HBO‘s The Gilded Age has always affirmed that Black people existed in American history. Not only that, but the intensely researched period drama doesn’t lean on colorblind casting, but real Black figures from history for inspiration. Through Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) and her family, we’re privileged to learn about the often under-sung Black communities of 1880s New York, Philadelphia, and beyond. And in The Gilded Age Season 3 Episode 3 “Love is Never Easy,” Peggy and her family come face-to-face with the historic Black elite community of Newport, Rhode Island — and the lingering ugly issue of colorism.
**Spoilers for The Gilded Age Season 3 Episode 3 “Love is Never Easy,” now streaming on MAX**
The Gilded Age Season 3 has wasted no time setting our darling Peggy up with the dashing Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica). The brilliant Black doctor takes care of the ailing Peggy when Aunt Agnes’s (Christine Baranski) racist physician won’t. Almost from the jump, the two are drawn to each other. So much so, Dr. Kirkland wants Peggy to meet his influential family while she’s visiting Newport.
During the lead up to The Gilded Age Season 2’s release on HBO, co-showrunners Julian Fellowes and Sonja Warfield were teasing how much they wanted to introduce viewers to the world of Black historic Newport. In Season 3, they finally get that chance.
“There was a Black elite living in Newport,” Warfield recently told DECIDER. “Brian Stokes Mitchell’s character [Frederick Kirkland] is inspired by a real life character who was a pastor of a prominent church and then — I think it was in the State Assembly or Congress — had political office.”
Warfield is likely referring to Mahlon Van Horne, a real life member of the Newport Black elite who was pastor of the Union Congregational Church. In 1885, he became the first Black member of the Rhode Island State Assembly, championing Rhode Island’s Civil Rights Act of 1885. His son Mathias attended Howard University and went on to become Rhode Island’s first Black dentist. Coincidentally — or probably not — Dr. Kirkland followed a similar career path.
“I’m the young rebel of the family,” Gilded Age star Jordan Donica told DECIDER. “I want to have a different Black experience by going to Howard University down south and embracing a different kind of Blackness down there while recognizing the privilege that my light skin brings for itself, so that I can help raise all Black people around me.”
“That’s something I think that he also sees that Peggy is doing as well,” he added. “That’s another attraction and link that they share.”
Dr. Kirkland and Peggy might have much in common, but it’s clear that Kirkland’s mother, Elizabeth (Phylicia Rashad), doesn’t think they do. When Peggy and her parents, Arthur (John Douglas Thompson) and Dorothy Scott (Audra McDonald), meet the Kirklands, it soon becomes apparent that Elizabeth is extremely racist towards dark-skinned Blacks. She’s also, like Aunt Agnes, rather classist, looking down on the self-made pharmacist Arthur Scott for being born a slave.
“We wanted to explore colorism, which is a real internalized racism,” Warfield said. “That is a thing that people deal with.”
While colorism might pit Peggy and William’s parents against each other, it’s something the two young lovers don’t seem as concerned about. During a recent press conference for The Gilded Age, Julian Fellowes noted that one of the themes he wanted to explore in the series is breaking the generational cycle of bigotry.
“I think that one of the key moments of growing up, for all of us, is when you realize you don’t have to follow your parents’ prejudices,” Fellowes said. “I think, is also what young people have gone through always. It’s not disloyal, it’s just an acceptance that you are a different
person from your parents.”
For Donica, the moment that he thinks inspired William to break free of his mother’s biases was meeting Peggy’s father.
“When he was a child accompanying his father to the pharmacy — probably to get some tonics for his mom as we have to remind her later in the season — seeing this self-made, formerly enslaved Black man who has taught himself the science of medicine and opened that door for me…I am everything I am because of her father,” Donica said. “So there’s this intrinsic deep love and admiration I already have for her family.”
“And I think that it was fun to balance my love for my mother, but also my love for who I want to be my future wife,” he teased.
The Gilded Age Season 3 returns Sunday, July 13 at 9 PM ET on HBO and MAX.