HBO's 'The Gilded Age,' Season 3, debuts Sunday, June 22, to heavily feature Newport

NEWPORT – Season 3 of HBO's "The Gilded Age," which has its television premiere Sunday, June 22, will be a treat for Rhode Island viewers, with significant parts of its storyline set in Newport.

The eight-episode new season of the series, created by Julian Fellowes, who also brought viewers "Downton Abbey," delves into a variety of themes, including marriage, divorce and the role of women in a rapidly changing America of the 1880s, as well as how Black Americans with wealth and education fit into that society emerging from the shadow of the Civil War.

The Gilded Age Season 3 premiere

As one has come to expect from "The Gilded Age," the third season is chock full of sumptuous costumes in grand settings; romantic entanglements that are hard to follow, even with a scorecard; grand balls; and plenty of folks jockeying for position in business and society. But this installment also has its share of heart-pounding action as characters navigate a threat of lethal violence.

How important is Newport to 'The Gilded Age' TV series?

One particularly beautiful scene is set along the Newport coast, with series main character Peggy Scott, played by Denée Benton, walking along rocky cliffs with series newcomer Dr. William Kirkland, played by Jordan Donica.

The scenic beauty made an impression on even the actors who filmed there.

"The way the costumes look against that bright blue sky and the huge sea and these rocks," Benton told The Providence Journal in a recent interview, "and it's just real – it looks like a painting, but it's actually just the nature that exists on that coastline."

The Kirklands – including William's parents, played by Phylicia Rashad and Brian Stokes Mitchell – are a prominent Black Newport family with ties that go back to the American Revolution in the City by the Sea. Through them, the series explores what it meant to be wealthy and Black in the Gilded Age, as well as looking at the tensions within the Black community then between established families, whose members had never been enslaved, and those emancipated at the end of the Civil War, not even 20 years before the time in which the TV series is set.

Series creator Fellowes said he appreciates the beauty of Newport, especially the grandest artifacts of the Gilded Age, the city's mansions, but also draws deeper inspiration from the well-preserved former playground of the über wealthy.

He told The Journal that he had already begun conceiving the series. "Then I went to Newport, and I felt that I had a much clearer idea of who these people thought they were,” he said. "Looking around the town you could see that they thought they were the new Renaissance princes. They were there to protect the arts, to protect America, to build American society. And all of that fascinated me."

And local historians, descendants of wealthy Black Newporters who did business with the Gilded Age elite from New York, helped shape Season 3's look at that segment of society, Fellowes said.

'Gilded Age' characters rethink their place in life

The season also sees several characters reevaluating their path through life, including wealthy industrialist George Russell, played by Morgan Spector.

"I think George is in a place of maybe having what we would call now a mid-life crisis," Spector told The Journal. "He’s really questioning whether the values he’s embraced up to this point in his life are going to serve him for the rest of his life and the relationship that he’s in, the family that he’s in, how he’s treating his family, how he’s operating his business. All of these things are kind of in question."

And those questions will drive the plot of Season 3, and, if a Season 4 is ever greenlit, will have to be addressed then, too.

Who will marry whom?

A question that most of the characters face is who they – or those around them – should pursue romantically, which many times is more of a business decision than anything else.

Spector and Carrie Coon, who plays his wife, Bertha Russell, discussed with The Journal what their characters want for their daughter, Gladys Russell, a young woman of marriageable age.

"What she does have a keen understanding of is that, even though her daughter is wealthy, she’s not necessarily protected. She understands the world is not set up for women," said Coon. "And so what she’s doing is trying to put her daughter in a position where she will have power and influence – and also fulfillment and a life’s purpose that is perhaps greater than the one Bertha’s been handed, which has limited her purview to the social sphere as opposed to the boardroom."

Spector's character is perhaps less Machiavellian when it comes to strategizing whom Gladys should marry.

"George is in a loving marriage with his wife," the actor said, "and I think he feels that’s been crucial for his success and his happiness, and he wants that same thing for his child."

How to watch Season 3 of 'The Gilded Age'

New episodes of "The Gilded Age" air on HBO on Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. They are available to stream simultaneously on Max.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: HBO's 'The Gilded Age,' Season 3, debuts Sunday, June 22, to heavily feature Newport