Bridgerton 2 works (even without duke, and with much less sex)

When Lady Whistledown’s voiceover opens the first episode of the second season of Bridgerton asking “Did you miss me?”, as if she were a Gossip Girl from the Recency Era, the answer seems obvious: yes, definitely yes. The series produced by Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers and showrunner Chris Van Dusen, and inspired by the novels of Julia Quinn, was in fact seen by 82 million viewers in its first 28 days. A record for Netflix, surpassed last summer only by Squid Game. It is easy to imagine, therefore, how much the expectations around this second season – which debuts on the platform from 25 March – are very, very tall.

And let’s say immediately: the events of the Bridgerton family do not disappoint, even if the differences with the first lucky season are not few. Let’s start with the most “spicy”: there is much less sex (at least in the first six episodes available in preview). There is no Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), nor a “spoon” scene. At the center of the scene, however, there is always a love story, which here becomes a long, very long courtship, exchanges of glances and cutting jokes, between the firstborn Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) e Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley), a mysterious girl who came to London from India. Anthony, a convinced libertine, must find a wife (much more for the welfare of the family than for love, banished by her choice), while Kate – an exuberant 26-year-old “spinster” – has arrived in town to “fix” her younger sister well , Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandra), elected “diamond of the season” by Queen Charlotte.

The triangle so it served, and is enough to keep the attention episode after episode. “The plot is a crescendo of desire, tension, able to keep you always in suspense “, tell the cast members during the presentation press conference. «Kate and Edwina are, in their own way, struggling with a test of survival, they must collapse, to be reborn. Each brings out the best in the other, ”says Simone Ashley.

“Like Anthony, I come from a large family,” continues Bailey, “And I understand what it means to have to do with responsibility. A dimension that my character and Simone’s have in common. It is as if we exist as a function of others. We find ourselves thinking about what it means to love, to find a soul mate, we share the fact that we had to get up after a trauma “.

However, it is always the one who pulls the strings Lady Whistledown, the mysterious author of the scandalous gossip that animates the British nobility. Her identity was revealed to us at the end of the first season: it’s about Penelope Featherington (Nichola Coughlan), still secretly crushed by Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton). To debut in society this time, after Daphne, is feminist sister Eloise. And yes, the costumes and set design are still a dream. In short, courtship deserves. Even without a duke (and without a spoon).