The second season of Bridgerton has now ranked as Netflix’s most watched English-speaking series, surpassing its first season — and rightfully so.
Like any other dysfunctional fanatic, I binged the entire show in one sitting when it premiered. It’s been four weeks since, and I’m still not ready to move on from the ton.
The love story of Lord Anthony Bridgerton, (Jonathon Bailey), and Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley)is an angst-filled enemies-to-lovers masterpiece with over eight hours worth of thinly veiled sexual tension. As expected, it left me feeling wholly unsatisfied with mundane relationships and fashion … but not society.
It is Anthony’s sister Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie) who steals both the screen and my heart.
The second eldest daughter of the family, Eloise is scandalous in the eyes of the ton which she so fiercely despises. Her intelligence, quick wit and want of independence in a time when it is frowned upon has been tastefully curated by the show’s writers.
While I’d love to be told I’m the bane of someone’s existence and the object of all their desires, I’ll manage without the ridiculous expectations forced upon women.
Co-steering the television adaptation is the Bridgerton novelist Julia Quinn, who has altered characters and plotlines, Eloise being one. This season we see her reluctant debut into the marriage market, and the new discoveries she struggles with, including unfamiliar feelings for a certain printer’s apprentice.
Oh, and the fact that her best friend is Lady Whistledown.
With new paths paved, I’m hoping that our “emerald of the season” is given a deserving storyline … infinitely more than her disappointing book which I’m choosing to ignore.
Eloise Bridgerton was made for more than just marriage and making babies, and I will gladly sit on this hill until my last dying breath.