveals that Elder did the stunt himself. And that “our visual effects supervisor Douglas Purver really made it possible, starting with a pre-vis of how we could accomplish it and then building the final scene.”
Moments like this are why season 3 of The Gilded Age has been so successful in terms of storytelling. The combination of Kampmeier’s direction with this show’s stories is one I hope continues into the future.
The Gilded Age airs on Sundays at 9 PM on HBO and is streaming on HBO Max.
