Agnes van Rhijn

Agnes van Rhijn presides over her Manhattan brownstone like a fortress of old New York values, deeply suspicious of the vulgar new money moving in next door. Widowed, sharp-tongued, and fiercely protective of the family's standing, she rules her household with acid wit and rigid rules, unimpressed by anyone's wealth but her own kind's pedigree.

Christine Baranski was born to deliver lines like scalpels, and the writing hands her a bottomless supply of them. Agnes could easily be a snob and nothing else, but Baranski finds the fear underneath the hauteur — a woman guarding a world she senses is already slipping away, one perfectly timed insult at a time.