‘The Gilded Age’s Sonja Warfield Convinced Julian Fellowes to Include THAT Finale Kiss

Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for The Gilded Age Season 2 finale.

The Big Picture

• Bertha’s ambitious nature will continue to drive her actions and put her marriage to George under pressure.
• Peggy’s decision to leave her job and her heartbreak will shape her character and future pursuits.
• The kiss between Marian and Larry was a long-awaited moment and could have major implications for the series moving forward.

While many of the dangling threads were resolved by the time the closing credits popped up for The Gilded Age Season 2’s final episode, we’re still attempting to make heads or tails of everything that played out. Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) decisively secured her victory over Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) in the opera wars with the Met’s opening, but based on her dismissal of her husband George’s (Morgan Spector) line of questioning, what more does she still have up her large puffy sleeves? Meanwhile, across the street, the future of the van Rhijns’ wealth had been in jeopardy thanks to Oscar’s (Blake Ritson) falling prey to a scammer — until Ada (Cynthia Nixon) discovered that she’d inherited a great deal of money from her late husband, the Reverend Forte (Robert Sean Leonard). That means, however, that the power dynamic under Agnes’ (Christine Baranski) roof is about to change, as well as introducing a new dynamic between the two sisters.

Within the younger cast of characters, Peggy (Denée Benton) chose to give up her job at the New York Globe, realizing it would be too difficult to remain working alongside her married employer T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones) in spite of her feelings for him. And while Marian (Louisa Jacobson) finally admitted to Dashiell (David Furr) that she couldn’t marry him after all, the episode still had one last major surprise in store: after Larry (Harry Richardson) walked her home, the two shared their first kiss on the doorstep, although they didn’t have an opportunity to further discuss what it means for them moving forward.

Ahead of the finale’s premiere, Collider had the opportunity to speak with The Gilded Age co-writer and executive producer Sonja Warfield about some of the episode’s most pivotal moments. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Warfield discusses the thought process behind Ada discovering her inheritance and Bertha’s decision seemingly about her daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), as well as how she convinced series creator Julian Fellowes to include a kiss between Marian and Larry. She also delves into what’s next for Peggy, how the fight to keep Black schools open was a real historical event, and more.

Sonja Warfield Says ‘The Gilded Age’ Is Ultimately a Show About Power

COLLIDER: The tragedy of Reverend Forte’s death is so heartbreaking for Ada to go through, but why did it feel like the right move to include the surprise reveal of her inheriting a ton of money?

SONJA WARFIELD: We want to continue. Here’s the thing — the power dynamics are going to totally change. We started with Ada feeling empowered and more independent, growing more independent of Agnes — who’s oppressive — with her romance, and then marriage with Luke. So, I just think it’s great fun. Julian [Fellowes] has created these wonderful characters. There’s so much depth and history with siblings, and so there’s a way that siblings fight with each other that they don’t fight with any other human being. I just think it’s fantastic for us to explore and see these characters under pressure. I like to put characters under pressure and see what happens.

Ada has always been a character who has gone through maybe more than her fair share of strife, much of which comes at the hands of her own sister. What excites you the most about getting to change that power dynamic? It really does indicate some intriguing things for a potential Season 3.

WARFIELD: Julian wanted to create a show about power, so ultimately, if everything is about power and money, now we’re doing it within this key family, right? And this season, in Season 2 with Bertha and George, they had a quarrel within their relationship, they were this power couple, and when they weren’t working together, we put them under pressure. I felt like the work that Carrie and Morgan did was fantastic and real, because all relationships go through that, and they have ups and downs. So I just think it’s this real way to dramatize life.

Peggy’s Season 2 Storyline Was Informed by History

Speaking of a dramatization of real events, Peggy’s storyline in the back half of the season involves her getting involved in the fight to save these Black schools from closing down. Was there a historical event that informed that plot?

WARFIELD: I work very closely with one of our historians, Dr. Erica Dunbar. Julian wanted to come up with a story for Peggy that put her journalism to work and so then Erica said, “Well, that’s right when Tuskegee was being built, and Fortune and Booker T. Washington would have been in each other’s orbit,” so we got that story. Then the school story was real, and Sarah Garnet was this real woman, and we took some artistic license, but that is what happened. They were trying to shut down all of the schools, and because Marian was teaching, then we had this opportunity to bring Marian into that story, because the truth was they really needed to get more students, specifically white students. Erica found that nugget, and it worked.

Speaking of Peggy and Fortune, I heard that their romance was planned to maybe be a bit longer, but then it was an instance where history sort of got in the way.

WARFIELD: I remember I was reading a book about Fortune, and then I called Julian and I said, “Oh, he’s married,” and Julian said, “Neat!” [Laughs] So yeah, that posed more drama, right? Those attractions happen, that’s real. We love Peggy, we don’t want her to do anything that messy, but at the same time, she’s human, she’s a woman, he’s a man. Yeah, history got in the way, but it also gave the potential for drama, which made it a little juicier.

Now that she’s had this new heartbreak, do you feel like it’s going to shape her as a character in terms of her approach to maybe a potential romance in the future?

WARFIELD: This is her second heartbreak because the first one was shattering, so absolutely, it will. I think that what could be great for her character is that I don’t think she’s really looking for love. She’s probably gonna try to be on the straight and narrow and think about her career and all of that, and that’s usually when love finds you. So, it can be sweet and romantic. At that time in history, the women who were writing in newspapers were actually publishing serials that were published weekly, so it was essentially like they were publishing novels and short bits, and Peggy started doing that already. As a writer, you know she can write anywhere, anything, anytime, and see where it takes her.

Bertha’s Ambition Could Put the Russells’ Marriage Under Pressure

The opera war comes to a pretty decisive head in the finale, and it was so interesting to do a deep dive into this battle between the Academy and the Met.

WARFIELD: You don’t necessarily have to know New York to know, because when Julian first told me the story, I said “I’ve never heard of the Academy of Music,” and that’s because the Met subsumed everything, and they still do. So, he wanted to do that from the beginning, and I was on board. First of all, I was like, “Are you serious? These people bought boxes in both places, and they were racing around?” I just thought it was the funniest thing, but yeah, that was a real historical thing.

Is it fair to say this isn’t the end of the war for Bertha? That this is just one battle of many?

WARFIELD: Julian wanted to write a show about power, and the thing about power is that it’s unquenchable. Once you have a taste of it, you just want more and more and more, and that’s who Bertha is.

To follow up on Bertha, there seems to have been an unspoken promise that she made to the Duke, possibly involving Gladys. George is trying to get a straight answer out of her, and she gives him this, “You have your arena, I have mine,” response. What kind of complication is that going to present for the family — especially with George and Bertha, because they started this season with secrets kept, and now Bertha’s got a new secret?

WARFIELD: Absolutely. And God willing we get a Season 3, you’ll get to find out. She has an agenda, and look how far she’s come. She’s not going back ever, and she can only thirst for more, whatever more is for her. She basically told George, “Get out of the way and just stay in your lane.” So that’s gonna put the marriage under pressure. It makes for fantastic drama and I hope that we get a Season 3 so everybody gets to see it all and we get to see Carrie do Bertha as only she does.

Sonja Warfield Wanted Marian and Larry to Kiss Earlier in the Show

Speaking of things that are set up for another season, Marian and Larry have kind of been dancing around each other for a while. In the finale, they get their first kiss, and it feels like an important moment for them. Is this something that Julian has had in the works since the beginning of the show? I know he likes to slow-burn sometimes, so how long has this been brewing?

WARFIELD: He has always had a vision for the series and allowed me to come in and put my touches on here and there. Yes, he likes to slow burn, and he’s also very true to the period, and so nobody was having sex because there was no birth control, you know what I mean? Like, a man would go have sex with a prostitute, even if he was engaged, before you have sex with your wife. So people were not doing anything. I felt like Julian was having lots of talks with me, explaining that to me, because I always wanted Marian and Larry to kiss. So finally, he did allow me that at the end of the season, but he’s very true to the period. But yeah, we got there.

So the kiss was your idea?

WARFIELD: Well, eventually he was going to have them kiss, and I asked if they could kiss this season because I don’t know that he necessarily saw it for Season 2. So I just said, “Please, at least commit the kiss at the end.”

I can already envision that there’s going to be so many happy fans after the finale.

WARFIELD: I know, I get texts from people who are like, “When are they going to get together?”

You mentioned Julian has his grand plan for the series, and it sounds like the intention was to bring them together at some future point. It sounds like their coming together as a couple could really change the series in a big way, especially the potential merging of these two families.

WARFIELD: I think that is part of his vision. That just adds layers of complication for Agnes, for Bertha, for society, all of it. So, I can’t wait. I hope that we get to play in that season in that world and with all the conflict and drama, so we’ll just have to see.

The Gilded Age is available to stream on Max.

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