The Gilded Age actors Michel Gill and Katie Finneran on Patrick's shocking choice
Warning: This article contains spoilers about episode 3 of The Gilded Age, "Face the Music."
In a game of new money and old rules, there's bound to be winners and losers — and with the amount of cash on the table, the stakes can be life or death.
In Monday's episode of Julian Fellowes' The Gilded Age, "Face the Music," Patrick Morris (Michel Gill) discovers that George Russell (Morgan Spector) is the wrong man to bet against. Morris attempts to renege on a deal he and his fellow aldermen settled with Russell, while Anne Morris (Katie Finneran) continues to snub Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon). When the aldermen go against their word and pull the rug out from Russell, Russell ruins them all.
All of their overextended debts are called in, leaving them exposed, vulnerable, and humiliated. Morris in particular is brought so low that he is reduced to begging on his hands and knees for Russell to undo their financial ruination.
When Russell refuses, Morris is a broken man. He returns home to Anne, making kindly remarks about what a wonderful wife she's been and how much he loves their children — before going upstairs to take his own life.
It's a shocking conclusion to the episode for a show who's biggest conflict thus far has been whether Marian (Louisa Jacobson) can talk to the "tacky" neighbors across the street or not. While viewers might have been lulled into a false sense of security by the beautiful clothes and the literal rich people problems, episode 3 of the HBO drama serves as an ample reminder of just what is at stake.
To get all the gory details on that tragic twist, we called up the actors behind the Morris family, Michel Gill and Katie Finneran. They broke down how they built a partnership in relatively few scenes, just what drove Patrick to such abject despair, and what's next for Anne.
Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you both read the script, were you shocked by these final moments?
MICHEL GILL: First of all, I joke [that] it's in my contract that I have to have some sort of demise relatively quickly in every show I do. [Gill had a gnarly end in Mr. Robot, among other shows]. But also, it creates the power and influence and ruthlessness of George Russell. You have to have that impact in the show early on for people to understand what's at stake and how high the stakes are and what the risks are. I'm there to serve the story.
KATIE FINNERAN: Once you understand the social rules of the time, what he has done is absolutely devastating. There's no way to come back from that. It's a terrible thing that happened, but it happened a lot back then, saving face. He can't show his face publicly anymore. It's awful, but it doesn't leave us in a very good position either. It's a very sad storyline, but that happened a lot with those businessmen.
What do you think drives Patrick to this extreme?
GILL: A couple of things. First, the shame of it. And also finding a way in which, under these circumstances, his family can somehow survive, because there's a selfishness and a selflessness about it. He has the idea that if he gets out of the way, it will give them a chance to get through it and move on. But if he sticks around, the shame in those days was just so great and so profound. He couldn't see through it. Or past it.
Obviously, you know the ending, Katie, but that final goodbye between the two of you is so poignant. Was it a challenge not to tip your hand there? Do you think any part of Anne suspected what he was about to do?
FINNERAN: It's a world of covering everything. They didn't really talk about things that bothered them so much. You're not emotionally invested in the other person's trouble. You're just trying to patch up and show good face to society and each other. I don't understand how devastating it is that he's lost. I don't understand that he's over invested with money that we don't have, and I don't understand the gravity of the situation. I do, but not to the extent that he might kill himself. At that point, I'm just trying to cover, like, "Everything's fine. I know things are going bad for you, but everything's fine." I don't think he's going to kill himself.
Michel, what was it like filming that scene? I imagine you have to get to a fairly dark place to shoot that?
GILL: There's there's only so much one can understand of the desperation that it takes to take your own life. To understand the level of anguish and pain that needs to stop. And with him, not only pain, but shame. Shame plays a big part in the period. The depth of his shame with their rules and their conditions, you take your life. I don't know if it's very different today. The individual and the perception of the individual has changed a little bit, but the individual no matter what is desperate and ashamed and has to have it stop. There's also an intellectual side justifying it by knowing that he's saving his family or thinking that he is and that is such a strong emotion. As an actor, you have to cling to those things. Not ever really fully being able to grasp that kind of desperation.
FINNERAN: Michel's character feels like we're better off without him. But we probably won't be saved because we're stretching the truth a little bit. Back in those days, if your husband killed himself, you're invited to leave society. You're out. Nobody wants to be seen with you.
GILL: There was no way out. From our perspective, it's a cowardly thing to do. From his perspective, there's no way out. There's no recovering from this. He lost it all.
How badly do you think Patrick and Anne underestimated the Russells?
FINNERAN: It's not so much that we don't want to let [Bertha] in, it's that she's pushing herself in. Like, it's not like we don't understand her value as being a monetary benefit for us and our charities. But she pushes in so forcefully. I just want to say, "Take a minute, let us get to know you, you get to know us. Show us that you're respectful. We'll be respectful to you. And maybe one day we'll let you in." But she just barrels in there like a bull in a china shop.
GILL: Patrick is navigating these fast-changing waters in New York City with this wealth that's coming in, this nouveau riche stuff, and balancing it with the old money. He's already familiar with the old. But the new is — to an alderman, a relatively small council person — he's just blowing in the wind of these changes and sees an opportunity with this guy. But he doesn't think Russell will miss the money. He sees an opportunity here to fill his pockets, and that nobody will be the wiser for it. He completely underestimates the ruthlessness and the power. His greed takes over because he really sees a way to get out of debt to help his family. It's a huge misjudgment on his part and on his fellow aldermen's part. They cross a line that creates a whole historical timeline for insider trading. People are still jumping out of buildings when this happens today, and have done in the crashes that we've witnessed. My grandfather was a big gambler in the commodity and currency field. I get that it's drastic and dramatic. And it's greed. It's really this lack of awareness. It's a huge blunder.
FINNERAN: One of the interesting things about these dynamics also is that the wives have a tremendous amount of power because it's through the wives that most of these relationships are made or not made. If the wives don't like each other, the men have no reason to get together for dinner and meet that third person that they're going to do business with. It's the wives that keep these business relationships going and have the power to ruin them. Or enhance them.
For the two of you, you don't get to share that much screen time, so how did you develop that relationship in a way that allows Patrick's impact to linger after this point?
FINNERAN: Our theater community is so tight, and we have so many of the same friends, that I look at him and I know that I'm safe. I know his wife, who is an extraordinary actress, Jayne Atkinson, and I know that if she's married to him, I can trust him. It comes from the theater community. You know the people that you're safe with, and I knew immediately that we would be able to form an intimacy on screen because of our joint relationships with the theater community.
GILL: I couldn't say it much better. Part of our jobs as actors is to show up on set and create those intimate relationships as quickly as possible. It is done all the time. But my gosh, when you have degrees of separation that are not very big with someone, it adds that much more color and comfort and as Katie said, safety and trust. That really is the most important thing in these fleeting moments of relationships.
Michel, you kneel and beg George Russell to end his scheme. How much do you think that costs him? Is that loss of dignity part of what you think pushes him to this tragic end?
GILL: Yes, he feels that in that very moment. When he brings himself down to his knees and Russell just responds with, "Look, sorry, buddy." In that moment, he just has this overwhelming sensation of this emptiness in his life. It's gone. It's over. He's taken the life out of him. And when he gets up, he is already a lost man. Now it's a question of how he's going to deal with being a shadow of a person.
FINNERAN: In that society, you would never come back from that. And that shame, knowing that he did that to himself, is just awful.
GILL: I mean, he kneeled there in front of his fellow aldermen and in front of Russell. In those days, it's not recoverable. You don't go, "I gotta call my therapist," or look at Russell and say, "Could we just have a redo?" That's not even in anybody's consciousness.
Intercut with the suicide, we see Russell say he's punished them enough. Even with his shame, do you think Patrick would've been able to recover if he'd just waited a little bit longer?
GILL: I don't know. Obviously, those are those great moments in life where you miss it by a second. The tension in that montage is deliberate to reflect the tragedy that these things can be potentially avoided. But we'll never know. And the fragility of life is just that, and how these behaviors and words can do such damage to somebody's heart and soul. Those are the consequences, and one just never knows. But it's certainly put in a frame of "Ah, maybe this could have been avoided," and that's the wrenching part of it as well.
Katie, this leaves your character Anne very exposed and vulnerable. What will it mean for her future?
FINNERAN: We'll have to ask Julian [Fellowes] about that, but it seems like the options are so limited. I know I talked to [director] Michael Engler about this. Either I could charm my way into another marriage, someone who's willing to deal with my shame and the horrible scandal that happened with my husband's suicide. Or a family number might take me in, but probably not, because again, we're associated with the suicide. I would be a punished woman, and I might have to go and get work doing sewing or making hats or making dresses. There's not much that I'm qualified to do other than possibly needle work. It could get pretty bad. I could move in with my children possibly. But I think that they will be probably responsible for most of the debt, so there wouldn't be much money there. It's pretty grim all the way around. Somebody that would marry her she would not consider worthy of her. Following her own rules, she wouldn't be attracted to a man that would actually marry her.
GILL: Well, I have a spoiler alert! Patrick's brother Billy Morris comes to town.
FINNERAN: That's a brilliant idea. We should tell Julian. Or we could have the ghost of Patrick?
GILL: There you go. Anything to be a working actor.
Will she learn anything from this in terms of how she treats others or insulting the Russells? Or will she be seeking revenge?
FINNERAN: Everything that she thought was her world and the world that she defends with her heart and soul and spirit is taken away. Right now it's just trying to show up at the meetings that she's already said she would show up at and trying to eat and trying to figure out what's going to happen before they close the door to the house and change the locks. I think that it would take a lot of time before she realized and became empathetic toward other points of view or other people. She might have a little revenge in her.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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