Marion Graves Anthon Fish

Fair.

I think we have shifted a lot of focus onto the fan favorites over the past several seasons as far as giving Mamie Fish, like lines here and there, and Aurora Fane really left last season as this sort of redeemed figure, being able to attend the Ball and Bertha events.

you know sort of opening the door for divorced women so i think the next logical step for divorced women is to be able to move forward and find romantic partners as you know adults

Right.

And I think where we discussed this at length in previous episodes...

Sometimes it's better to let the ensemble ebb and flow according to interest.

Like I said about Aurora, Phantom, and Fish.

These are people that are fan favorites versus I don't know if anyone's really lining up just to see Marion or Larry.

There are a number of images of the Gilded Age caught in fading photographs that so many of us know all too well.

The photographs of Caroline Astor, bewigged and bejeweled, dressed for a ball, Mark Twain's 70th birthday party at Delmonico's, and one I love, a group of socialites, including Stanford White and Mamie Fish, all dressed in Versailles-inspired regalia for the famed ball given by James Hazen Hyde in 1905.

But there is another photograph, and perhaps it's the most famous of them all.

Historians and fans of the Gilded Age know the image well.

Mrs.

Fish, who always-

Yeah

... seems to know all the hot gossip, is eavesdropping at the time.

And we learn that half the newspapers of New York are saying that the Duke will be at the Academy on opening night, and the other half are saying that he's gonna be at the Met.

And Ward assures Mrs. Astor and Mrs.

Fish, Mrs.

Fish has boxes in both houses, we should know, um-

Yeah.

Um, they tell each other that they, that they love each other, and they agree to attend an event at Mrs. Fish's Newport house when she returns from a visit into the city.

When she's in town, Bertha summons Mrs. Blaine, who assumes that she's being called to discuss a box at the Met.

Instead, Bertha bluntly tells her to end the affair with Larry.

It always makes me happy to hear those.

Ward McAllister and Mrs.

Fish arrive, asking after, quote, "Bertha's duke," and saying, Mrs.

Fish says that this might be the event of the Newport season, which is the be- the highest compliment Bertha can get.

Yeah.

So Mr., Mr. Adams and Oscar at the club, and we learn that because Oscar knows that Gladys is going to Newport, he has secured himself an invitation to Mrs. Fish's house for some time in Newport as well.

Always the opportunist.

Oh, yeah.

And they sort of collectively agree that they're gonna go to the casino to-- the next day for tennis.

And so we move to the next day, and people are playing tennis, people are milling around, and Bertha actually meets Mrs.

Fish for the first time, and she's a sassy one.

She's a-