Bridgerton- what’s all the hubbub?

First of all I loved Bridgerton the tv show, as a fan of the bodice ripping romance Victorian era genre, I was on board. I didn’t binge, I took my time, enjoyed the orchestral versions of popular songs and the subtle mystery behind Lady Whistledown (although I totally called it earlier on, I still enjoyed the reveal)

Spoilers for the first season ahead: You’ve been warned.

What is an easy premise- one done to death sometimes- the jovial rake (the man slut) who is far from poor, falls for the virginal lady who just debuted in high society. Now before you go roll your eyes and bang pots about how drivel this is, I want to remind you I’m not watching Bridgerton for a deep engrossing, thought provoking experience on class, social injustice, feminism. I’m watching it because the hot guy wants the hot girl and they are wearing Victorian fashion! This is exactly what I signed up for and for all it’s faults it still manages to be entertaining despite the cliches and stereotypes. The characters are layered, their views challenged by each other and society.

For a fluffy romance bodice ripper, this show was unafraid to go dark. Simon Basset, our dashing hero, grew up in lavish lifestyle with a father that pretended he was dead rather then deal with his stutter. Thus making our hero vow never to have children on his fathers deathbed. Then we have Daphne Bridgerton, the queens “Diamond” of the season who turned into someone no bachelor will set their cap on when her brother started ruining all her prospects. To recap we have Simon vowing never to marry and you have Daphne who desperately wants to marry. And then we have them strike a deal. Simon starts to “court” dear Daphne, she becomes irresistible to bachelors again, and Simon gets a little freedom from hopeful mothers tossing their daughters at him (if only they knew).

I mean these two were definitely going to fall in love but I still enjoyed the ride and these were the main characters. I’m not going in depth about what happened to the secondary characters. The queen, the mothers of the families, their offspring, Daphne’s older brother, Simon’s best friend boxer. It’s a season chalked full of characters that were intriguing- specifically Lady Whistledown.

Hello Lady Whistledown- long may you write and cause CHAOS!

Oh I’m going to talk about Lady Whistledown. Penelope was my favorite character. She was neither ‘stunning’ nor did she pretend to be. Her life was going to be a series of endless balls where she was overlooked. She was crushing on her best friends older brother and she was resigned to a fate full of bright, colorful dresses, that did nothing to highlight her beauty.

Simply put Penelope was screwed.

And it was about to get much worse. Her distant cousin Marina, who gobbled up attention by the spoonful, was preggers by her true love before he went off to war. So Penelope tries to help her track him down all the while escape these older men looking for a hot young wife. Unfortunately Penelope’s crush ends up being the target of Marina and her mother putting Penelope dab smack in the middle horribly distressed. In a human fit of frustration she leaks the story to the masses ensuring Marina will be dumped and shunned by the ton. This will drive her crush off to Europe to travel, reaping what she sowed. Her father ends up dead, the family fortune gambled away and in the end all Penelope has is Lady Whistledown and the threat of execution looming over her head should the queen ever get her hands on her. She does however have the secret Whistledown funds, and a rather sharp eye for observation. I hold out hope, that although she’s leaving London, she’ll be back and chaos will follow in her steps. Because let’s be frank, as sweet, compassionate and kind as she was, she made a queen want to chop off her head because her column was cut throat hot gossip. Damn girl I wish the series was about you sometimes.

Does this look lie a woman who can take smack talk?

Despite all this love I have for the show there are few things to be weary of when watching. This isn’t a cut to black romance scene type of show. This is a Spartacus NC17 WOW did they DO THAT on television. The sex scenes here are not for the prudish at heart. Some times I wondered if porn hub suddenly took over my screen- I was two episodes in before I recommended to my mother only to hit the sex scenes and wish I hadn’t.

Then there’s Marina, despite being super interesting in the beginning goes no where fast until she’s trying to hook Penelope’s crush. I skipped a lot of her scenes the second time I viewed this show because frankly it’s boring. It’s a repeat of “help Penelope”, “I’m pregnant and he might be dead”, to “I won’t marry him” and back around again. I liked the actress she just had a terrible story line handed to her and it never let her break out of it. Also I seriously doubt the friendship between Penelope and Marina, I mean these two do some really terrible stuff to each other and at the end act as friends which made no sense to me.

Then there’s Daphne.

Who may or may not have raped her husband in a effort to find out if he was incapable of having children or just didn’t want to. The way they frame it in the show was cruel on her part although he did not clearly explain the issue. I was bewildered that Daphne would force Simon to climax in her body when clearly had gone out of his way not too. I would argue a simple conversation with her would clear the issue up and skip this unpleasantness (although how else would the writers milk the melodrama). You could argue that he didn’t say no repeatedly or be clear about it, but he did protest. That’s all it takes is one little “stop” or “no” or “wait” and the whole dog and pony show is over. If one partner in the sex session is even the slightest bit uncomfortable- this goes for men too- then it’s not a thing that happens anymore. Doesn’t matter if he climaxed, if there was a hint of ‘no I don’t want this’, that makes our heroine a rapist despite the pleasure he might have shown or enjoyed after his protest. It’s a really bad scene and I felt bad for everyone who had to shoot it.

Daphne’s not the first to do so in the romance genre that’s rife with “oh my god your drunk but totally irresistible and even though I’m a virgin I’m tots into it!” Do cool people still say tots? Anyway: you see my point. Far too often our blushing virgins (because they are nearly always unspoiled goods) get hot and bothered in situations where the man won’t remember the sex because of: drinking, severe cold or flue, or he gets amnesia. NONE of this is cool people!

Anyway rant over. Despite this issue, I still liked the couple and was rooting for them to patch up after what happened. However Daphne never apologizes for what she did and worse yet Simon never brings it up, and their tidy ending it a little ridiculous but the series had to end sometime and we were out of episodes.

I still liked the story and I look forward to season 2. If Emily in Paris can get a season 2, Bridgerton totally does.

What did you think? Let me know in the comments.