Dearest Readers, Bridgerton is Back
Season one of the Netflix hit show was like capturing lightning in a bottle, streamed by a whopping 82-million member accounts. Can lightening strike twice? Niamh O’Reilly says yes, but expect a storm of a very different kind.
Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Featherington
Bridgerton season two has some big shoes to fill. The first season’s numbers were the biggest in the streaming giant’s history and with plenty of source material to work with from the Julia Quinn novels, upon which the show was based, it was a no-brainer to greenlight seasons two, three and four. Bridgeton’s debut season had many things going for it. It burst onto our screens at the end of December 2020 and with most of us in lockdown in January 2021, it did have something of a captive audience. The other thing? Well, the sex. It was a racy, riotous romp through Regency London and it seemed to strike a chord we all needed, er… striking.
Season two has brought with it a drastic change of pace, however. It’s a slow build. A very slow build, What would the ‘ton make of it? Lady Whistledown impressions aside, this time out Bridgerton shares much more DNA with the likes of classic Austen, rather than the racier escapades we enjoyed the first season
But is that such a bad thing? Not at all. As in life, sometimes slower is better.
Based on the fan favourite of the Julia Quinn novels, The Viscount Who Loved Me, this series picks up soon after the first, shifting its focus away from new parents the Duke and Duchess of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor) and onto Lord Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey). The eldest Bridgerton sibling and Viscount decides this is the social season where he will finally choose a wife. Driven solely by his duty to his family and still haunted by the untimely death of his father, he aims to simply find a wife who will fill a role, rather than his heart. His search seems fruitless until the Sharma’s arrive from India, in the form of Kate (Simone Ashley) and her younger sister Edwina (Charithra Chandran), as well as their mother Lady Mary Sharma (Shelley Conn), who are wards of the mighty Lady Danburry (Adjoa Andoh) who steals every scene she’s in once again.
Kate and the Viscount take an instant dislike to one another, while this seasons ‘diamond’ Edwina looks poised to be paired together with this very eligible bachelor. Sparks fly between Kate and Anthony, and you can probably guess where it’s going right from the off, but it doesn’t get there quite how you’d expect it to. Unlike the relationship between Phoebe Bridgerton and the Duke of Hastings (who is sorely missed in this season by the way, Shonda Rimes), the central relationship is this time more about the slow burn.
It’s in the looks, the gestures, the small brushes of fingertips. You can literally feel the longing jump off the screen.
We even get our very own Colin Firth/ Mr Darcy inspired wet shirt scene with Lord Anthony Bridgerton. The enemies to lover’s trope is well established for a reason. The story brings us a sizzling scene of anticipation and a fairly good pay off towards the end. But you do have to wait for it.
The supporting cast are superb once again, with our own Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington, taking even more of a central role, with a much deeper complexity to her character on show. One of the real secrets to Bridgerton's continuing success, is that it runs like an anthology series, with a different member of the Bridgeton clan taking centre stage for each season and with it a different tone to suit the character. It’s a winning formula and while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, I did binge it and utterly enjoyed every moment of it.
Bridgerton season two is streaming on Netflix now.
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