Mrs. Bauer

Mrs. Bauer runs the kitchen of the Russell household, presiding over pots, staff, and the daily business of feeding a family determined to prove itself in old New York. She is brisk, exacting, and unbothered by the drama upstairs, more concerned with getting dinner right than with anyone's ambitions.

Kristine Nielsen brings a dry, unhurried comic timing to a role that could easily be background noise, turning small moments of kitchen chaos into some of the show's funniest beats. Amid all the finery and scheming, she's a reminder that someone still has to make the soufflé rise.