Denée Benton and Jordan Donica on Peggy and William’s Engagement (Exclusive)

Warning: Spoilers for The Gilded Age season 3 finale.

After many ups and downs, twists and turns, romances and breakups, The Gilded Age season 3 has come to an end. Creator Julian Fellowes’ HBO historical drama brought the many overlapping storylines to a close with a jam-packed finale. 

While the Russell family rallied around their wounded patriarch, George Russell (Morgan Spector), who was shot at the end of episode 7, and Oscar van Rhijn found a way to pick up the pieces after the unexpected death of his former lover, John Adams (Claybourne Elder), Peggy Scott (Denée Benton) finally found some happiness in her own life. 

All season, Peggy (a writer, who is employed by Agnes, played by Christine Baranski), has been wooed by Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica), who first tended to the writer after she fell ill early in the season. The two then slowly fell in love as they learned more about each other. But things got complicated when William’s family — mother Elizabeth (Phylicia Rashad) and father Frederick (Brian Stokes Mitchell) — did some digging into Peggy’s past at the same time when her former publisher, T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones), overstepped his professional boundaries. 

Despite some setbacks, Peggy and William found love in the end.

As all things do, the season 3 finale brought everyone together in Newport, R.I., where society gets to show off with opulent balls and events — even amid in-fighting and maneuvering among the ranks.

It was there, where a ball was being held in honor of Elizabeth and Frederick, the heads of the prominent Kirkland family who have ties dating back to the American Revolution. However, before the party could begin, there was a reputation that needed mending.

Unfortunately for Peggy, Elizabeth found out about her son, who she had with a man named Elias after running away to Philadelphia when she was much younger. Initially, Peggy believed the baby had died, but he was actually adopted by another family and raised as Thomas.

Despite attempts to keep her son a family secret, it got out to the Kirklands, including William, who confronted Peggy — and eventually learned the truth. After hearing her out, William tells her that he needs to think about everything she’s said and that he’ll write — seemingly putting his initial offer to escort her to his family’s ball in flux.     

A distraught Peggy leans on her parents — Dorothy (Audra McDonald) and Arthur (John Douglas Thompson) — who have their own misgivings about the Kirklands due to their elitist attitudes toward them as a whole. 

Later Elizabeth confronts Dorothy, accusing Peggy of trying to dupe her son and that she deceived her family. However, Dorothy pushes back on Elizabeth, telling her that she is ungrateful and has overstepped in Newport. 

William, meanwhile, opts to not go to the ball altogether, explaining that he’s upset with his mother for gossiping about Peggy’s past and then both he and his father push back on her actions.

In the end, however, the Scotts attend the Kirklands’ ball, where William unexpectedly shows up to ask Arthur for his daughter’s hand in marriage. While out on the dance floor, William proposes to Peggy in front of everyone. 

It seems that, if the actors have their way, the couple’s relationship will stand the test of time.

“I have a good feeling about it. I think that Peggy has been really having to make so many sacrifices, choosing herself time and time again. And this is the beautiful kind of culmination of what happens when the universe listens to that and brings someone who’s not intimidated by that in the slightest,” Benton tells PEOPLE.

Reflecting on the finale, when William proposes, she adds, “I think the shock on her face when she sees him is all of those sacrifices being proven right in a way that I think is beautiful.” 

For Donica, Peggy and William are the “power couple of the century right here. Like, Barack and Michelle [Obama] 1.0.” 

“Peggy is such a beautiful character and her intellect and her power and her grace, her vulnerability, all of these things are qualities anybody would be lucky to have in a partner. And the fact that I get to portray that opposite of her and fall in love with not just her physical being, but her spiritual being and her intellectual being, it’s just such a blessing,” the actor continues. 

“I think making it through all the trials and tribulations — what Dr. Kirkland learns — is because he’s such a familial-driven person,” he says of William, explaining that “at a certain point you have to step away from everybody’s expectations, including the people who love you the most and live your own life. And that’s what he chooses to do in the end, he chooses to right the wrongs of his family and continue down his path and forge a future — hopefully with the woman of his dreams.”

The Newport ballroom scenes are a full circle moment for Peggy and Benton alike.

“I was so thrilled to get to watch Peggy experience so much levity,” Benton tells PEOPLE about her character’s journey this season. “We get to see her giggle more than we’ve seen her laugh probably in the whole time we’ve been on the show. And I was really excited to see her get to be romanced.” 

But it’s not just romance that’s at play. “She also gets to keep being a bad bitch, and she’s fighting for voting rights. Now, she’s a public speaker, now she’s a published novelist. Like the girl just doesn’t stop,” Benton adds.  

Not only that, but the actress was excited “to see her in Newport in these decadently bright costumes.” As Benton puts it, “I think her costume tells the story of her brightness and rebirth as much as even her love story does.” 

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“Dr. [Erica Armstrong] Dunbar and I — back in 2019 — had this dream of what it would be for the show to culminate in a beautiful Black ball,” the actress says, referring to the series’ main historical consultant. “At that time, it really did just seem like a dream and for it to be like, ‘Oh, my God, we’re doing it now,’ and Peggy has this ballgown that’s designed beautifully, I think that all of the audiences are gonna love to see her win.”

More specifically, “when I think of other black femmes watching this and Black girls at 15 watching this and what it would’ve meant to me to see it, it makes me emotional,” she continues. “It’s going to be really special to see.”

Stressing the importance of seeing these stories told on-screen, Donica notes that when it comes to the balls, “it’s not fiction, right? Like, it’s historical fiction, but these events occurred. And so to inhabit that, to show that, to reveal that to the world, that this isn’t just some fantasy — this is a reality that we get to portray and remember and pass on to a whole bunch of folks that probably didn’t even realize that events like this occurred for people like us,” he says. 

The Gilded Age season 3 is now streaming on HBO Max.