Ada Forte (Cynthia Nixon) is taking command of the van Rhijn house in The Gilded Age Season 4, using her newfound place at the head of the family’s table to change the curtains — and to hire a new footman to finally replace “clock twink” Jack Trotter (Ben Ahlers)! Ada’s choice for the role? None other than the sweet, chatty, and (sadly) incompetent Oliver (Taylor Trensch), whom we first met in The Gilded Age Season 4 premiere on HBO.

Although Bannister (Simon Jones) had assembled many experienced footmen for the role, Ada is moved by Oliver’s personality. It’s a decision that the experienced butler questions, but ultimately has to accept because Ada is now in charge.

“I think that if you think back to Ada in the first season, or second season, I think this is a woman who had to, in order to survive, stay on her sister’s good side and have to always be deferential and always play the long game and never antagonize,” Cynthia Nixon told DECIDER. “This is a woman who almost gave up being with the love of her life because it made her sister mad.”

“And so now she’s feeling herself a little more, she’s feeling her wealth, she’s feling her power, and she is experimenting in small ways and in bigger ways, listening to her own opinion, even if it contradicts what those around her with more experience are telling her.”

There’s a running joke throughout this season that Ada used her newfound wealth and power to change the drapes, but hiring Oliver might have a far greater impact on the van Rhijn house on East 61st street than some new curtains.

“The drapes, that was a win,” Nixon said. “I think hiring the new, somewhat incompetent, talkative footman, perhaps not the wisest [decision], but she saw something in him that she liked and believed in.”

“I think she saw a version of herself; someone with great potential who wasn’t there yet, but was gonna get there.”

We’ll have to wait to see how Oliver does as a footman, but who plays the newest member of the van Rhijn/Brook/Forte’s staff on The Gilded Age? Here’s everything you need to know about the new Gilded Age footman, Oliver.