#33 - Bridgerton <<chanting intensifies>> BRIDGERTON

On Friday night, I was all ready to get really high for the first time this week and play a video game. But when I went to put on some background noise (I was intending to put on Taylor Tomlinson’s new stand-up, for specificity purposes) I realized Bridgerton season two had dropped.

Season one was a total romp of a tv show. I don’t usually love period pieces (especially 1800s Britain because the silhouettes are just awful and everyone always gets makeup to make them appear vaguely grimy) but Bridgerton is light, bright, and full of gossip. It’s stupid, but just when it gets a little too silly, it has a really good sex scene and a string cover of a pop song to pull you right back in. I found myself recommending it to an almost friend with the very important caveat that I didn’t think it was great television or speaking to anything grand, but it was breezy & fun, a bubblegum book in television form. And I maintain that sentiment!!

So, at 9:30 at night, I ate an edible and went IN on season 2. Reviews below. Spoilers galore if you care about spoilers!!

Initial Impressions

Okay, so, whereas season 1 was total chaos and rompy and sexy and fun, season 2 is much more of a slow burn but the central conflict is kind of…there but also wasn’t my favorite conflict of all time?

I really love a good enemies-to-lovers of matched wit plot. Deeply love it in my bones. I don’t want to examine my “falls for the person who used to be mean to them because their former enemy has realized that they have incredible chemistry and balance and complete each other” thing too closely, so I shan’t.

I don’t usually love a love triangle, and while this one was more of a mismatch vs perfect match, the whole season revolves around two sisters: one of whom is a self-sacrificing martyr (Kate), and one who is unaware of how deeply stupid her sister is being while she is kept in the dark by both the sister and her (eventual) fiance (her names Edwina, and the fiance is Anthony). It took way too long for the ultimate couple to get together, and the b-plot involved no other romantic couples, so the whole season had a very different tone from the first. Much less bodice-ripping, much more furtive stolen glances vibes.

I fucking looove Nicola Coughlan as Pen/Lady Whistledown. Love love love every scene of her bargaining her rates at the print shop. Obsessed with them letting her use her Irish accent. She’s so talented! It was a delight to watch her. (And she’s the best part of Derry Girls and I can’t wait for season 3 and her interviews on Graham Norton are top tier I love whenever Graham has Irish people on so muuuuch.)

Everyone in this show is truly acting their ass off at every moment, and even if not all of those moments land, what I truly appreciate about the campiness commitment of the show is it is soapy and fun the whole time! Did I start quoting Nicholas Cage in The Wicker Man during a scene that was definitely supposed to read as much sadder than my high ass would allow it to be? Yes! (But humor is obviously my #1 coping mechanism so let’s move on, shall we!)

The friendships were fun, I really wish there had been more girl bonding scenes throughout because the ones we got between the new girls and the Bridgerton bunch were SO GOOD. Honestly they nailed a lot of sibling dynamics in a new way this season, I really liked Daphne’s turn as like sister-ex-machina who comes in to observe with a smirky smirk and drop hard truths and then avoid any accountability. I didn’t ~miss~ her sexy husband because the plot was so focused on different people, but I don’t think anyone was nearly as hot as he was, and that was a real missed oppurtunity.

The things I didn’t love:

• Edwina was a super under-developed character, I think they did that to make Kate the super obvious choice, but it made the fact that he was going for the younger sister the entire season really annoying? Like she was competent but boring. It would have been a stronger plot if we as the audience liked her and rooted for her more.

• the Featherington plot, the villainy wasn’t nearly as high-stakes as it could have been, especially where their plot ended last season!!! The uncle looked like a tall Michael Cera and I couldn’t unsee it

• it took too long to resolve the love triangle, it should have never gotten to the wedding stage, everything at that point felt slightly unforgivable

  • he should not still be fighting to marry her at the wedding!! Making Edwina be the one who chooses to walk away is the easy way out writing-wise and I think it’s a lame cop-out (though I did like that they didn’t make her immediately forgive everyone)

  • I also really wanted him to find her in that closet through some soulmate connection waves

• major lack of sex scenes. I get that it was a totally different narrative, but I do wish that some side characters got it on more. The pacing of the first season was truly helped by a sex scene to spice things up and the almost-kisses did not do enough to make up for the lack of smut this time around!

• Colin. The annoying kid who just got back from the exchange program and can’t stop saying Bonjour and talking about how large portion sizes are

• basically there was a lot less romping but even more crying.

• needed more couples! wanted some fun love stories! it’s great that the original Viscount loved the shit out of his wife but I want some debutantes having drama and running away and needing to be married at once because they’re so in love or something

• if Kate’s suuuch a great rider, one I don’t think she would have asked her horse to jump in such a muddy terrain, but if she did, she totally could have sat that rear refusal. I understand that for visual purposes rears look cooler, but a horse cutting off and swerving suddenly is WAY harder to sit. Is this a stunt issue? I get why showing someone going over the neck doesn’t look as dramatic but it is 900x scarier when your momentum doesn’t stop but your horse does. Like that makes your heart and stomach feel like they’re about to come out ya butt. Way way scarier than a horse stopping and rearing. Rears are easy to sit! I apparently have chosen this molehill for my new mountain!!

• “I’m a gentleman.” No you’re fucking naaaaht shut up and kiss her!!

The things I absolutely adored:

• the TENSION. Oh my god the tension. SO GOOD. So palpable. Great chemistry and everyone was truly acting their asses off.

• Kate’s hair throughout, that nighttime braid? LOVE. Obsessed. She’s so pretty. I couldn’t get over how pretty she looked the entire season.

• the music choices were excellent, really enjoyed them

• loved the meet-cute on horseback, because I am me

• the friendship plot between Eloise and Pen and I think the betrayal was truly the best part of the whole season! I think showing how dating becoming a larger part of young women’s lives often throws their friendships out of whack and how the newness is so exciting but also creates isolation and I wanted more of that! The last scene of them is devastating and I loved it!

  • Loved that Pen got way more scenes, wanted even more, hated that Colin was a shitheel the entire season and had like no growth that was lame

• Eloise x Newsie. I was here for it the WHOLE TIME!

• Daphne smirking. Her hair remains terrible but I had fun making jokes about it, so

• Momma Bridgerton!!!! She was SO GOOD the whole season, those flashbacks were so intense, the monologue about her husband and their love were really well done and impactful and one of them even made me cryyyy

• the almost kisses were hot

• uhm the old time rules of propriety are often very annoying and silly, but whew wow boy oh boy does the use of ~given names~ really get my shit going every. single. time.

So, Overall

This show isn’t serious! It’s a romance novel on screen, it’s fun, we don’t have to think too hard about it. I don’t think any of the showrunners were trying to make grand statements about what healthy relationships look like, and that’s okay! It’s not a manual for moral or rightcheous behavior or a guidebook for how to fall in love.

It was missing the sex. When the sex scenes FINALLY happened I was truly over it and unfortunately, I think the pacing was extremely flawed in the last two episodes, they made the audience wait too long for the relationship that we all knew was the better relationship to finally happen. Like I don’t think they developed the other relationship at all enough to have people rooting for it, so it was kind of a false choice. After the fifth self-sacrifice from each of them, it got old. There is a better show waiting if they got the final couple together in episode 6 rather than in the back half of the season finale!

Do I think you should watch it? Sure! It was fun, everyone is really hot, the costumes are fun and well done, the lushness of the set design is incredible, and I really wanted a lemon cake during any of the tea scenes. I don’t think you have to watch it closely and I think anytime you start to get bored you can absolutely fast forward, but it wasn’t a bad show, I never really had a bad time while watching it.

Also, I don’t know what it is about this show, but it makes me yell at the TV like it’s a sports game. So that’s fun! I compiled a list of the things this time around:

• hell yeah!
• Go! Go! Go!
• Oh fuck offffff
• Stop flirting with her sisterrr
• Don’t you DARE ask her to marry you
• Yea! Bond through your trauma!!
• <<kathy geiss in 30 rock voice>> Kiss kiss kiss
• We’re getting chaperoneless time babeyyyy
• Yaaay! She feels a lot! don’t tell him anything!!
• NO!!! I’m going to kill him if it’s—nooooo!!!
• Wear the ring! Wear the ring!! Wear the ring!!!
• Push him in the lake! Push him in the laaaake
• Yeah! Fuck your honor! Make out!!!
• Newsie! Newsie! Do a spin! Take off your hat!
• Is this Alanis Morrisette?
• Yeah!!! Call him by his given name (my arms are fully in a victory v)
• Do not put her fucking bracelet on her you’re AT YOUR OWN WEDDING
• Fuck duties, he’s rich!
• Oh my god get away from each other stop eye fucking in front of everyone
• Naur newsie!!!
• Stop saying you kissed, you’re in public idiots.
• Nooo you’re just going to use this as an excuse to eye fuck here again
• Hell yeah! Be impure! Fuck in the gazebo!
• Not the distorted lense pov!! (This was shouted at 3:40am)
• Yaaay overprotective
• Oh Colin you’re SO stupid
• Oh shit hey, full nipple

p.s. if you want to read me losing my mind in real-time, I live tweeted my watching of it. No mention of episodes to guide any of the reactions. No thoughts, apparently, just vibes.