The overt comparisons being made between Bridgerton and Gossip Girl are most certainly not without their validity. For Julie Andrews narrating as Lady Whistledown regarding the sordid events of the “ton” (that’s bourgeois for “high society”) in London is very like Kristen Bell as Gossip Girl narrating of the petty trifles regarding the Upper East Side teens of rich cunts. Except Bridgerton has the virtue of projecting more diversity at a time deemed “whites only” than a time in the twenty-first century in one of the supposedly “most diverse” cities in the world.
And how does one manage such a feat? Well, when they are super-producer Shonda Rhimes, who has made it clear that it’s “Shondaland” and we’re just living in it. Famously declared in a 2015 Ms. article as being responsible for “Making TV Look Like the Rest of the World” (a far better claim to fame than “Make America Great Again”), Rhimes lives up to her reputation with her latest series. Based on the Bridgerton novels by Julia Quinn, published in 2000 (two years before the Gossip Girl book series), the material for the first season is borrowed primarily from the first book, The Duke and I (the title, in fact, of episode five). Rhimes’ co-creator, Chris Van Dusen (who also worked on Shonda shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal), brings the narrative to life in the lush, vibrant era of Regency London.
Filmed primarily in Yorkshire, Bath and London, we’re quickly transported to a magical time before Brexit (which, scratch that, if you think about it, this was sort of Britain in its original “Brexited state”), when all that mattered was that a perfect “match” be made among those of the moneyed classes. What’s changed, really, you might ask? Well, the fact that virtually every move a person made back then, most especially a woman, was condemnable–viewed as potentially “scandalous.” In many respects, this was the crux of any Jane Austen novel–and yet we must admit that Julia Quinn is not that, even if The New York Times has billed her as “Truly our contemporary Jane Austen.” Granted, that is very much the style she is emulating… intermixed with the major influences on her early years, the Sweet Valley High and Sweet Dreams book series.
Considering these very white templates, it’s no wonder Rhimes and Van Dusen were behind the decision to cast some of the lead characters with Black actors. One didn’t really think Simon Arthur Henry Fitzranulph Basset–“the baby who possessed more names than any baby could possibly need”–was originally a Black duke, now did they? In doing so, Rhimes has drawn a mix of praise and backlash, with those “against” the move essentially stating that if the show was going to do it, they should have done it with more depth than a few lines of dialogue (addressing the revisionist history plot point that made Queen Charlotte the Black wife of King George III, notoriously fraught with dementia at the end of his life). And then there is the problematic notion of making Simon a.k.a. the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page) something of the white girl fantasy of being an appetitive sex god capable of delivering on all her wildest imaginings about pleasure.
Still, for the creators of the show, the idea of Queen Charlotte (played by Golda Rosheuvel) completely altering the bloodline was what propelled this deviation from the book series. Speaking to Collider, Van Dusen noted, “It’s something that really resonated with me, because it made me wonder what could that have really looked like. And what would have happened? What could she have done? Could the queen have elevated other people of color in society and granted them titles and lands and dukedoms? That’s really how our Simon Bassett, our Duke of Hastings, came to be. We get to explore it in a really interesting way. And it goes to the idea of what the show does is—we’re marrying history and fantasy in a really exciting, fascinating way.” And so, a more representative of the world than Gossip Girl TV show was born.
While the parallels to Bridgerton and Gossip Girl are bandied most primarily due to an unidentified gossip monger unveiling all the “ton’s” secrets, to be fair, scandal sheets and anonymous gossip columns were around in 1800s London long before any Perez Hilton-inspired online rag of the 00s. And of course, London was always going to be ahead of the curve on anything New York–what with being its progenitor and all, the very place that the latter stole all of its neighborhood names and infrastructure ideas from. New York’s architect, Robert Moses, after all, was quite the proponent of British bourgeois bullshit, having written a thesis “at university” about why the commonwealths a.k.a. colonies of Britain were not capable of managing themselves independently of Britain.
Rhimes, who lest one forgets, has a storied history in film as well as television, wrote the script for Crossroads starring Britney Spears, in addition to The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Thus, It was in 2004 that Rhimes was acquainted with Julie Andrews, seemingly destined to do the voiceover for Bridgerton. And what an introduction she makes in episode one, “Diamond of the First Water,” commencing with, “Of all bitches dead or alive, a scribbling woman is the most canine. If that should be true, then this author would like to show you her teeth. My name is Lady Whistledown. You do not know me and, rest assured, you never shall. But be forewarned, dear reader, I certainly know you.”
The first episode also establishes another unique flourish that separates itself from Quinn’s books in that the show is capable of letting us hear the music being played. Wanting to put another modern twist on the storyline, a string arrangement of Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next” plays at Danbury House as Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor, sort of a cross between Audrey Hepburn, Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson) walks in for the opening of the “season.” As in, it’s literally “open season” on any virginal woman of a certain age and standing in London, as suitors approach them for a potential courtship.
The following morning in the Bridgerton drawing room, Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B’s “Girls Like You” plays as Daphne waits for a roster of suitors to show up, many of them having been scared away by her older brother, Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey). Clearly, she is already struggling with securing the interest of a wide enough range of men as a result of her brother’s quick to dismiss attitude. It unfortunately leaves the door wide open for gross old Lord Nigel Berbrooke (Jamie Beamish). He seems to be the only one willing to approach “the creature” without fear, encouraged all the more by Anthony, who seems to think it would be a great match, and that Nigel is a man of “great character.”
Daphne claps back at her brother/patriarchal figure (what with their father being dead) as they ride horses, “You have know idea what it is to be a woman. What it might feel like to have one’s entire life reduced to a single moment. This is all I have been raised for. This is all I am. I have no other value.” And so if she loses this chance to be with someone who isn’t hideous and won’t make her miserable for the rest of her life, it’s game over. And Daphne did not train for this role only to not get the co-star she wanted.
In episode two, “Shock and Delight,” the opening scene is of the Duke of Hastings’ mother dying in childbirth after being cast carelessly to the side once she’s delivered a boy. This, too, is where the book starts, with the traumas that first established Simon’s mercurial, often cold nature. It also gives another harsh dose of reality about women’s limited place in society as no better than sows meant for birthing.
The writer of this episode, Janet Lin, likely knew the importance of highlighting this element of his past as he gets closer to Daphne. Or at least “seemingly”–for they have struck a bargain that benefits both of them. In pretending to be courting, Daphne will rid herself of Berbrooke, and Simon will rid himself of all the unwanted attention from the ton’s single women and their mothers. So it is that Lady Whistledown writes, as though speaking of Blair Waldorf or Serena Van der Woodsen, “Emerging phoenix-like from the ashes of irrelevance is Miss Daphne Bridgerton.”
Yes, she has, much to the dismay of her jealous adversaries. For, like Serena, Daphne invokes in many people the desire to be “taken down” for her good fortunes. What’s more, just as everyone on the Upper East Side, the importance of “noble blood” is further iterated to Simon when he is still but a child incapable of speaking without stuttering. His father, apprehending his impediment, bellows, “We have been granted this line. The monarchy itself has declared it!… The Hastings name cannot land in the quivering hands of a half-wit!” Simon’s father screams at him as he sits there writing as a young boy, refusing to speak. Assumed to be an “imbecile.” So yeah, it’s no wonder Simon decided to completely shut down emotionally in favor of brothels and brotherhood with fellow ruffians like Daphne’s brother, Anthony (who attended Oxford with Simon).
Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and Lady Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell), meanwhile, are more enamored of the prospect of Simon and Daphne getting together than anyone, and, at the next party, Danbury asks Anthony to get her a glass of ratafia (one pictures this being the drink pairing suggested to watch the show) so that they can immediately leave the two to their own devices.
Despite their apparent chemistry, Berbrooke cannot be shaken and the engagement still persists. The news of which does not evade Lady Whistledown, who writes as much in her scandal sheet. The Queen, also an avid reader of the missive, invites Lady Bridgerton for tea, whereupon she freely snorts her snuff (ground tobacco) in front of her and then demands of her servant, “Brimsley! Fresh snuff!” She then tells Lady Bridgerton that she only came up with an excuse for him to leave the room because, “That one is a terrible gossip. If we were to speak freely in his presence, the whole of England would know our business.” Here, too, the show attempts to offer a red herring as to who Whistledown might be as the Queen proceeds to tell Lady Bridgerton that she will not be made a fool of in predicting a great match for Daphne.
Lady Bridgerton now knows what she must do in order to shake down a necessary piece of gossip to undo Berbrooke. Hatching a plan for the maids to literally and figuratively spill tea, she invites Lady Berbrooke over so that their “help” can do just that, yet it’s only the Bridgerton maid who is aware of the gambit.
While Daphne is at first overjoyed at the news of Berbrooke’s blatant impropriety of sending away a maid he got pregnant without even the offer of financial help for her “inconvenience,” she is quick to remember that it’s merely a few ladies’ words against a man’s. Lady Bridgerton then suggests they shall all do what ladies do best: talk. Hence, the scandalous piece of information spreads like wildfire throughout the “ton.” Leading to the final result Lady Bridgerton wanted all along: Berbrooke’s fleeing in shame to the countryside.
With Daphne free again to choose from the cream of the crop, her younger sister, Eloise (Claudia Jessie), more prone to reading and writing–therefore general independence–is not persuaded by Daphne’s assurance that marriage will be marvelous or that childbirth will be anything like “wonderful,” asserting, “It must be taxing.” “What?” Daphne asks. Eloise replies, “The game of pretend you feel you must endlessly maintain.” The scene then cuts to champagne pouring over a stack of glasses as a string arrangement of Shawn Mendes’ “In My Blood” plays. Simon and Daphne are dancing together again, and the former tells her to call him by his first name if they are to make this truly believable. Here, too, contained within the need to feign being a couple is the premise of such movies as Picture Perfect, Drive Me Crazy, The Wedding Date, The Proposal and Can’t Buy Me Love. For one reason or another, in all of these circumstances, manufacturing a relationship proves mutually beneficial to both parties until they inevitably fall in love.
Episode three, “Art of the Swoon, already starts with the equivalent of a nineteenth century wet dream, as Daphne fantasizes that she and Simon are dancing in a crowd together and that everyone else soon disappears as they lean in for a kiss. The episode then wastes no time in playing a recognizable instrumental–this time Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy.”
It’s clear by now that Daphne and Simon’s dynamic is evolving from friendship to thinly veiled romance. This intensifies at another event of the season–so many goddamn events–an art exhibition curated in part by the Duke of Hastings. At one point alone in one of the gallery rooms together, Daphne comments of the painting she’s looking at with Simon, “The others are lovely, but this one is… intimate.” The one she points out as different from all of his other donations to the gallery is, quelle surprise, the one he admits Lady Danbury told him was his mother’s favorite. That Daphne can see something in it obviously makes him hard, “so to speak.”
Their informalities continue to ramp up as the episode progresses, with Simon blowing her mind about sexual-related information as he informs, “When you’re alone, you can touch yourself.” This pro tip opens her eyes (and labia) to a whole new world.
When she does find herself alone, her masturbation material is quite chaste: images of Simon picking a rose for her, their hands touching in front of the painting, him placing his hand on the bare part of her back as they dance. Modest things of that nature. She’s still a lady, for fuck’s sake. And yes, it is all very much for the sake of fucking in Bridgerton, which should be renamed to Bridgerfuck. That, too, is what gives it a far more salacious edge than Gossip Girl, reined in by the visual restrictions of “good taste” put forth by the CW, the network it originally aired on. What’s more, Quinn’s books do have a more literary flair than the ones Cecily von Ziegesar (such an Upper East Side name) brought us in the form of Gossip Girl. And who said sex can’t be literarily written (even if the show’s script might have simply just put “They bang” every five pages or so)?
As Simon has come to realize just how genuine his feelings are for Daphne, he has already rebuffed her as episode four, “An Affair of Honor,” picks up in the wake of that faux rejection. While Daphne has ended on a high note in dancing with the Queen’s nephew, Prince Frederick of Prussia (Freddie Stroma), at the latest ball, upon accepting his invitation to the palace where he presents her with a diamond necklace, she still can’t control her fantasies of Simon being the one to put it on her neck.
Meanwhile, Lady Whistledown is out here with lines like, “Marrying above one’s station is an art form indeed,” as she acknowledges Daphne’s potential title upgrade from duchess to princess. Eloise would prefer neither title for herself or her sister, continuing to lament her curse in life to have been born a woman, while also persisting in her admiration of Lady Whistledown, whom she had previously confessed to her brother that she thought her to be a great writer. Now she tells her good friend and neighbor, Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), that Whistledown is “a brilliant woman of business who fools the entire town whilst pocketing their money.” As is the case with Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) turning out to be Gossip Girl, that imagining of such glamor and nobleness is simply not true.
It is also in this episode that writer Abby McDonald is tasked with briefly addressing how this imaginary London came to be filled with non-racist pricks and a population of black and white folk alike harmoniously commingling. The tidbit comes when Lady Danbury tells Simon the value of marriage in explaining, “We were two separate societies divided by color. Until a king fell in love with one of us. Love, Your Grace, conquers all” [it does not].
Simon is not so convinced of love’s limitlessness as he retorts, “At that same whim, [the king] may just as easily change his mind. A mind, as we all know, that is hanging on by one very loose and tenuous thread. So no, I’m sorry Lady Danbury, we are in disagreement here. Love changes nothing.” Simon’s allusion to King George III’s very real mental precariousness is another ephemeral moment of historical accuracy that plays into this alternate reality of how things might have gone if Queen Charlotte’s purported lineage was more “at play.” Though the myth of her African heritage has been balked at many times in recent history, particularly when it came up again during the engagement of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
As Simon tries to run from his true feelings like Chuck Bass from his, he ultimately cannot stay away from Daphne, leading her into the secluded part of the garden where only a woman of ill repute would go, whereupon he kisses her with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Daphne knows that her nemesis, Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen), has surely seen her when she makes a pointed allusion to her “catching a chill” in the garden. Knowing that the only thing that will save her honor is marrying the duke, she quarrels with her brother, who believes he could have stopped her, “You think that just because I am a woman, I am incapable of making my own choices?” She then adds, “Do you even care that Simon has dishonored me, or is it your own male pride that you seek to satisfy?”
Daphne’s très progressively feminist for the times sentiments don’t stop when she hears of Simon and Anthony’s plans to duel. She seethes at her younger brother, Colin (Luke Newton), “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that said? To leave the men to their business and not concern myself with such ‘weighty’ affairs?” So it is that Daphne gets her youngest brother to reveal where they are dueling so that she can stop them and say that it’s all a moot point anyway as Cressida saw her and the duke in the garden and will surely blab. She’s such a Georgina Sparks (Michelle Trachtenberg) that way.
As episode five, “The Duke and I,” kicks off, it becomes more and more apparent that Bridgerton is just Gossip Girl before the British got a chance to fully colonize New York. And that before parents became the hardened creatures they are on the Upper East Side, there was still the gentle aura of Lady Bridgerton to soothe her daughter’s nerves with the consolation, “I know good society makes such a fuss about things, but when it comes to love, such things happen more frequently than one might expect.” This in reference to Simon and Daphne’s desire for an expedited wedding ceremony before Cressida can get the attention of Lady Whistledown. Which they will now have to appeal to the Queen for.
The elucidation of Daphne’s naivety continues at the modiste’s when Lady Bridgerton awkwardly notes as Daphne is fitted for her wedding dress, “She will need a new pelisse… and then the more intimate items. Four nightdresses perhaps? Or five?” Daphne seems to have no idea what she would have use of five nightgowns for despite everyone knowing honeymoons are for sex, ergo a performative display of the body.
Cressida soon shows up to the shop to make more overt threats about what she knows. A shot of her through one of the slats in the rows of displayed fabric frames her as positively villainous and staunch in her machinations, content to put Daphne in a similarly tight box. But Daphne knows she’ll soon be a duchess with impunity. In the meantime, middle brother Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) finds himself invited to artist Henry Granville’s (Julian Ovenden) libertine club, where he delights in the temptations and offerings of the modiste, Genvieve (Kathryn Drysdale).
With Simon barely speaking to Daphne for the majority of this ordeal, she is surprised to hear him deliver a heartfelt reason for wanting to be married to Daphne so quickly, playing up the very real fact that she has become his best friend, and that is the rarest thing to find in a woman one falls in love with and marries. Here, again, he channels something of the Chuck Bass quality in his random flickerings and shows of affection for Blair.
Thus, the wedding goes on. And Daphne starts to panic at the idea that Simon will never actually talk to her again as he once did. Providing more tight-lipped mentions of what really goes on during the wedding night, Lady Bridgerton alludes to the fact that it is not a good idea to get too full to fuck. On their way to Clyvedon, Simon tells her they’ll spend the night at an inn, whereupon he unromantically requests separate rooms. This is about all she can take of his antics before they both end up running to the other in an attempt to explain what’s going on behind their strained looks and repressed manner.
At last, they end up in bed together, with Simon asking, “Did you touch yourself, like we talked about?” Daphne nods. He urges, “Show me.” How very Bass-ian indeed. Minus the part where when you look at Chuck, all you can think about is how Ed Westwick is just another one accused of sexual assault.
By episode six, “Swish,” there can be no denying that Simon is like a cross between The Weeknd and Christian Grey: too “complex” to be penetrated, though very capable himself of penetrating. “Afraid to Live” could easily be Simon’s song, with lyrics like, “You always miss the chance to fall for someone else/’Cause your heart only knows me/They try to win your love, but there was nothing left/They just made you feel lonely/I am not the man I used to be/Did some things I couldn’t let you see/Refused to be the one who taints your heart.” That’s basically Simon’s line of logic about about why he ends up shutting down emotionally and acting like a puto.
Still, they’re in a good place when they finally roll up to Clyvedon after a right proper hymen-breaking session. It’s here Daphne meets Mrs. Colson (Pippa Haywood), who reminds one a lot of Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. While Daphne’s life has ostensibly calmed down, Colin’s is only getting started as he falls down the rabbit hole of being seduced by Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker), a distant cousin who’s been staying with the Featheringtons and has been warmly welcomed solely by Penelope. She being the only one to take pity on Marina when she’s relegated to a remote room of the house after being discovered to be with child by Baroness Featherington (Polly Walker). Which is why Penelope feels betrayed that Marina should pursue innocent and pure Colin, her close friend and the boy she’s loved from afar for so long, as a means to get out of an unwanted love match the baroness is trying to make happen for her.
When Colin publicly announces he’ll be marrying Marina without pre-warning the other Bridgertons, the reaction behind closed doors is expectedly frigid. Indeed, one imagined the following conversation to be the one that took place between Prince Harry and William when the former told him of his plans to marry Meghan (fittingly, Marina is black): “Look, I know you are still rather green and that is my fault. I should’ve taken you to brothels when you returned to Eton. If this is a matter of wetting your wick–” Colin interrupts, “You really are an ass. Do you know that?” Anthony maintains, “This is what comes of not sowing your wild oats.” Even though Harry surely sowed plenty, if the tabloids of the 00s had anything to say about it.
While Marina’s scandalous deception is about to explode, Daphne learns more and more about the joys of sex as she tells Simon, “Should they have told us what it was truly like, however would we get anything else done at all?” This uttered after another boudoir session. Yet she still can’t seem to fathom what’s behind Simon’s constant removal of his dick at the exact moment of climax.
Too enthralled to worry about it much yet, or how it applies to him saying he can’t have children, an instrumental of Taylor Swift’s “Wild Dreams” plays as Simon and Daphne continue to consummate all over the Estate at Clyvedon, this time in the middle of the pouring rain (which is maybe why an instrumental of Lana Del Rey’s “Born to Die” would have been more appropriate considering the lyric, “Let me fuck you hard in the pouring rain”).
The sexual explorations continue with a nude picnic and a library bang (scratch Lana, maybe Ludacris’ “What’s Your Fantasy?” should have been playing the whole time). There is a moment when Daphne inquires as to whether all this coitus interruptus method of contraception (though she’s not aware it’s a means of birth control) is “hurting” Simon when he pulls out. He assures her not. It’s only making him feel better about not propagating a fucked up psychology, in addition to “sticking it” to his dead father while sticking it inside of Daphne but not reproducing.
Penelope’s ability to suppress what she’s thinking regarding Marina’s attempt to trap Colin into a marriage with another man’s baby is coming to its end. Particularly as she watches her conspire with her mother about seducing Colin so that he’ll feel obliged to marry all the more rapidly. The title of this particular episode comes from Baroness Featherington instructing Marina to “swish” in her new dress so that she might fully appreciate how it looks. A slight bump being detectable only to those in the know. Certainly not Colin.
As Daphne tries to get out of the sex groove and into the groove of being a duchess who reigns over the lands, she does her best to engage with the townspeople and plebes at the fair they’ve put on. One competition she’s tasked with judging, however, leads to her immediate disfavor among the people. After telling everyone that all three pigs “tied” for the prize, no farmer won the contract and the income that came with it, yet again demarcating that the whims of a “ninny” of the upper class can gravely affect those down at heel subjected to their “fancies” whenever they deign to commingle.
A decided touch of Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass is present in the personae and interaction of Daphne and Simon throughout this episode in particular, as they do their metaphorical dance with regard to power brokering. Yet it is in sex that Daphne will soon assert her dominance in a more than dubious moment of consent that Quinn addresses more thoroughly in the book rendering.
The interspersed narrative thread of the episode reverts back to the increasing tension between Penelope and Marina, who finally points out that the real reason she’s acting so uppity is because of her own feelings for Colin. She then pulls out the punch, “If I am to be the executioner of this childish infatuation, then so be it. Your love is an unrequited fantasy.” Here Marina comes across a lot like Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) speaking to Serena about Dan.
As Penelope’s innocence is dismantled, so, too, is Daphne’s. And after Daphne, poor jejune Daphne, finds out the real way children are conceived–therefore the real reason Simon pulls out every time–she mounts him and makes the sex so good (or so rapey) that he can’t help but remain “in” as she keeps writhing to the tune of JPOLND’s “The End.” When it’s over, he realizes not only that he may have just had the most costly orgasm of his life, but that Daphne now knows the truth. It’s not that he “cannot” have children, it’s that he “will not.”
Concluding the episode with a narration that sounds straight out of Kristen Bell a.k.a. Gossip Girl’s mouth, Lady Whistledown summarizes, “All is fair in love and war, but some battles leave no victor. Only a trail of broken hearts that makes us wonder if the price we pay is ever worth the fight.”
The line that comes next was originally used to describe what Daphne did to Simon in not getting his consent during sex: “Can the ends ever justify such wretched means?” In the show, Lady Whistledown asks this instead of Marina’s actions, unveiled in the scandal sheet for all to see, and naturally leading us to believe Penelope is, in fact, Whistledown.
As things begin to draw to a close in episode seven, “Oceans Apart,” Whistledown grows all the more poetic with her descriptions, including, “Like the tars of the Thames, it also leaves a horrid smear on anyone nearby.” This is what she notes of Marina’s scandal affecting the entire Featherington family. It is in this description that Whistledown reminds just how OG London was to New York in terms of its indelible geography, indeed the very thing that spawned that far more despicable place.
Colin, in the interim, still fancies himself in love with Marina despite everything, spouting such lines as, “Leander swam Abydos to Sestos every single night in complete darkness just to see his love.” Daphne retorts, “Leander also lost his way and drowned.”
As her own world continues to shatter around her, Daphne curses her mother for sending her out into the wilderness with so little knowledge of how sex and marriage really work, leading her to believe in the fairy tale that so many girls are indoctrinated with.
Thus, a certain invitation comes at the perfect moment for her to help get some perspective. Like her brother at the libertine club, Daphne is invited to Lady Danbury’s to experience the “special club” that is being a married woman. As the instrumental “At Lady Danbury’s” by Kris Bowers plays, Lady D invites Daphne in with, “Your Grace, welcome to my den of iniquity.”
Speaking of, at the original den of iniquity we’re presented with, Benedict catches his painting mentor, Henry Granville, in flagrante delicto with another man. The token “gay romance” appears again as the painter talks of the torment of, “Stealing your glances, disguising your touches. We cannot so much as smile at each other without first ensuring no one is watching.” It’s sort of like the requisite Eric Van der Woodsen (Connor Paolo) “twist” in the GG narrative thread, but with more empathy involved because of just how “unheard of” being homosexual was during this period.
Oh, right, and talking of periods, Daphne continues to wait in the hope that her “courses” will not arrive so that she can have the baby Simon will not willingly give her. Sitting at a musical performance, the musicians play Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” at the end as Daphne realizes she’s started bleeding. Crying uncontrollably in another room she’s fled to in order to stop up her vag with some tissues, we see how much it pains Simon to know of what’s causing her anguish.
There is more than a poetic sort of irony that Marina gets rid of her child (with some “special” tea)–or so she believes–while Daphne desperately wants one, and seems to have “lost” hers as well by the conclusion of the episode. With the finale, “After the Rain,” being the longest of the eight episodes, it does not necessarily mean it is the most satisfying. And while most things are wrapped up neatly in a bow–for now–there is still plenty for Shondaland to address in subsequent seasons drawn from Quinn’s total of eight books (each one extremely well-reviewed, especially in respect to von Ziegasar’s ten-plus offerings from the Gossip Girl world).
It is in this last episode that Lady Bridgerton reminds Daphne, “You are a Bridgerton. There is nothing you cannot do.” One also envisions the Waldorfs or the Van der Woodsens or the Basses or the Archibalds to be capable of saying such things with a straight face. Except, in receiving this message, they would take it to mean doing something like going on an interview for national television and wearing a hat that said “Daddy” on it and claiming inculpability for racism. Oh how far from grace “high society” has fallen since these glorious London days of the Regency era.
