‘The Gilded Age’ Provided TV’s Simplest, Smoothest-Brained Pleasures, Lifted by Carrie Coon
Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticMonday night brings the end of what has been one of 2022’s most indulgent pleasures — and one that calls to mind the TV of a decade prior. HBO’s “The Gilded Age” has made a strong argument for the efficacy of series creator Julian Fellowes’ method as a deliverer of narrative delight.Every episode has been an hourlong fantasia in which the mind, unbothered by a plot that seems at best ornamental, is free to roam — a pleasant, happy state of what Gen Z might call “smooth-brained” experience, untroubled and uncomplicated by the firing of synapses or the development of nuance.