The Gilded Age has finally answered the shooting mystery left hanging after Season 3: Will Morris was the person who tried to kill George Russell.
Sunday’s Season 4 episode of the HBO drama identifies Will as the would-be assassin and connects the attack directly to one of George’s consequential business dealings. Will is the son of Patrick Morris, who died by suicide in Season 1 after a disastrous deal with George left him in severe financial trouble.
George’s men forcibly remove a struggling Will from his home early in the episode as his mother, Anne, reacts in horror. By the end of the hour, George comes close to killing Will himself but ultimately spares his life.
How Will Morris Became the Shooter
The answer shuts down speculation that George’s former business partner Richard Clay may have arranged the shooting. Patrick Page, who plays Clay, is not set to appear in Season 4.
Executive producer Sonja Warfield said the show deliberately constructed the mystery around George’s long list of enemies. His business activities created multiple possible suspects and left viewers with several plausible explanations for the attack.
“We created a narrative with a lot of open questions and suspects, because a lot of people were not happy with George,” Warfield told TVLine. “He was causing a lot of problems.”
The final identity of the gunman came from Morgan Spector, the actor who plays George. Warfield said Spector proposed the idea while the cast was filming the assassination attempt during the previous season.
“It was Morgan who said, ‘What if it was the son of the man who killed himself?’” Warfield recalled. She then brought the suggestion to series creator Julian Fellowes, leading the show to make Will the shooter.
George Spares Will as His Own Condition Worsens
Although George is enraged and under the influence of laudanum, he stops short of taking Will’s life. Warfield linked that decision to George’s actions in Season 2, when he faced pressure to have his workers shot. After meeting one worker and visiting his family’s home, George saw the situation differently and refused to give the order.
“Despite the laudanum, despite the rage, despite the fact that this person intended to kill him, there’s a part of George that could not take a life,” Warfield said.
Laudanum, a combination of opium and alcohol historically used to treat various ailments, is also becoming a significant part of George’s Season 4 decline. Spector described his character as “disintegrating somewhat” and offered an even more direct assessment: “George is a mess.”
That deterioration is visible when George returns home to Bertha at the end of the episode. He collapses into her arms and admits that he has “no sense of direction.” His confusion and reliance on laudanum indicate that identifying his attacker has not resolved the wider crisis facing him.
Marian, Peggy and William Face Their Own Crises
The episode also continues the fracture between Marian and Larry. Marian still will not speak to him after their night together, telling him that she feels “disgraced.” Nobody else knows what happened, but her guilt continues to consume her as she turns her attention toward volunteer work at the settlement house.
At the van Rhijn household, a new footman named Oliver has been hired to replace Jack. Oliver may be charming, but Bannister warns Ada that he is not qualified for the position. Ada nevertheless appears taken with the newcomer and suggests Bannister can teach him how to do the job.
Peggy’s preparations for her wedding to William remain tense because of Elizabeth. In front of Peggy’s new society friends, Elizabeth brings up the fact that Peggy is a widow, making both Peggy and Dorothy uncomfortable. When confronted, Elizabeth says she was trying to create a “smoother” transition for Peggy into her world and promises to be more thoughtful.
William, meanwhile, suffers a devastating professional setback. He brings a patient believed to have tuberculosis to Bellevue for additional treatment, only to be told that Black doctors cannot work there. The patient is taken away from him and subsequently dies, leaving William feeling helpless and hopeless.
ShowBiz Take
Making Will Morris the shooter gives the mystery a payoff rooted in George’s established history rather than introducing a disconnected threat. The attempt on George’s life becomes a consequence of the financial devastation tied to Patrick Morris, bringing a Season 1 tragedy back into the center of the drama.
The reveal also matters because George’s decision not to kill Will preserves a crucial part of the character even as laudanum, rage and disorientation take hold. The gunman’s identity is no longer an open question, but George’s collapse is far from settled. Season 4 has turned the answer to one mystery into the beginning of a more personal reckoning.