'The Gilded Age' Renewed For Season 2 at HBO

When The Gilded Age debuted on HBO in January 2022, it wasn't clear how well the new series would do. Like the upcoming House of the Dragon, this was a spinoff prequel to a beloved hit from a decade back. Although Carnival Films initially announced the series in development in 2012, it took a decade to get the show to air. Downton Abbey had been off the air for years, and though the movie had done gangbusters at the box office, period pieces, in general, had undergone a reckoning. A show like Downton, lily-white, would run into more criticism today than in 2011. Moreover, Julian Fellowes' two attempts at follow-ups, Belgravia and The English Game, had flopped.

But Julian Fellowes' New York City set series has turned out to be up to the task in a way his other projects did not. Moreover, it was the perfect marriage of show and network. Despite Downton being *the* hit for PBS, The Gilded Age's sumptuous luxury budget needed something more a producer with a more unlimited bank account. Also, the American cast needed HBO-type players like Morgan Spector (The Plot Against America) and Carrie Coon (The Leftovers), alongside Fellowes-type favorites like Christine Baranski and Blake Ritson, who deliver his familiar dialogue flawlessly.

With four installments down and five to go (due to the pandemic, the show was reduced from ten to nine episodes), and ratings rising week to week, HBO decided to hand out a vote of confidence in the series. As the channel's biggest Monday night hit since Chernobyl, HBO announced it officially renewed The Gilded Age for Season 2.