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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Gilded Age' Creator Stresses 'The Luck Element' Of Marriage As Gladys Russell's Prospects Pick Up With Episode 2 Of Season 3
The Gilded Age. The second episode of The Gilded Age Season 3, titled 'What the Papers Say,' dives deeper into the somewhat concepts of arranged marriage after introducing divorce in the first episode. More from Deadline 'The Gilded Age' Cast Throughout The Seasons Of The Period Drama 'The Gilded Age' Season 3 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? 'The Gilded Age' Hits Premiere High Viewership With Season 3 Return On HBO Those who tuned in for the Season 3 premiere last weekend will remember that Taissa Farmiga's Gladys Russell ran away from home in the middle of the night as a rebellious response to her mother Bertha's rumored arranging for The Duke of Buckingham to come back to their mansion. It turns out she ran away to the home of her latest suitor Billy Carlton (Matt Walker) and his mother Joan (Victoria Clark). 'For every generation, marriage is a crapshoot. Nowadays, we see much more of each other than they did in the 19th century. We live together more, and we sleep together, and we do all of these things, but at the end, you don't really know the person you've married until you married them,' series creator Julian Fellowes told Deadline. 'The modern world always likes to pretend that it deals with everything better than any previous generation, but you can't take the luck element out of marriage.' This season, Bertha has her eyes on the prize of an esteemed husband for her daughter, and not just anyone will do. Even though Gladys claims she loves Billy Carlton, a suitor she covertly met up with at the opera thanks to the secrecy of Mrs. Fish and Gladys' brother Larry Russell (Harry Richardson), Bertha firmly rejects him as a potential husband for Gladys. When Mr. George Russell (Morgan Spector) comes home from Morenci, Arizona where he is tending to railroad business, he is greeted with a heated discussion between mother, daughter and son about Gladys' lack of agency in who she can marry. The railroad tycoon feels a bit more conflicted about where Gladys' life could be headed, because he did promise her that she could marry for love. Those who have watched the period drama since Season 1 may remember that Gladys also had high hopes for Tom Blyth's Archie Baldwin, one of her suitors before she was even out in society, but it was her father who turned down the young man at the time through a twisted job offer to bribe him. 'I mean, arranged marriages were the norm in this period, and I mean even today, there are still places where people have arranged marriages, sometimes they work out,' Spector told Deadline. 'People do fall in love with each other. Some of those marriages really last. Some of them are very happy. It's not impossible that there can be joy and real fulfillment in those relationships.' Even after Billy attempted to approach Mr. Russell to ask his blessing for a proposal to Gladys and he chickens out at the Young Women's Christian Association benefit — hosted by Aurora Fayne (Kelli O'Hara) and her husband Charles who is desperate for a divorce, George states to his wife that the young man didn't get a chance to present his argument. Bertha doubles down on her desire for her daughter's future to be one of empowerment, influence and high status. 'A lot of the world still operates on the basis of arranged marriages. We always feel superior about that, but it's not safe to feel superior about anything. I think that some aspects of it work better and some don't, and that's life. We take life as it comes and we take chances,' Fellowes said. 'The first few years [of marriage], you get to know your wife or your husband, and sometimes it comes as a pleasant surprise, as aspects of their personality are much more interesting than you'd realize. Other times, it's the reverse. I'm not sure there's any kind of insurance you can take out against that. I think that's how life is.' Unfortunately for Gladys, it looks as if her mother got what she wanted in a way because Billy showed up in the last minutes of Season 3 Episode 2 to call off their relationship and any potential engagement. With Hector, the Duke of Buckingham's return at the end of the third season's second episode — attorney in tow — only time will tell what path Gladys, still teary-eyed and looking like a deer in the headlights, ends up walking amidst the wishes of her mother. As Mr. Russell tells his daughter, he is just as surprised as she is at what this could signal. RELATED: Best of Deadline 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More
The Guardian
18-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
A moment that changed me: I stepped into the boxing ring – and decades of quiet anger lifted
On meeting me, you would never guess that I used to be an angry person. I'm talkative, sociable and self-possessed – but for nearly 20 years I lived with a quiet fury. It started with my parents, whose strict conservatism restricted everything in my life: what I ate, what I wore, where I went, what I thought. As immigrants from Bangladesh, they believed that control was the best way to protect their daughters, but it suffocated me. I had to fight to go to university – for all the things that men in my community were given as a right. At first, my anger felt ambient – mild and ever-present – but it became something harder, more bitter, when I was pressured into an arranged marriage at the age of 24. The marriage lasted days, but the fallout lasted decades. I remember researching a magazine feature years later and speaking to a relationship expert who referenced my 'forced marriage'. I was quick to jump in and say: 'It was arranged; not forced.' She tilted her head gently and said, 'An arranged marriage you did not want?' It was the first time I realised how angry I was. My anger manifested in different ways. I was irritable and snappy with my mother, emotionally guarded in relationships, and fiercely self-sufficient when it came to money. I never again wanted to be in a situation I could not easily escape. I considered therapy, but the cultural context in which I grew up does not sit easily with western techniques. I can't imagine explaining my anger to my mother or expecting some form of apology. Instead, I accepted that anger was something I would just have to live with. Then, in the spring of 2023, I walked into a boxing gym. I had never boxed before but I wanted to try it so that I could depict it accurately in the novel I was writing. I remember standing sheepishly by the ring at Mickey's Boxing Gym in east London while the eponymous Mickey finished his morning class. He noticed me and told me to warm up ahead of our one-to-one session. I had never been in a gym before, let alone a boxing one, and had no idea how to 'warm up'. I retreated around the corner, out of view, and fiddled with my phone instead. As the morning class filtered out, I gingerly returned to the ring. We began with some basic footwork and the fundamental punches: the jab, the cross, the hook. We worked in three-minute 'rounds', punctuated by 30-second breaks, all announced by a digital bell. Midway through the session, we moved on to the pads. Mickey held up two padded mitts and called out different combinations – patterns of punches I had to land on the mitts. As I punched, he called out instructions – 'keep your chin down', 'let me hear you breathe', 'hide behind your shoulder' – and then came the moment that changed things for me. 'Hit harder,' he instructed. I punched. 'Harder!' I punched again, the sweat dripping off me. 'Harder! Use your power!' I punched again with all my strength. 'Let me hear you!' he shouted. I cried out loud as I punched – an ugly, guttural sound, so different to everything I'd been taught. In that moment, I didn't have to be demure, delicate or diplomatic. I could be as fierce and angry as I wanted. I pounded the pads, shouting out with each punch. Over the course of those three minutes, I felt my anger lift: the years, maybe decades, of it. The bell sounded and I crumpled on to the ropes, sweaty and euphoric. I was emotional as I took off my gloves. I felt lighter, freer, unchained from something heavy. I went home and told my partner: 'I think I've finally found my sport.' This was revelatory. South-Asian women are one of the least active demographics in the UK and the idea of finding 'my sport' – and that sport being boxing – felt somehow absurd. The two sessions I had booked for research turned into two years of boxing. As a result, I am much calmer, happier and more patient. Best of all, I no longer dread spending time with my mother. Where once I found it emotionally draining, I now know that an hour in the gym will re-energise me. Boxing has given me a sense of equilibrium that was missing for so much of my life. After decades of battling my anger, I have finally found some peace. The guys at the gym often ask if I'll ever take part in a boxing fight. They say that, after two years of training for three to four sessions a week, with dozens of sparring partners, I'm ready to get in the ring for real. I smile and tell them that I only box for fun. What I don't say is that I've already won the longest fight of my life. What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah is published 19 June
