I’m writing this blog on the morning of 29th March, only 4 days after Bridgerton Season 2 debuted on Netflix, and after watching the entire season twice (PS. I’ve begun to watch it again for the third time).
[NB: the images below are from the internet]
Like most Bridgerton fans, the wait for this second instalment was torture. After introducing us to the sumptuously fabulous world created by author Julia Quinn and updated by producers Shonda Rhimes and Chris Van Dusen, we had to wait fifteen months for Season 2!
To say I LOVED the first season would be an understatement. After binge watching Season 1 the first time, I watched it again almost immediately and then again three weeks ago in preparation for Season 2, which came out on 25 March, 2022. To help me get my Bridgerton fix during the long wait, I bought and read the entire series in paperback—all nine books, which includes all the siblings, and the bonus one with the second epilogues for each story and Violet’s own love story.
One of the reasons the wait for Season 2 was so difficult was that Lord Anthony Bridgerton was my favourite character from Season 1. Of course, the Duke of Hastings was dreamy, but the viscount’s blend of conflicted, arseholic behaviour, sense of duty to his family, and the gorgeous Jonathan Bailey made me really look forward to how he would reach his own HEA (happily ever after). When the Season 2 trailers came out, I instantly clicked on them. And I was even more hooked. It looked brilliant, possibly even better than the first season. The fact Kate’s character has an Indian background was very exciting for me, but it made the wait for Season 2 even more unbearable. Like an addict, I actually watched the trailers many times just to get my Bridgerton fix.
Leading up to release day, I had it all planned out so that I could justify sitting in front of the TV for 8 hours. A quick search had revealed that the show would be “available from 3 a.m. EST” so I thought, I would take the kids to school, then sort out laundry, do the ironing and organise the bags of kids’ clothes for donation that had been in my garage for months. But later, I realised that the article I’d read wasn’t from Australia. In fact, the show didn’t start in Brisbane until 5 p.m. on Friday—right when we needed to get ready for my daughter’s basketball grand final.
Alas, around 9:30 p.m., with the celebratory dinner over and the kids in bed, I was finally able to sit down and watch the much-awaited Season 2 of Bridgerton—the TV version of the book, The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn. And I kept watching till the end of the last episode around 6:30 a.m. the following morning.
Please note there are some SPOILERS for Seasons 1 and 2, and the first two books ahead.
My first impressions…
Disappointment.
It’s hard to pinpoint what it was exactly but Season 2 just lacked the same opulent atmosphere as the first. Was it rushed? Did they try too hard to recapture the magic of the first season? Or was I too aware of the modern songs that didn’t seem well-disguised enough to blend with the scenes?
When it came to our main characters, Kate and Anthony’s animosity and source of conflict felt unnecessarily drawn out and their initial chemistry actually fizzles at certain points. Considering there are only eight episodes, Kate seems overly harsh on Anthony for so long that I wondered how they could believably show their love for each other in the remaining episodes. Plus, with so many subplots for the secondary characters (such as Eloise’s hunt for Lady Whistledown, Penelope trying to keep her nom de plume’s identity a secret, Mrs Featherington’s schemes to secure her family’s lifestyle, Benedict striving to be an artist, and Edwina looking for a husband), there didn’t seem to be enough time to focus on our couple of the season.
I wanted more of Kate and Anthony!
My second impressions…
My first impressions were wrong. Well, they were not entirely accurate. I actually liked Season 2 much better the second time I watched it.
I guess sitting through the series the first time from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. straight meant I didn’t have the time to appreciate all the aspects of the show. I have to admit, I was impatient for Anthony and Kate to get together. And as the clock ticked to 3 a.m. it had felt like FOR-E-VER! Plus, when I watched the first season, I hadn’t read any of the books yet so I came in with no expectations and no idea of where the story was heading. This time, I’d already read The Viscount Who Loved Me, so I knew the main points of the story and had that to compare to in my mind. In the book, Kate and Anthony get engaged after she gets stung by the bee. This happens early in Season 2 but there was no sign of our two main characters getting together for a LONG time.
Overall, I LOVED Season 2. But I still think that the main characters, Anthony and Kate don’t have enough scenes together when they actually interact, and fall in love with each other.
Differences from the book…
The “meet cute” in the Netflix version was so well done it gave me chills. Good chills. And maybe even a heart pinch at what was ahead for our two main characters. The first time the viewers, and Anthony, see Kate, she’s racing on horseback across a field. It shows her as a free-spirited, strong woman who could ride a horse arguably better than her male counterpart. When Anthony catches up to her, their chemistry is instant. I wanted MORE.
Kate’s ethnicity is one of the biggest differences from the book. It’s clever to use the British connection with India to add diversity to the story. This also allows some cultural aspects to be incorporated into the story like the use of haldi before a wedding, and the fabrics used for Kate’s clothes. The colour pallets used for Kate’s costumes were gorgeous.
The music was again a feature in the second season. However, some of the choices didn’t blend as well as the soundtrack of Season 1, and the songs that were played for dancing didn’t always match the tempo of the steps which made them even more obviously incongruous. For me, the use of modern music worked when it blended into the story. At the end of the day, the show is set in Regency England so playing the music with classical instruments is not supposed to take us out of the story.
For example, even though “Material Girl” by Madonna was an apt choice to show a ball where the women’s main goal is to find a wealthy husband, the sound just did not match the scene. The same could be said for the use of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” during an emotional (but not angry) moment between Kate and Anthony.
What I loved were “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn and “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus. These two songs worked because the pace matched the dances and the lyrics of the song (which were not sung but you knew them in your head) matched the scenes really well and even made them poignant.
The missing Duke of Hastings was big news when it was first announced. In the books, he had a very minor role in the other books as the brother-in-law of each Bridgerton who gets a turn at an HEA. As a result, his absence didn’t affect the actual plot of Season 2 very much but it would have been nice to see him in wedded bliss with Daphne. Considering how in love he is with his wife in Season 1, scenes where she visits London and Aubrey Hall by herself feel strange. It would have been nicer if Regê-Jean Page had done a cameo or two during the show. It wouldn’t have taken very much time to film.
New Characters & Subplots made Season 2 a very busy one to watch. As I mentioned before, I personally would have preferred more screen time with Anthony and Kate verbally sparring as part of their delicious foreplay. In fact, when I watched the second season again, I fast-forwarded a lot of the scenes with the other characters.
This is not to say that all the subplots were a waste of time. I enjoyed the flashbacks to Edmund Bridgerton’s death and the effect it had on his widow, Violet, and their young adult son, Anthony who suddenly finds himself head of the household. A much shorter version of Edmund’s death is covered in the book’s prologue so this expanded version was an excellent addition. It gave us an insight into Lady Bridgerton’s devastation at the loss of the love of her life with Ruth Gemmell giving a heart-wrenching performance as the grieving Violet Bridgerton. It also shows the way Anthony was forced to grow up and take on the responsibilities as the Viscount Bridgerton.
Another subplot in Season 2 is Penelope’s secret identity as Lady Whistledown. In the books, the readers do not find out who Lady Whistledown is until Book 4, Romancing Mister Bridgerton. But in the Netflix series, her identity is revealed at the end of Season 1. In Season 2, we can see Penelope actively working to keep her identity a secret. Unfortunately, while I respect her being active in her career, showing her process and deception makes her seem more scheming than in the book, and less likeable in my opinion. This subplot also allows Queen Charlotte (also not in the book) to continue her search for Lady Whistledown’s true identity.
As for Eloise, I liked that she gets involved in women’s rights. This seems like a believable arc for her character from Season 1. However, having read To Sir Phillip with Love, I wondered how the publishing house worker Theo, who is not in the books, would fit into the story. In the end, her budding relationship with him feels like a big build up that goes nowhere because despite her complaints about her lifestyle, she actually is unwilling to leave it. This made her less likeable for me. It also took away valuable screen time from the love story I really wanted to see more of—Anthony and Kate (in case I haven’t mentioned enough much I wanted to see more of them!)
What I liked and didn’t like…
Heat Level: In the writing industry, this refers to how intimate the characters get and how much of it you are shown. I have to say, after Season 1, I was all set to watch this new season only after my kids were asleep. But in reality, Season 2 doesn’t have much sexy time except for Anthony being half-dressed (okay, so this was pretty good) after nights with different partners as he picks up his clothes and leaves them money on the nightstand. If it wasn’t for Benedict’s debauchery, there would have been no sex at all till almost the end of the season. Personally, I think if the show had stayed truer to the original story of The Viscount Who Loved Me, we could have watched Kate and Anthony fall in love and lust for a greater percentage of Season 2, just like Simon and Daphne do in Season 1.
My favourite scenes between our two main characters are…well, almost whenever they have dialogue with each other. The meet cute (as mentioned above) was thrilling. The pall mall scene with the mud is so fun and funny. The sexual tension when she joins the hunt is so thick you can cut it with a knife. Even their little chat in the art gallery was electric. But time and time again, these two characters don’t actually do anything about their feelings. And after too many build-ups with nothing to show for it, and Anthony continuing to pursue Edwina and Kate rejecting him and playing the martyr, it gets a little too frustrating, especially after the first time I watched Season 2.
Finally, one of the biggest disappointments for me was that we don’t see Kate and Anthony’s wedding. After waiting and waiting for these two characters to get together, their happy ending feels rushed.
Don’t get me wrong—Bridgerton Season 2 is fabulous and it would be a dream for any of my books to be turned into a movie or TV show that is even half as good as Bridgerton, but I hope that considering Anthony and Kate share so much of their season with the other characters, the other characters will also share their seasons with this intriguing couple.
What did you think of Bridgerton Season 2? What were your favourite parts? Which parts didn’t you like? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.