In Defense Of ‘Bridgerton’ Season 2 And Why Its Slow Burn And Lack Of Sex Actually Made It Better
I’m a slow-burn girl, in a fast-paced world. Bridgerton is classic, it’s fantastic! I know, the lyrics of Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’ would be considered out of place in a review for a Regency Era series. But hey, it might show up as a waltz in… I don’t know, Season 6, perhaps? I’m just having some fun before we get into some very serious discussion about the highly awaited Season 2 of Netflix’s marquee title, Bridgerton. After a first season full of balls, hot summer promenades, string quartet covers of pop songs, and a sexy relationship between the rakish Duke Of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page) and the Diamond Of The First Water, Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), it was now time to turn our attention to the handsome Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and his attempts to find a wife. Based on the second novel in the series by author Julia Quinn, The Viscount Who Loved Me, this season introduces the British-Indian Sharma family, with their daughters Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) and Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran) catching the rakish Viscount’s eye.
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When the news of Bridgerton Season 2 adding a Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham song to its coveted album arrived, it was met with the same eagerness as Jaya Bachchan awaiting SRK’s entry in K3G. It sounded like footsteps of hope for genuine South Asian representation, mingled with tiptoes of doubt because they don’t always get it right, do they? Not that I half-expected the fate of the Patil sisters from the Yule Ball in Harry Potter to befall the Sharma sisters. Yet, I knew that no matter how hard creator Chris Van Dusen and his team tried, there would be something that displeased someone somewhere. Maybe the haldi scene that we caught a glimpse of in the trailer wouldn’t be done right? Maybe the Sharmas would have a bothersome accent. Or maybe, they’d make a boo-boo by messing up the Bollywood song rendition. Rest assured the latter was perfectly done.
I was actually mildly impressed by just how much better Bridgerton did than my expectations. You’d say, oh the bar is already set so low. But I’d like to think there was genuine progress here. To begin with, I LOVED the bright, jewelled tones that Kate Sharma wore all through the season. They looked lovely on Simone Ashley, and made her this imposing figure at balls, amidst the European pale pastels. There’s a peacock green shawl she wears over her white nightgown in a scene after the first ball that I absolutely adore. Even the jewellery sported by the Sharma sisters had touches of Indian in it. The styling of characters on Bridgerton speaks so much—the Bridgerton, for example, have dainty, but exquisite jewellery that looks expensive. The Featherington ladies don the flashiest, most flamboyant colours in their jewels, but something tells me they’re al not worth that much. It’s just a show. As for the Sharmas, their accessories were minimal, but rooted in their culture.
https://youtu.be/qYNCws-a6CQ
Kate’s first word, an exclamation upon being surprised, was in Hindi. Admittedly, not very clearly spelt out, I guess Netflix still needs to work on that bit, if they are to have Kate speak more ‘Hindustani’ in Season 3 (yes, it’s confirmed, haven’t you heard?). Not to mention, that excellent disdain she has for the bland English tea and the side of masala sass she serves on the side when talking to the formidable Lady Danbury made me chuckle! I’ve seen my own father lug along packets of Indian masala tea when travelling abroad, generously handing it out to Indian service staff he meets in flights, hotels, or stores, as a way of making friends. Chai is important to Indians, and it was a nice flavour to add to this mix.I’d also like to think that Kate’s gumption (Oh, how I love this word after it was used for another Kate, in another beloved movie) was a result of her being raised in India, which made her different from all the other girls in the ton, and so much more loyal to her family. I’m sure the sacrificial nature of the eldest daughter is also recognised and acknowledged by other elder daughters of Indian households, who’ve learnt to mostly give and rarely take.
So you see, I was basically content and happy, until I went on Twitter (This should be an apt logline for any Twitter browsing) and saw people criticising the confusion around the Sharma girls calling their parents Amma and Appa, Edwina being fluent in Marathi, and the last name Sharma being predominantly a North Indian one. In my head, I worked out answers for those, because I would let nothing ruin my love for this slow burn romance that I was growing to love. The Sharma patriarch would’ve been a North Indian, who married a South Indian woman, Kate’s mother. Kate, née Kathani, could’ve grown up learning to call her mother ‘Amma’, and correspondingly her father ‘Appa’.
And then her mother died, her father remarried Miss Mary Sheffield, who as she says “loved Kate from the day she met her.” To ease her into their relationship, Kate continued calling her step-mother as Amma, and when Edwina was born, so did she. After all, Edwina learnt everything from her half-sister, didn’t she? But Edwina called Kate ‘Didi’ because maybe that was what her father and mother taught her. As for the Marathi, they were living in Bombay, weren’t they? Why is it so surprising? But actually, I get people’s surprise. My own coworkers and friend are surprised to hear me converse in fluent Marathi. Why wouldn’t I pick up the language of the state I live and conduct business in?
Oh, and Kate calling her sister ‘bon’, I instantly assumed was a French colloquial term of endearment, meaning ‘beautiful’, ‘lovely’, ‘sweet’, or ‘pretty’. She was Edwina’s French teacher, and the girls are likely to have conversed in the language often to avoid getting rusty.
So that’s settled then? The Sharma kids are all right? What’s next on the list?
Ah, of course, the lack of sex.
https://twitter.com/swaying_daisies/status/1509629515437387788?s=20&t=p27c9r_q4aUNLv3pedv9Mg
I get it. I don’t think it was until I saw another book adaptation series, Outlander, that I understood just how important sex scenes can be in making you root for a couple. Not just for the hot chemistry, but also how they’re choreographed to show us the couple come together in those moments of unbridled passion where all inhibitions are shed, and their love and need for each other transmuted into its purest form. Especially, as an Indian, I feel like we need more sex positivity on screen, and not just for titillation, but like it is used in Outlander, as a storytelling device that evolves just as the characters do. Indian society would have you believe sexual compatibility is unimportant, but the more we see it on screen, the more young people can comprehend just how incredible it is to be with someone who can make you feel that way and how not having that with a partner is a legitimate excuse to want to end things.
Also, sex scenes that our done with an intimacy director around and with a female gaze? SO IMPORTANT! And finally, because… well, because sex is fucking fun, isn’t it?
PEOPLE DIED #kanthony #Bridgerton pic.twitter.com/yh830RFF5f
— kristen 🫶 richonne town, usa (@swaying_daisies) March 27, 2022
So YES, I was surprised, by the lack of sex, like I could’ve used more of it. Even in Season 1, my roving eyes couldn’t get enough of the Lord Viscount Bridgerton (who for some reason just reminds me of a young Shashi Kapoor!?). Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley have crazy hot chemistry. Have you seen the man smile at her when she tells him she finds his smile pleasing? The way he sniffs the air and her perfume in it as she passes by? Or when she shoots long, lingering glances at him as he is dancing at the ball with her sister, that forbidden fruit she’d so like to taste herself? The bee scene made my heart beat fast, it was so good!
The bee scene, if I have pieced together correctly from my escapades down Twitter’s #Kathony rabbit role, is massively altered from the books. You see, in the books, this is the point where Kate and Anthony are spotted, unchaperoned and forced into marriage, much earlier in the book! What’s more, their relationship isn’t exactly this slow burn in the books, even the kiss between them comes way earlier. And perhaps, the second biggest change is in the character arc for Edwina Sharma, who in the books has zero feelings for the handsome Viscount! No love triangle, dearest gentle reader, and no drama between the Sharma sisters that would need Kate to feel guilty about wanting Anthony. In fact, in the books, Anthony doesn’t want a love match for a very different, more sombre reason. But it is not until Kate’s accident, which is not as bad as it is in the show, that he realises how much he loves his wife.
he loves kate SO much 🥺 #Kanthony #Bridgerton pic.twitter.com/jgRquOCTp6
— kristen 🫶 richonne town, usa (@swaying_daisies) March 30, 2022
Clearly, there are changes aplenty in the plot of the book for the series. But more importantly, what I also see is that the characters in the show landed wherever they did because of their own actions and choices as opposed to the devices of some societal norm that forced them together. Kate and Anthony chose to get married instead of being forced into marriage. Yes, there are too many obstacles that stop them from getting together for almost the entire season. But that’s what makes their falling in love, not an inevitability of being pushed together but a choice. The scene when Anthony breaks down upon hearing Kate is awake from her accident broke me too. Anthony Bridgerton, always in control of his emotions and determined to not fall in love, was helpless and his walls came crashing down! That was beautiful. And the eventual sex scene in the garden tasted like… strawberries on a summer evening. Kate and Anthony belong out in the open, in the wild. You’ll notice that’s just how often their true selves come out and play when they’re outside. And finally, that adorable little romp in bed at the end of the season! Ah, satisfaction!
simone ashley and jonathan bailey chemistry is unmatched #bridgerton pic.twitter.com/oPgmB4w0rQ
— elle (@myspideyswift) March 31, 2022
So yes, maybe some of the hot Kathony sex we could’ve gotten is lost in translation. It surely has some book fans disappointed too, and I, for one, have plans to read them to do justice to this side of the argument soon. However, I love slow burn because it is just so much more rewarding, whether it is the almost-kisses or Anthony being unable to control his loverly smile around Kate! More, now that we know we get to see more of them being unbearably in love in Season 3. In the course of watching the show, the slow burn to me felt like just another ode to the South Asian heritage of the Sharma sissies, mainly Bollywood tropes. Bollywood is the queen of slow-burn love stories, my lovelies! And Bridgerton Season 2 is nothing if not authentic and well researched. I’d bet all my quills that while they may have chosen the song from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, they picked some plot devices from Mujhse Dosti Karoge!
Take, for example, the fact that Kate moulded Edwina in exactly her image, and it is why Anthony was impressed with Edwina in the first place. He found her sensible! Much like Pooja wrote all those letters pretending to be Tina, but it was really her all along that Raj fell in love with. And the whole, “No, you have to marry my sister, because she loves you, and I am going to do the big sacrifice!” bit? Classic Indian drama! The final bell rang for me upon the bangle scene, first between Edwina and Kate and then at the altar, between Kate and Anthony. And if you needed further proof, #Kathony didn’t get sexy time until after the betrothal between Edwina and Anthony had been officially called off, because ‘sanskaar”!
The fact that Edwina’s veil is literally separating Kate and Anthony is poetic cinema at its finest ✨ #Bridgerton #bridgertonS2 https://t.co/XEBshUOLSM
— Jena ✰ (@capxluci) March 27, 2022
The biggest gainer here had to be Edwina Sharma, who got a more fleshed-out character than just the heroine’s sister. To borrow again from Bollywood, she could’ve been the Rani Mukerji from K3G, just a marriage proposal that got swiped left on because SRK had to marry Kajol in a rushed manner. Instead, Edwina got to be Kareena Kapoor, a third lead, who chose to step away from a handsome marriage prospect because she realised she deserved better. And that slaps, no? I thought Charithra Charan was amazing as Edwina, and if her interviews are any indication, I’m glad she fought for her character to be more than what was in the books. And one of my favourite moments of the show will have to be when Edwina says, “Was I really that blind?” When I tell you a snorted loudly!
This will NEVER not be funny to me 🤣😂 #Bridgerton #Kanthony pic.twitter.com/i8fFdXD23p
— Crystal 🐝 | Fan Account (@Kathony1814) March 26, 2022
Bridgerton Season 2 takes some classic rom-com tropes, like enemies-to-lovers, and subverts them to create something much, much better. Edwina mocking her own blindness is one of them. The other is filling up all those slow-burn scenes between the characters with brilliant dialogue that deepens their love for each other and furthers our understanding of just how and why they fall for each other so irrevocably. When Anthony Bridgerton says, “You’re the bane of my existence and the object of all my desires,” you burn for him because he channels a Mr. Darcy who could both insult you and ask for your hand in marriage in one single sentence. And that’s all hot, but then you have the same man say, “I’m imperfect, but I will humble myself before you because I cannot imagine a life without you in it,” and you realise that’s not something a Bollywood movie has ever been able to put forth in dialogue so effectively. In particular, I love the scenes between Anthony and his mother, and Kate and her’s. They explore the deep-rooted barriers in their minds that keep them from letting love in and choosing happiness for themselves.
SOULMATE-ISM #Kanthony #Bridgerton pic.twitter.com/7ZrKMfZHMB
— kristen 🫶 richonne town, usa (@swaying_daisies) April 1, 2022
I think I most certainly may have cried when Lady Bridgerton speaks about losing the love of her life and it becoming difficult to breathe, because for a moment there, I could feel Anthony’s fear. Imagine loving someone so much and them losing them? Or worse, the knowledge that when someone who loves you that much loses you, they’ll be broken beyond repair. But it’s not just the serious scenes that do all the heavy lifting. Every time the Sharma and Bridgerton families were together, whether playing Pall Mall or dancing together without a care in the world, my heart filled with joy. There’s a lot about these characters’ pasts and motivations that has been altered for the screen, but from what I see, it has only made Kate and Anthony’s love story stronger, and more believable. And I love it because it elevates the show’s appeal to more than just a period drama with hot sex.
Sex scenes are great, indeed, but it’s the almost touch, the almost kiss, the longing stares that gets me every time.
Slow burn will always be my weakness #Bridgerton #Kanthony https://t.co/tvKFWmAemf— Lisa • (@lisabiasio) March 28, 2022
Also, I’d hate to think that shows like these, catering to a largely female demographic, are reduced to something that is just sex and no substance.
Also season 2 of Bridgerton is the epitome of what people mean when they say female gaze #Bridgerton #Kanthony pic.twitter.com/CbdNojsbO8
— alicia (@akd278) March 29, 2022
It would be criminal of me to not pay my due respects to the other important characters for the season, Lady Portia Featherington, played by the brilliant Polly Walker, who had a surprising arc this season. And of course, Eloise Bridgerton, who gets some of the best dialogues on the show. I loved the little crumbles of Eloise and Kate friendship that were sprinkled in the season, but I cannot wait for them, now sisters, to really go all out and sass the Bridgerton brothers, particularly ganging up against Anthony! And if Eloise and Theo, already a cute couple, continue, I’d love to see what the Viscountess has to say about this relationship! Besides, Kate is a feminist heroine through and through, and she’d be such a great influence on Eloise. And Penelope, wow, where’s that going to go in Season 3? I am excited already!
To conclude this slow-burn of an essay, dearest gentle reader, I implore you once again to forgive Bridgerton Season 2 its follies. For even in its fallacious endeavours, it manages to outshine its previous season in creating multi-dimensional characters and a love story that is beautifully layered, so much so that it takes time to peel off each layer to get to the sweet spot. And that makes it a proper respectable newspaper with substance, as opposed to a tabloid that sensationalises sex and is merely a scandal sheet!
Kate and Anthony passionately kissing for 22 seconds with the sunshine on them, and free from the burden of duties and hiding their feelings, basking in their promises love supremacy#bridgerton #kanthony pic.twitter.com/esabDBwLrE
— 🐝Promenading Anthony’s Pinnacle🐝 (@chaoticguitar) March 31, 2022
Bridgerton Season 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.
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