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

The Big Picture

Marian’s refusal of Dashiell’s proposal brings scandal and public scrutiny, putting her in a vulnerable position. Marian’s friendship with Peggy opens her eyes to social issues and inspires her to take control of her life. Marian and Larry’s slow-burning romance finally culminates in a kiss, signaling a potential shift in their relationship.

While many of our most burning questions were definitely answered by the time the credits rolled on The Gilded Age Season 2’s final episode, we’re still trying to wrap our heads around some of the biggest moments. Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) may have won the latest battle against Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy) in the opera wars with the official opening of the Met, but based on her dismissal of husband George’s (Morgan Spector) inquiry, what more does she still have up her large puffy sleeves? Meanwhile, across the street, the future of the van Rhijns’ wealth was in jeopardy thanks to Oscar’s (Blake Ritson) misfortune — 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 hierarchy of power under Agnes’ (Christine Baranski) roof is about to change, as well as introducing a new dynamic between the two sisters.

Among the younger generation, Peggy (Denée Benton) chose to give up her job at the New York Globe, realizing she couldn’t bear the thought of 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, it turns out that the episode still had one more big surprise in store: after Larry (Harry Richardson) walked her home, the two shared their first kiss on the doorstep, although further conversation was ultimately interrupted.

Naturally, when Collider had the opportunity to speak with Jacobson about the finale, we had to get her thoughts on this long-awaited kiss, as well as more pivotal moments from the episode. Over the course, which you can read below, the actress behind Marian discusses her character’s mindset during Dashiell’s public proposal, how Marian’s friendship with Peggy has changed her, what she enjoyed about Marian and Frances’ (Matilda Lawler) relationship, what Marian thinks about Ada becoming the new authority in the household, and more.

The Gilded Age A wide-eyed young scion of a conservative family embarks on a mission to infiltrate the wealthy neighboring clan dominated by ruthless railroad tycoon George Russell, his rakish son, Larry, and his ambitious wife, Bertha. Release Date January 24, 2022 Creator Julian Fellowes Cast Carrie Coon , Morgan Spector , Louisa Jacobson , Denée Benton , Taissa Farmiga , Harry Richardson , Blake Ritson , Thomas Cocquerel , Simon Jones , Jack Gilpin , Cynthia Nixon , Christine Baranski , Donna Murphy , Debra Monk Main Genre Drama Genres Drama Rating TV-MA Seasons 2 Network HBO Max

Marian Is Aware of the Scandal Surrounding Her After Turning Down Dashiell
Image via HBO

COLLIDER: Before we discuss the finale, I wanted to start with Dashiell’s public proposal scene. As an actor, how do you find the line between Marian having to put up a front for the sake of everybody watching this and depicting that she really does not want this to happen in the way that it does?

LOUISA JACOBSON: No, she really does not. I don’t know many people who love a public proposal. No one should do those. That was the main challenge of the scene — to portray the complexity of this situation that Marian’s in, where, on the one hand, she sees the benefits of a marriage with Dashiell in the first few episodes. In a way, she’s not totally closed off to the idea of him and she tries. She does definitely have a fondness for his daughter, and sees a lot of herself in Frances because Frances lost her mother and was raised by Dashiell. Marian, too, lost her mother at a young age and was raised by her father. And she wanted to be to Frances, in a way, what she never had — a mother.

That, plus the publicity of it all, because at the time, scandal was such a big deal, and if you scandalized yourself in society, you could just be totally outcast, and you see how that affects the heroine at the end of [Edith Wharton’s] The House of Mirth. It just can be really damaging, scandal. So she had to avoid that in front of all these people from New York society who were there watching her and seeing what she would say. It’s so much pressure. She has to put up a front, and even if she wants to politely say no, she looks at Frances, and she’s reminded of what I was just talking about. It’s like, “Most of all, I can’t let this girl down.”

With the scandal of it all, I’m then reminded of the scene in the finale where Agnes says something to the effect of, “You have two strikes against you now, and this one is more public than the first.” Marian now, is starting to realize she’s in a position where even though she knows she did the right thing, [and] Ada tells her she did the right thing — in ultimately telling Dashiell she can’t marry him, now she knows being a visible part of society means that she’s even more so up on that highwire.

JACOBSON: Back then, really the only way women could find upward mobility, at least women like Marian, was to marry. So she’s realizing the limitations of a life without that. It’s so hard, and I just think Marian was under so much pressure in that public proposal. She didn’t want to let Agnes down, she didn’t want to let Ada down, she didn’t want to make a scandal of herself, she didn’t want to let Frances down, and she didn’t want to let Dashiell down. So she had to be like, “Alright, I actually have no choice,” and that’s why she says, “If you really want me to.” It’s more like, “Okay, well, you cornered me, dude. If you really want me to, if there’s nothing else I can possibly say.”

Louisa Jacobson on Why She Enjoys Working With Younger Actors
Image via HBO

I’m glad you brought up the relationship between Marian and Frances, too, which is so, so sweet, particularly in the finale, when Marian has to explain the reason why she and Dashiell can’t ultimately get married. I wanted to ask about your experience working with Matilda [Lawler] as an actress and getting to bounce off of her in those moments.

JACOBSON: Oh, it was just wonderful. There’s something about working with younger people that takes you out of your head. They’re so present, and they’re so vulnerable, and it just reminds you to be a human with this other human being, which ultimately is acting to me. She was just such a professional. You can tell she’s been doing this for a bit, and I was honored to work with her. She’s so lovely and so kind and giving as a scene partner, and it was really heartbreaking to do that scene because I didn’t want to let her down.

Related ‘The Gilded Age’ Needs to Give Us This Couple in Season 2 They’re the star-crossed romance that the series needs.

Speaking of scene partners, Marian and Peggy have been one of my favorite friendships on this show, and we get a little bit more of their storylines intersecting in terms of Marian’s job as a teacher and Peggy’s fight to keep the schools open. From a character standpoint, how much do you think befriending Peggy has really opened Marian’s eyes to issues that she just wouldn’t have had an awareness of before?

JACOBSON: 100%. Marian may have been aware of certain issues around education, but mainly in her own social circle in her own area. I don’t think she would have been aware of these things that were happening with Black schools and in Peggy’s world. Peggy walks around with a very strong sense of her own worth as a working woman, and that’s extremely inspiring to Marian. She hasn’t been around many people like that. I imagine that back home in Pennsylvania, her friends just got married quite young and lived a smaller life, which is fine, but for a person like Marian who, for whatever reason, has bigger dreams, it’s interesting to come to New York and meet someone like Peggy who’s actually there, a living example of a woman who is taking her life in her own hands, grabbing her life by the reins and carving her own path. Marian is totally, totally into that.

Louisa Jacobson Thinks Marian and Larry Make Sense as a Couple
Image via HBO

Marian and Larry’s relationship has really been this slow burn in the background. They’ve both had relationships with other people, the timing’s never really aligned, and the impression I’ve gotten is that they’ve always been moving toward a bigger moment. Were you aware of any long-term plans to make them endgame in the show?

JACOBSON: I definitely was curious in Season 1. I was like, “What’s happening with them?” And I would try to get answers from the creative team, and they were pretty tight-lipped about it. But of course, then when I got the script for the second season, I was aware. It’s just a pair that makes a lot of sense. They are two very modern thinkers. They seem to want to go against the grain. Larry doesn’t want to just work for his dad, he wants to be an architect. There’s also something cool about the fact that they’re both artistically minded. He’s into architecture and building and design and Marian is into painting and sees the beauty in it, sees the beauty in a flower.

I always thought of Marian as a bit of an artist. I know it’s a silly thing sometimes when we just consider, “Oh, she’s just teaching watercolors,” but actually, I sort of grounded my performance in some research about this woman, Sophia Crownfield. She came to New York, and she supported herself and her sister through her watercolors. She was a watercolorist, and she would paint flowers, and they ended up being used as prints for silks for fabrics for ladies’ dresses, and for prints for wallpaper. So I guess the fact that she actually could provide for herself through her art was really interesting to me, and it allowed me to take Marian’s work as a watercolor teacher more seriously and to ground it in something that feels real. It also allowed me to find this connection with Larry as a person who wants to go into architecture. I see a lot of similarities between the two.

That leads me to ask about the kiss, which I know is something that a lot of fans are going to be super excited about. When I talked to Sonja [Warfield], she said that she convinced Julian [Fellowes] to include it.

JACOBSON: Oh, really? I didn’t know that!

There’s an interruption before they can even really have a conversation about what this means for them, but from your perspective, what do you feel Marian is thinking in that moment?

JACOBSON: I honestly feel like, especially in the last couple of interactions that they’ve had since he’s been back from Newport in Season 2, she has maybe subconsciously been dying for him to kiss her, or she wants to say that she has feelings for him, wants to admit something, but can’t. He reminds her about the engagement, and it’s like, “Oh yeah, I forgot. Not only because my uncle’s so sick but also, like, ‘Fuck, I don’t want to talk about that in front of you because then we’re facing the reality of the fact that we won’t ever be together.’”

It’s just been building up in the last couple of interactions they’ve had, and finally, at the end of the night, it’s that moment, right when she’s rung the bell to go home. She looks around, and he finally does what she’s been longing for but doesn’t want to be the first one to do it because there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to jeopardize the friendship that they have — because it is a true friendship. She doesn’t want to be indecent, and she doesn’t want to assume anything, but thankfully, Larry puts his fears aside, just goes for it. I think she’s just so thrilled that he finally does it, and it’s like, “Oh my gosh!” I don’t think it’s the kind of thing where she’s totally caught off guard and can’t believe he kissed her. She knew she wanted it, and she’s really, finally happy that she has permission to look at him openly and romantically.

In the very last scene of the episode, Marian seems very intrigued by Ada being the new boss of the house. Even though she and Agnes are on stronger footing, she does have a close relationship with Ada. There’s also the revelation that not only is the family not going to be broke, but there’s going to be this power dynamic shift with the servants looking to Ada. From Marian’s perspective, do you feel like she’s interested in seeing how this all plays out?

JACOBSON: I think she is. Yeah, I think she just cannot wait to see how it’s going to go when Ada runs the house and to finally see Agnes put in her place a little bit. That would be really nice for Marian. Agnes has given Marian such a goddamn hard time [laughs], so yeah, she’s eager to see that play out for sure.

The Gilded Age is available to stream on Max.

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