Everything We Know About ‘The Gilded Age’ Season 3 So Far

Historical fiction and Julian Fellowes fans rejoice! The Gilded Age Season 3 has set its premiere window for this summer. Several newcomers will join the third installment of the drama series when it returns to the small screen.

Both Carrie Coon and Christine Baranski have received Emmy nominations for their performances in season 2, and the show was renewed shortly after the December finale launched.

Read on for everything we know about the development of season 3 of The Gilded Age.

When will Season 3 of The Gilded Age come out?

Max has announced that Season 3 will return in June.

How may episodes are in Season 3 of The Gilded Age?

Season 3 will have eight episodes.

Who is in the cast of The Gilded Age Season 3?

Leading ladies Baranski, Coon, Cynthia Nixon, Louisa Jacobson, Denée Benton, Taissa Farmiga and more will be back for season 3. Morgan Spector, Harry Richardson, Blake Ritson, Ben Ahlers and more will return as well.

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Four new castmembers announced in June 2024 include Phylicia Rashad (The Beekeeper) who plays a Mrs. Elizabeth Kirkland, a woman from a Newport family; Brian Stokes Mitchell (tick,tick…BOOM!) as Black pastor Frederick Kirkland; Jordan Donica as Dr. William Kirkland and Victoria Clark (The Blacklist) as Joan Carlton.

Six more newcomers were revealed in early August. Merritt Wever (Tiny Beautiful Things), Bill Camp (Presumed Innocent), Leslie Uggams (Deadpool and Wolverine), and Lisagay Hamilton (Winning Time) will join the third season with Jessica Frances Dukes, Paul Alexander Nolan, Hatti Morahan and Andrea Martin.

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Wever will portray Monica O’Brien, the estranged sister of Carrie Coon’s Bertha Russell. Camp will portray JP Morgan, a formidable foe to Morgan Spector’s railroad tycoon George Russell. Uggams will play Mrs. Ernestine Brown, a friend of Phylicia Rashad’s Elizabeth Kirkland. Hamilton will portray Black suffragist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper who takes Denée Benton’s Peggy under her wing.

Martin will play medium Madame Dashkova, who can supposedly talk to the dead. Nolan will play New York businessman Alfred Maerrick, and Morahan will portray the Duke of Buckingham’s (Ben Lamb) sister Lady Sarah Vere. Dukes will play Athena Trumbo, the first cousin of Dorothy (Audra McDonald).

In November 2024, six new supporting roles in Season 3 were cast. Dylan Baker (The Good Wife), Kate Baldwin (Broadway’s Hello, Dolly!), Michael Cumpsty (Severance), John Ellison Conlee (Boardwalk Empire), Bobby Steggert (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and newcomer Hannah Shealy (The Rose Tattoo) joined the period show’s third season.

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Baker will play Dr. Logan, a family doctor who treats a number of high society families, with Baldwin as Nancy Adams Bell, the older sister of John Adams (Claybourne Elder). Cumpsty will portray Lord Mildmay, a British nobleman who comes to dine at Sidmouth Castle, with Conlee as the successful, educated and polished businessman, Weston; Steggert as the famed artist John Singer Sargent, who has just begun his career painting the great ladies of society and Shealy as Charlotte Astor, the married daughter of Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy), recently returned from an eventful trip abroad.

What is Season 3 of The Gilded Age about?

“No victory came without sacrifice,” Season 3’s logline reads in its description of the titular historical era, “a period of immense economic and social change.” Empires were built, but change was constant.

Following the crescendo of the Opera War in the Season 2 finale, the old guard of old money New Yorkers like Christine Baranski’s Agnes Van Rhijn and Donna Murphy’s Mrs. Astor has been weekened, and the Russells — Carrie Coon’s indomitable Bertha and Morgan Spector’s stoic George — stand poised to take their place at the top of society.

The logline also reads: “Bertha sets her sights on a prize that would elevate the family to unimaginable heights while George risks everything on a gambit that could revolutionize the railroad industry — if it doesn’t ruin him first. Across the street, the Brook household is thrown into chaos as Agnes refuses to accept Ada’s new position as lady of the house. Peggy meets a handsome doctor from Newport whose family is less than enthusiastic about her career. As all of New York hastens toward the future, their ambition may come at the cost of what they truly hold dear.”

Baranski hinted that her character Agnes van Rhijn will face challenges at the turn of events in last season’s finale.

“She’s suddenly not the head of the household, which you can tell from the way season 2 ended, that this proud haughty lady who was used to being number one is suddenly not that,” Baranski told Deadline. “So that fall from grace and that fall from power, that’s always such a delicious thing to play, and the fall of a King is just as exciting as the rise. So it makes for a lot of humor, I think, her having to eat humble pie.”

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She also said season 3 will be just as eventful as season 2, and that since the period of change was so grand, the show could easily keep expanding.

Coon revealed that the third season wasn’t a certainty, but the audience for season 2 helped renewal. She also hinted at where viewers will find Bertha next season.

“She’s secure in her position in New York. And of course, we all know when we left the end of season two that her next task was getting her daughter married off to the right person,” Coon told Deadline. “If you know Bertha, she’ll stop at nothing to get exactly what she wants, but there may be consequences.”

What happened in Season 2 of The Gilded Age?

Major plot points to recall from the end of season 2 are Bertha’s victory in the Opera House war, when she successfully secures Ben Lamb’s Duke of Buckingham as a guest at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her husband, George Russell, also faced strikes from his railroad employees, and though he acquiesced, it seems there will be more to fight for on that front.

Ada’s (Nixon) husband Reverend Matthew Forte (Robert Sean Leonard) tragically died at the end of season 2, but Ada saves Agnes by coming into money from her late husband and flipping the head of household structure, as Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson) has gambled away most of his mother’s money. It didn’t help that his new romantic target Maude Beaton (Nicole Brydon Bloom) wasn’t who she said she was.

Marian Brook received a proposal from Dashiell Montgomery (David Furr), but she turned him down, and she and Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) shared a sweet kiss.

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