Bridgerton. (L to R) Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma, Jonathan Bailey as Photo: Liam Daniel | Netflix. This Bridgerton review contains spoilers.
Bridgerton is a period drama and romance franchise that’s here to stay for the foreseeable future. Sharpe is a means to an end for developing the rift between Eloise and Penelope and should have had more screentime to show the audience a wider view of Regency London than seen in past productions. While these episodes spend a lot of time trying to establish that Anthony and Edwina really were only getting together out of familial duty and not true love, Bridgerton does not forget the supporting characters that are original to the series. Supporting and main characters’ plot lines tied to Benedict and Marina’s storylines may also appear racist if actors of color replace the white characters from the novels. The key reason for this change is that Kate is older and it is inferred possibly more experienced in life. The best change Season 2 makes is to delay the reveal of why Anthony’s father passed away a decade earlier. This thread of continuity dispels the notion that the show is going to stop featuring Black characters as other characters of color are added to the series. Queen Charlotte (Golda Roushevel) names Edwina the Diamond of the Season as a favor to Lady Danbury. The Featheringtons are recovering from the death of Lord Featherington and are awaiting the arrival of his distant cousin who inherited the title. The episode also establishes the Bridgerton family mythology which is key to later plot events. Benedict (Luke Thompson) is accepted to the royal academy to study visual arts, but he finds out he may not have been accepted purely on application merit. Bridgerton season 2 returns to Netflix today with a new Bridgerton sibling’s quest to make a suitable marriage match.
No debutante in the Ton seems to meet Anthony's impossible standards, until Kate (Simone Ashley) and her younger sister Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran) ...
Anthony was portrayed in Season One as lacking in tact when it came to helping his sister Daphne find the right husband for her, nearly forcing her into a disastrous match, and also as a rather callous character when it came to his treatment of his lover, opera singer Siena Rosso. By the end of Season One, the Viscount became one of the least likeable siblings of the Bridgerton bunch. Kate is a doting sister, wanting nothing but the best for her little sister Edwina. Due to Mary Sharma's grief for her husband, Kate has essentially raised her little sister, as Kate so proudly tells Lady Danbury of the many lessons she's taught her sister. The moments between Anthony and Kate are a delightful, as each deny the attraction they feel for each other by being hostile to one another. It is this kind of romance which Season Two of Bridgerton portrays, even if it is slow in coming to fruition. The Viscount Who Loved Me is one of the fan favorite books out of the Bridgerton series. Based on Julia Quinn's best-selling novel, The Viscount Who Loved Me, Season Two of Bridgerton focuses on the elder son of the Bridgerton family.
But will Eloise (Claudia Jessie) and Lord Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) succeed in their season goals — respectively, to keep away from all potential suitors and to ...
Back at the Featherington residence, Lady Portia and her girls arrive from the Queen’s ball to find a pile of stuff in the middle of their entrance hall. With the weight of poverty off her back, Penelope decides to use her powers to make some change, motivated by her earlier conversation with Eloise. "Capital R Rake" ends with the women of London reading a very peculiar issue of Lady Whistledown's Society Papers that questions the diamond tradition and posits that women should be valued for more than just their looks and frivolous skills. Meanwhile, in the ballroom, Anthony takes out Edwina to dance, and Lady Danbury uses her wiles to convince the Queen to give the Sharmas a chance. By the end of the ball, Her Majesty proclaims Edwina the new diamond, and Anthony is intent on marrying her. Upon receiving a letter from the Sheffields, Lady Mary’s parents, Lady Danbury confronts Kate about the Sharmas' real reason for coming to London. Since Mr. Sharma’s death, the family has been going through a tough time, but Lady Mary and Kate have always done everything in their power to keep Edwina ignorant of their difficulties. The true protagonists of the season aren’t Eloise and the Featheringtons, however, but Anthony and Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley). Following the end of his affair with Siena (Sabrina Bartlett) in Season 1, the Viscount Bridgerton has decided to take a wife — except his list of demands can be very… After the death of Lord Featherington (Ben Miller) at the end of Season 1, Lady Portia (Polly Walker) and her daughters face financial difficulties as they await the arrival of the new lord, who is said to be a cruel and cheap old man who exiled his own son to the Americas. With nothing but uncertainty ahead of them, Lady Portia goes through the silverware looking for things to sell, and Philipa (Harriet Cains) fears for the status of her upcoming marriage to Mr. Finch (Lorn Macdonald) without any kind of dowry for her own family to offer. As a matter of fact, Lady Sharma's scandalous elopement is still the talk of the party, with ladies gathering to share their impressions on the new family's arrival while Lady Whistledown has yet to present them with something juicier. A capital-R Rake, as Lady Whistledown so deftly puts it, Anthony isn’t interested in any of the young ladies of London. In a montage that shows him going from dates with aspiring brides to brothels to his office, we see him turn down woman after woman for a myriad of silly reasons. Besides engaging in her usual matchmaking, Lady Danbury is also hosting the first ball of the season, as she does every year. And, for Lady Whistledown, there’s only one thing that matters: finding out who Her Majesty will single out as the diamond of the season. As Eloise gleefully runs out of the Queen’s reception, there’s still one thing she doesn’t know: that her good friend Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) is the one hiding behind the Whistledown alias.
"Bridgerton" Season 2 is based on Julia Quinn's novel "The Viscount Who Loved Me", but the show has made some significant changes to the original plot.
"I mean, we work really hard to bring everything that fans fell in love with about season one, into season two and I think we did it. Bridgerton Season 2 opts to change this by making Edwina a key player in the story in more ways than one: She is at the forefront of the romance because she too has feelings for Anthony, and she is also the voice of reason when so many are not. This is clearly intended to add to the drama and show that Kate can't put aside her sense of duty and loyalty to Edwina to allow herself to be happy. In The Viscount Who Loved Me, Kate struggles with her grief over her mother's death, and in the book she has panic attacks whenever there's a thunderstorm because of the trauma of seeing her matriarch pass away during one. In the show, the writers do away with their forced marriage and instead Anthony and Kate pine for each other constantly, until the eldest Bridgerton does the one thing he never did in the book: He proposes to Edwina regardless. The pair are actually caught in a rather precarious position when Kate gets stung by a bee and Anthony uses some unexpected methods to save her from the venom, which he does in a panic because it was a bee that killed his father.
At the top of the episode, Anthony and the Sharmas (Bridgerton's newest band?) and Lady Danbury meet with the Queen to discuss the impending nuptials.
(By the way Anthony stares at Kate, intensely searching her eyes, you know he’s doing this out of love.) He tips his hat, mounts his horse, and rides away, leaving a weeping Kate — and yes, of course, she looks gorgeous even when she cries — alone in the woods. And the object of all my desires.” (Get you a girl who can do both, Anthony.) He walks toward her, saying he dreams of her night and day: “Do you even know all the ways a lady can be seduced? Kate says he can’t do that, and before he can protest, she insists that he can’t break Edwina’s heart. Edwina points out that she’s not a little girl anymore and that the viscount will likely provide for the Sharmas if the engagement remains. The viscount shit-talks Dorset’s knot-tying skills and insists that Kate take his hand to get out of the boat. Kate asks him what Edwina has done to change his mind, but Anthony says it’s Kate who’s made the match impossible. They gush over Edwina but pay little regard to their daughter, Lady Mary, or Kate. The pettiness carries into dinner and Lady Sheffield won’t let go of the grudge against her daughter. But Anthony says it doesn’t matter what he wants at this point; he can’t dishonor Edwina. His mother agrees that a gentleman cannot withdraw his proposal but offers the juicy tidbit that a young lady can. In true teen girl fashion, Eloise has fed her family a lie about attending a lecture on flower arranging with Penelope. Instead, she drags a chaperone into the dodgy streets of Bloomsbury (and quickly ditches her) to catch an underground assembly on women’s rights. Kate and Mr. Dorset have a very pleasant conversation with no arguments — if that’s the kind of thing you’re into. Kate and Anthony separate abruptly, but it still feels notably awkward, especially as Kate struggles to pry the clingy ring off to give her sister. Anthony suggests a modest country wedding, but Her Highness insists that she’ll host the big day in town (and show Whistledown who’s boss in the process). Meanwhile, Kate’s watching the wedding come together but still keeps fantasizing about her secret, private moments with Anthony.
Netflix's sudsy romantic drama is back. But does it live up to the high bar set by Season 1? Staff writers Meredith Blake and Ashley Lee debate.
I also thought his initial exposure to painting in Season 1 was building to an exploration of his sexuality, but this last batch of episodes proved otherwise. Mostly I’m eager to skip ahead and see how things turn out for Eloise, the Bridgerton I’m most invested in. Lee: At some point, I had guessed that Lady Whistledown would be Penelope, the big family’s relatively forgotten sibling who turns to writing as a way to claim influence and garner praise. I know they were going for an Austen-esque slow burn — and they even paid homage to Colin Firth’s famous wet shirt scene — rather than the steaminess of Season 1, but I found it all quite tedious since it was clear from the first episode when they ran into each other on horseback where this was going to end up. I agree with you — it’s very clear from the get-go that Anthony and Kate will be the two who end up together. (Remember the Hot Duke and his daddy issues?) We didn’t even get a big wedding scene at the end, as if the writers of “Bridgerton” weren’t invested in this romance. I loved the idea that someone who was treated like a wallflower wielded such power behind the scenes. Lee: Ha! I didn’t mind the extra-long episodic length, since I also loved the arcs of the Sharma sisters, individually and together. He’s become the equivalent of Samantha Jones in “And Just Like That” — the character made conspicuous by his absence. Blake: When “Bridgerton” arrived way back in late 2020, it became a massive breakout success for Netflix thanks largely to the charisma of its lead, Regé-Jean Page, its many, many sex scenes, and its not-entirely-unrealistic depiction of a young woman gradually figuring out how babies are made. But none is likely to be debated as fiercely as the relative merits of Season 1 and Season 2, which take contrasting approaches to sex, marriage, ambition and duty, among other major themes of the series. It was always going to be hard for “Bridgerton” to top the bonkers lightning-in-a-bottle of Season 1, especially given Page’s departure from the series.