Agnes van Rhijn has spent three seasons losing ground as Bertha Russell’s railroad money rewrote New York Society. In the new season of The Gilded Age, Julian Fellowes’s period drama for HBO and HBO Max, she gets a chance to win the room back, and the guest of honor is the President of the United States. HBO’s first teaser gave Christine Baranski the line that sets the terms: “The entire reputation of this family depends on the success of the president’s dinner. This is no time to be pinching pennies.”

That dinner is the clearest way into a season HBO frames as a reckoning. The official logline reads: “Bertha Russell changed Society at a cost. Now, her family must reckon with the consequences as Agnes van Rhijn seizes an opportunity to regain her position.” The official trailer shows the van Rhijn household preparing for the arrival of President Grover Cleveland, played by Jim Gaffigan. In the casting announcement, his character “comes to New York to curry favor with the elite class.” For three seasons new money courted old money. The setup this time has Washington courting both.

A president at the van Rhijn table

Cleveland is the most concrete link yet between Fellowes’s invented families and the real calendar of the 1880s. He was the 22nd and 24th president, served his first term from 1885 to 1889 and had been Governor of New York just before that. Season 3 was set in 1884, and TV Insider reports that season 4 opens in 1886. Dallas Roberts joins as Daniel Manning, Cleveland’s Treasury Secretary, which suggests the administration arrives with more than one face.

Set photos published by TV Insider point to the arrival of the Statue of Liberty as a major event this season. The real statue was dedicated in October 1886 in a ceremony presided over by Cleveland. HBO has not confirmed how the show stages it. What the trailer does show is a dinner decorated with American flags, with Agnes, her sister Ada and their niece Marian receiving guests.

The money behind that table is the sharpest detail in the teaser. At the end of season 3, Agnes formally gave Ada the head seat at the dinner table, a moment Baranski called “well-earned.” Now the sisters argue over the bill. When Agnes insists this is no time to pinch pennies, Cynthia Nixon’s Ada answers: “Especially when they’re not your pennies to pinch!” The same teaser has Ada asking, “Shouldn’t we leave vengeance to the lord?” and Agnes replying: “Not if we want it done properly. I find often the lord is too lenient.” In the full trailer she announces that “this situation requires me to take a leave of my manners!” Agnes’s comeback, in other words, is being paid for by the sister she spent three seasons resenting.

The Russells: separated, and under pressure from Rockefeller

Across the street, the household that changed Society is split. Season 3 ended with George Russell, fresh off a near-fatal shooting, leaving Bertha after deciding he was done letting his wife use their children as pawns in her social game. Morgan Spector told TVLine that “because we know how good this couple can be together, it would be really fascinating to see them spend a season figuring out how to get back to each other.” Carrie Coon promised that Bertha is “not going to give up.”

The trailer adds a business reason for a reunion. Neal Huff plays oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, and A.V. Club reads the footage as Rockefeller making George sweat, enough that he almost seems open to an invitation home. In the teaser, Bertha keeps the separation quiet while Kelley Curran’s Mrs. Winterton asks where her husband is, and George tells her: “You may be the key to our family’s survival.” The question the premise raises is whether a marriage that broke over children used as social pieces can be repaired for reasons of commerce, and whether Bertha would accept those terms.

Peggy, Marian and the new faces

Two engagements carry the rest of the season. Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) is engaged to Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica), and the logline says she “works to be accepted by her future in-laws.” The teaser shows her clashing with Elizabeth, played by Phylicia Rashad, as she prepares to join William’s family, and TVLine says the trailer has their engagement threatened by their individual professional aspirations. Dennis Haysbert joins as Dr. Reginald Harris, William’s mentor, who “makes a surprising connection” when he comes to New York.

Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson) has her engagement to Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) back on, yet the logline has her forging “a new path for herself.” In the trailer she asks, “What if this is my life? What I’m meant to do?” while she is seen tending to children and mending wounds. Elizabeth Marvel joins as Virginia Saville, a nurse at the Neighborhood Settlement House on the Lower East Side. HBO has not said whether the two stories meet.

The rest of the new cast widens the map of 1880s New York. Bonnie Milligan plays Mrs. Knapp Curtis, editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal. James Scully is Lee Klein, an apprentice of the painter William Merritt Chase who “sells his first painting as an unforgettable society event.” Taylor Trensch is Oliver, a new arrival at the van Rhijn house; Maggie Kuntz is Fiona Summers, a free-spirited cousin of the Astors; Andrew Burnap is Porter, a young gentleman with “an Ivy League education and capital to invest in new ventures.” Tony winner Adrienne Warren joins in an undisclosed role. Blake Ritson’s Oscar van Rhijn, who proposed a mutually beneficial marriage to Enid at the end of season 3, appears in the teaser to be in over his head with her.

Why history is doing more of the work

The Gilded Age has always mixed invented families with real people: Donna Murphy’s Caroline Astor, Ashlie Atkinson’s Mamie Fish, Sullivan Jones’s T. Thomas Fortune. Fellowes built Downton Abbey the same way, threading a fictional household through national events. Season 4 raises the rank of the real visitors. A president, his Treasury Secretary and the founder of Standard Oil are no longer society gossip; they are the people who decide whether a railroad fortune survives and whether an old family regains its standing.

That shift matters for a show often described by its wardrobe. The fights over who gets invited were always fights over power, and this season names the power directly. HBO is keeping the series in its Sunday 9 p.m. slot, with one episode a week through December.

The logline ends with a warning: “In this new era, you must be careful what you wish for.” If Agnes’s dinner works, the van Rhijns are back at the center of Society, but on money that belongs to Ada and on a guest list set by Washington. If George comes home, it may be because Rockefeller sent him. The season is built to ask what a family still owns once it has won the room on someone else’s terms, and the trailer does not answer it.

The Gilded Age season 4: release date, episodes and cast

The Gilded Age season 4 premieres Sunday, November 1, 2026, at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and streams on HBO Max. The season has eight episodes released weekly on Sundays, with the finale on December 20. Episode 1 is titled “Ring the Bells” and episode 2 “You Won’t Hear Me Beg.”

The series is created by Julian Fellowes, who writes and executive produces with Sonja Warfield. Salli Richardson-Whitfield directs and executive produces. It is a co-production between HBO and Universal Television. The cast is led by Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, Louisa Jacobson, Denée Benton, Taissa Farmiga, Harry Richardson, Blake Ritson and Audra McDonald, with Jim Gaffigan, Neal Huff, Dennis Haysbert, Bonnie Milligan, Dallas Roberts, Elizabeth Marvel, Adrienne Warren and Phylicia Rashad.