The Gilded Age: Peggy’s Secret & Why She Needs A Lawyer

Warning: SPOILERS for The Gilded Age Episode 5 – “Charity Has Two Functions”

Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) has been harboring a secret in The Gilded Ageand it’s starting to become clear why she needed the help of a lawyer, specifically, Thomas Raikes (Thomas Cocquerel). While The Gilded Age is primarily about the high society conflict between the Old New York of Peggy’s employer, Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), and New Money families like George (Morgan Spector) and Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), Peggy’s concurrent story delves into the African-American woman’s own struggles as a writer. But Peggy also is adamant about standing apart from her family and her reasons are slowly becoming clear.

Peggy has one of the most interesting storylines in The Gilded Age. Miss Scott’s chance meeting with a desperate Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson) led to her helping the penniless niece of Agnes van Rhijn reach New York City. Peggy’s good turn was rewarded with a job as Agnes’ secretary, which gave her a fashionable address on 5th Avenue and 61st Street and eliminated the need for her to return to her parents’ Brooklyn home. Miss Scott has also made considerable progress in her writing career in a short time. After turning down a demeaning job at The Advocate, Peggy was hired by T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones), the editor of the New York Globe and the most prominent Black newspaperman in America. Not only is Peggy’s work getting published but she also reported on the opening of Clara Barton (Linda Emond) and the Red Cross’ upstate New York chapter opening.

However, Peggy obviously harbored a secret that she finally (partly) confessed to Marian in The Gilded Age episode 5. When Peggy was younger, she worked at the Brooklyn pharmacy owned by her father, Arthur (John Douglas Thompson), and she fell in love with one of the stockboys. Not only did Arthur not approve, but it also seems Mr. Scott ensured that there would be no relationship between the boy and his daughter, who he wanted to inherit the family pharmacy. Peggy is disgusted by what her father did and it’s one of the reasons why Miss Scott left Brooklyn and moved to Pennsylvania to attend the Institute for Colored Youth before Miss Scott found herself caught in between The Gilded Age‘s Old New York vs. New Money feud. However, finding the whereabouts of the stockboy she loved and lost could be why Peggy needed the help of Marian’s suitor, the attorney Tom Raikes, who is also from Pennsylvania.

Raikes and Peggy have met twice to discuss her private matter in The Gilded Age, and the lawyer told Miss Scott that he “confirmed her suspicions.” While the details have been left vague so far, Raikes, who Agnes van Rhijn disapproves of, may be searching for the boy Peggy loves and is trying to determine what happened to him. If Raikes verified what Peggy already believed, it may mean something happened to her ex-lover and Arthur Scott may be to blame. But Peggy may not have any definitive proof yet and she could be clinging to hope that she and her lost boyfriend can be reunited. This goes a long way to explain her deep resentment of her father and mother, Dorothy (Audra McDonald).

In The Gilded Age episode 4, Marian foolishly visited the Scotts’ home in Brooklyn and brought them old shoes under the presumption they were in need of charity as if she were part of the American Red Cross. Instead, Marian found the Scotts to be affluent business owners with far more money than she has, and Miss Brook also experienced the tensions between Peggy and her parents when she walked in on them unannounced. Like Marian, The Gilded Age‘s viewers also want to get the whole truth about Peggy, her lost relationship, and what, exactly, Arthur Scott did so that his only daughter wants nothing to do with him.

The Gilded Ageairs Mondays @ 9pm on HBO and streams on HBO Max.

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