Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) makes quite the bounce back in HBO‘s The Gilded Age Season 2 Episode 5 “Close Enough to Touch.” The first moment we see him, he’s a drunk, heartbroken mess at his parents’ home in Newport. Then, before the end of the episode, he is uncovering the truth about Emily Roebling‘s (Liz Wisan) participation in the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge and accompanying Marion Brook (Louisa Jacobson) to the park to buy flowers for her art class. Clearly, Larry was able to move on rather quickly from his scandalous, passionate affair with Mrs. Susan Blane (Laura Benanti), but that doesn’t mean there still aren’t some regrets over how things went down behind-the-scenes at The Gilded Age.

At least, as Decider understands it, Gilded Age production designer Bob Shaw is disappointed the romance fell apart because it means no one will ever see Larry’s grand designs for renovating Mrs. Blane’s house. You know, because those were actually Shaw‘s plans…

“Yes, I was disappointed that we didn’t have a reveal because one of the things that no one’s going to notice is, for me, I have a hard time actually honestly telling you what the Elms would have looked like when Larry found it and what he actually did,” Shaw said, referring to the fact that the Russells’ grand Newport cottage is mostly based on the historic house, the Elms.

We learn at the start of The Gilded Age Season 2 that Larry renovated his family’s house to make it all the more luxurious. Remember when Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) tells Ward McAllister (Nathan Lane), “My son is a genius!”? That’s because The Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes invented the idea that Larry did all that in a matter of months. Bob Shaw is skeptical.

“It’s a tremendous amount of work for anybody to have done in the time frame,” he told Decider. “You know, that’s definitely artistic license there.” 

So Shaw hoped that through the Mrs. Blane storyline, audiences would get a better sense of Larry’s genius.

If you’ll recall, Larry Russell only initially meets Mrs. Blane because Ward McAllister thinks the young architect might be just the ticket to renovate the young widow’s fusty Newport cottage. Shaw previously explained to Decider that he purposely chose Kingscote, a real life historic home in the Rhode Island town, to stand in for the Blanes’ house because it fit the timeline perfectly.

“Kingscote was once considered the grandest mansion in Newport in the 1850s, but by later standards, it’s actually rather small,” Shaw told Decider. Hence why it needs some fresh renos!

Mrs. Blane is immediately taken with Larry’s vision for opening the house up…and, it seems, with Larry himself. They embark on a scandalous love affair that only becomes a problem when Newport gossip rags start printing blind items about it. (Newport newspapers: the original Deux Moi?)

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“Well, Larry is a bit of a playboy and he does what he wants. He doesn’t play by the rules,” The Gilded Age executive producer and writer Sonja Warfield explained to Decider. “A lot of people have romance this season, so Larry does, too.”

“Part of it is it added another layer of conflict for Bertha as she ascends in society, right? Because it can look like things are going her way with the Opera Wars and everything, and then her son throws a wrench in it all with this woman.”

When Bertha Russell gets wind of the fact that her son’s private affairs are causing public scandal, she puts a stop to it. Bertha invites Mrs. Blane to tea to discuss the Opera Wars, but soon reveals she knows about the widow and her son’s love affair — and she wants it to stop. Soon, Mrs. Blane puts an end to her fling with Larry, leaving the young man heartbroken and seething at his mother.

“It just adds spice,” Warfield said. “It adds, you know, intrigue and heartbreak and love and all of the things that go into a good mix.”

Larry’s little tryst might have added all that to the story, but it also ended before the renovations on Mrs. Blane’s house could be concluded onscreen. Meaning, Bob Shaw’s designs for an 1880s update of the 1850s mansion Kingscote will never see the light of day.

“We did a rendering of what we thought it would look like after Larry transformed it and I was very happy with how it turned out. And so I was disappointed not to actually get to, you know, do it.”

So on the one hand, Gilded Age fans might be mourning the end of Larry and Mrs. Blane’s romance because it means we’re not getting to see the fabulous Laura Benanti chewing up scenery on HBO anymore. However, maybe Gilded Age architecture nerds should be more sore we’ll never see precisely how good Larry Russell supposedly is at his job…