Bridgerton 2 will arrive on March 25 2022 on Netflix. This is the second season of the beloved series made by Shondaland, production house founded by Shonda Lynn Rhimes already creator of famous series such as Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal And Station 19. Bridgerton (of which we had already reviewed the first season) is taken from the saga of historical-sentimental novels written by Julia Quinnan author who in her long career has written over 30 novels and has been included among the top 16 writers in Romance Writers Hall of Fame. In particular this second season is based entirely on the second novel titled The Viscount who loved me (which you can buy on Amazon) and the main themes are therefore love, romance, but also scandals, dramas, intrigues and disappointments.
Bridgerton 2: a great love, but many intertwining
Bridgerton 2 follows the vicissitudes of the Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), the eldest son of the homonymous family and his head of the family after the death of his father, in his search for a perfect wife who can meet his standards and can also take the place of his mother in managing the house. The research, however, will immediately take unexpectedly complex turns due to the arrival, from India, of the sisters Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) ed Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran). During the season of courtship announced by the Queen of England, Anthony finds himself in the middle of two fires: on the one hand the character of safeguarding the honor of the family by courting the Diamond of the Season Edwina, on the other hand, the love for her sister Kate who does everything to oppose their union. The initial verbal and physical skirmishes between the two only bring them closer and closer, making things worse for both of them and for the entire London aristocratic society. However, there are not only the Bridgertons in this story, but also the Featherington who find themselves welcoming their new heir, after the death of Lord Featherington, and with Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) who must be able to move wisely in the salons of high society trying to hide his alter ego of Lady Whistledown even in front of friends and relatives.
True love or marriage of convenience?
Bridgerton 2, then, he places a magnifying glass again on London high society showing its strengths, weaknesses and secrets, but this time he is interested in the life of a man who too soon finds himself in the role of Viscount of one of the richest and most powerful families in London. Anthony is portrayed as a strong person only externally, as he harbors numerous traumas and complexes within him that he does not want to show externally for the sake of the family and the good name of the same. Unlike the sisters (this season it’s up to Eloise played by actress Claudia Jessie), him he is not forced to make his debut in society so that he can find a wife who can raise his dowry and social level. Being a male he already has a fixed place in society and therefore also the freedom to choose when and with whom to marry, but it is precisely the approach of an age that is too adult for the time (we are always in a revisited age of the Regency, or the 1910s) which pushes him to hurry up to ensure that the dynasty can continue.
Again we find ourselves observing one of the topos older than the romantic narrative: the classic plot of true love and a relationship of convenience. Anthony wants to appear perfect in front of the other high society families at all costs and can not help but put aside his real feelings both for not suffering, as happened to him and his mother during the death of their father, and for do not appear weak. Also in this case there is an element of confusion given by the no longer mysterious, at least for the viewer, Lady Whistledown, however the real turmoil comes from Anthony’s heart when he meets Miss Kate. True love or good family name? Kate, in fact, comes from a family that, precisely by virtue of real love, refused the noble rank after her mother married an unknown Indian cashier and Kate, among other things, is the daughter of a previous marriage of the man. The sister, on the other hand, is the only way that the mother has to be able to re-enter the London high society. In short, scandals are around the corner and certainly the various characters present in this drama are not always of great help because, in turn, they have to deal with their own interests.
Lots of pomp and great care
Shonda Rhimes again played a very painstaking work in the realization of the costumes and settings of the London of the time. Visually everything is sublime and a real feast for the eyes, also thanks to a perfect use of the camera that expertly accentuates the close-ups and the opulent and magnificent environments. At the same time Rhimes performs a very bold step showing an aristocratic society totally different from that narrated in the history books. In fact, already from the first season Bridgerton it made us understand how the creator’s will is to overturn our expectations on the era in which the work is set. Also in this second season Shonda Rhimes has skilfully defended herself from the risk of falling into dangerous and destructive contradictions, continuing to show us an ideal reality where the skin colour it does not represent a problem in choosing a wife or in progress in society, where the women do not yet enjoy the same rights as men, but who repeatedly manage to be the tip of the balance in decisions, even the most painful ones, and want a future that is not only characterized by marriage, raising children and being a sort of rib of man. Above all we can also observe a reality where people are fighting for the marriagewhich has become a mechanism for stipulating economic, hierarchical and political strategies, can become the real loving and religious union that it deserves, even between different social classes.
In this regard, in this new season the scandals are not only linked to Anthony, but we observe an increasingly strong will to Eloise to break the patterns imposed by the mother and by society. She begins to fight for her nonconformist and feminist ideologies and with the excuse of investigating Lady Whistledown’s true identity she also begins to take part in some revolutionary meetings between the locals of the lower class and to make acquaintances that are anything but legitimate for a woman aristocratic. The cast it is again enchanting, both as regards the main protagonists and for the surrounding characters who are not even overshadowed too much. The episodes are always eight and quite long which allows to effectively characterize each individual character, also and above all the new entries, showing their dramas, weaknesses, secrets and joys.
This applies to every single element present in the story even outside the Bridgertons, such as the Featherington, of which we begin to build a rather worrying picture linked to their various skeletons in the closet. Even in a few minutes it is possible to observe the personal and corporate status of each character so that the viewer can perfectly understand their psychology and their background. Among other things, in this new season the author preferred to give more space to discussions, internal monologues and sentimentality, partially setting aside the great eroticism that had characterized the first season, not always positively. All in all, net of some sporadic clichés, Bridgerton 2 it is more mature, truer and bolder, in short, a real delight.
Conclusions
If the keyword of the first season of Bridgerton was “simplicity”, that of the second season is “Audacity”. Unexpectedly, the new production becomes more mature, engaging, serious and moves away from classic clichés that could have made the story weak or uninteresting. There are various stories that intertwine besides the main one, and they are all intriguing because they show inner struggles, weaknesses, vices and the desire for escape hidden from masks destined to break for the sake of their ideals and feelings. The second season of Bridgertontherefore, it remains elegant, sumptuous, picturesque and brilliant, but allows the viewer to get excited, to have fun, to reflect and to dream. The bar goes up waiting for the third season which will arrive, alas, in 2024!
