The unconditional love for a sister, is not without trial. One of the greatest trials of them all, is being in love with the same man.
During season 2 of Bridgerton, we see the sisters Edwina (Charithra Chandran) and Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) falling for Lord Bridgerton . Not only the sisters fall for him, it is also us, the audience, seduced by Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), right?
During the first season most of the love interest went towards the handsome mysterious Duke. Now it is the Viscount Bridgerton who get’s most of the attention.
Outstandingly handsome Lord Bridgerton wants to marry.
Finally, Lady Violett Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) believes. Although the fact that he doesn’t want to marry for love but merely for duty, never sits right with her. What did you think?
Since this is a historical drama and the duty to marry applies also to the Lord of the house Bridgerton. He has to bring a dutiful and deserving woman to his family. She will be the future Lady of the house and raise their children.
Who will Anthony choose?
He, himself, is not sure at all, he wants to marry for prestige rather than love. Well, what is more prestigious then marrying the diamond of the season, herself, selected by no other then, the Queen?
Edwina is picked, not only because Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) suggested her to the Queen(Golda Rosheuvel ), but actually for another scheme of the Queen.
The Queen wants to find out who Lady Whisteldon is. Since Edwina Sharma and her sister came from India and did not live with the english high society before. Lady Whisteldon will have to get closer to Edwina, in order to be able to write about her. And that is how the Queen wants to catch this audacious, but also very compelling author.
Although giving Edwina the honour of being the season diamond, will give the Queen the possibility to catch Lady Whisteldon. I must say Edwina is really suited for that role. We see how perfect she integrates in high society, how good she is in speaking, dancing and behaving. Prepared and groomed by her older sister Kate. She is really ready for this opportunity to marry a well off aristocrat.
Both of the sisters are so beautiful in their role. Their characters in the story are much a reflection to and from each other. Edwina shows more of a calm and conservative role, as Kate who is outspoken and a hard shell to crack.
The mother Lady Mary Sharma(Shelley Conn ) is not as head strong and stubborn as her daughter Kate is. She is more calm and goes with flow person. Mother and daughters will be staying with Lady Danbury, who will introduce them to society in the summer season. Only Edwina will be courting future spouses. Sharma does not want to get married. She says she’d rather go back to India after the season and live her life as she pleases.
What we’ll get to know only later in the series, is that her free spirited life, is guaranteed by the inheritance they will receive from their grandparents the Sheffields, once Edwina gets married.
In the past, the grandparents had shunned their daughter Mary when she fell in love with an officer (a commoner), a man that was at the time a single father to Kate already. They married and fled to Bombay and never came back. For Mary there is no doubt Kate is her daughter, as much as Edwina is. Now that their father is dead, Kate took up the role to take care of the family. With her headstrong attitude she wants to help her sister and her mother to settle.
Why doesn’t Kate tell her mother or her sister about the Lord Sheffield (Anthony Head) and Lady Sheffield (Shobu Kapoor ) inheritance when her sister will marry in high society?
Kate does not want her sister Edwina to marry hastily for the inheritance, she wants her to marry for love. I don’t understand why she doesn’t tell her mother though. Do you know or remember? Maybe her mother would have told Edwina?
Edwina will have the honour this season to be the Diamond as her mother has been before her. This will give Lord Bridgerton the reason to pursue her. Unknowingly at first, that her sister, Kate, will be his biggest obstacle in this pursuit.
That because Kate overhears him talking to other men. How he does not care about finding true love. He wants only the impeccable woman to fill the place as Lady and create good offsprings of future bridgerton’s. Love is not important to that matter.
The encounters between Anthony and Kate are always filled with tension. Their first encounter is prior to her caught listen this conversation.It is when Kate races him with the horse in the countryside and jumps over a big fallen tree branch, showing off her amazing riding skills. That baffled him, when she left him behind. Was she too aggressive or was it badass to show off her riding skills?
In this second encounter, she gets caught hears-dropping on him and he confronts her about it. After hearing him talking with the other men, Kate is disappointed and disgusted. She does not like him at all. What do you think about the conversation he had with the other men?
Until now Anthony had been meeting many different high society girls, but without real success. He wants his future wife to be smart, good with family and beautiful too. He has a list of what the woman should be able to do, and with everyone with such high standards, it takes some luck or a really good search to find exactly that.
When he noticed Kate behind the bush hears-dropping, he was actually intrigued and not mad at her for listening. She startles him with her strong and aggressive responses. She is a free spirit, hard to seduce and maybe also to love?
Well, the surprise then when he starts to pursue Edwina, the diamond of the season, as his maybe future wife and the sister is against it. The Sharma and the Bridgerton Families will now spend a lot more time together. The viscount is so conflicted. As is Daphne(Phoebe Dynevor), who really does not understand why Anthony chooses Edwina, whilst it is clear to her that Kate is the better fit for him. They also seem very attracted to each other.
Daphne has good reason, she notices the same chemistry and strong desire, she has with the Duke. Everyone who has been in love before notices their glances and stares, especially Daphne, Lady Danbury and Lady Violet. Their eyes speak more than words. While they both, Anthony and Kate, try to ignore their inner urges, they feel the same and that will eventually bring them closer and closer, up until the love explosion in the park. Did you enjoy their passionate scene?
As in series one, also this time, we see as main character a truly conflicted men, not accepting to be loved due to his past hurt. For both the Lord Bridgerton and Duke, the passing of their fathers has driven them away from wanting to love and happiness.
Only now we understand the backstory of Anthony and get to know what happened to Lord Edmund Bridgerton(Rupert Evans). Young Anthony witnessed the death of his beloved father:
After a hunting trip, Edmund Bridgerton picks up some flowers for his lovely wife Violet and gets stung by a bee. Unfortunately, Edmund is allergic to such a degree that he dies in that moment, in Anthony arms. The scene is brutal, he suffocates in Anthonys arms. Violet at the time pregnant running towards them and seeing her beloved husband die, is most terrible heartbreaking scene.
After that Violet enters a deep depression and Anthony is now a Lord Bridgerton at such a young age. He does not have time to grief his father he is immediately put in a position of such responsibility.
Since then he does not want to inflict to anyone the hurt his mother has felt when his dad passed. That is the reason he does not want to marry for love. He is so contrary, that he will do anything to marry Edwina, even if he knows deep down he does not love her. She is perfect as a Lady. In Anthony’s mind, if they do not love each other, they won’t hurt each other. What do you think is that the reason? Did I grasp this right?
With surprise then how strongly he starts to feel about Kate. She is strong headed like him, sassy, and doesn’t let anyone play games with her. She will make him very angry and passionate, they will not be able to resist each other. He relieves the traumatic experience he had with his dad with her, when a bee is next to her head and she nearly get stung he is really flustered. So they share also a deeper level of vulnerability, in their outward strength.
Is that though correct towards Edwina? Who is being courted by Anthony and in her mind, Anthony was interested in pursuing her for marriage. To get to know her sister is also important because Kate and her mother are her only family. She is inexperienced in love and does not notice all the signs that her sister is falling in love with Lord Anthony and he is too. Edwina is also falling for him, but notices how cold he is towards her and that puts her off.
Edwina really realises slowly how she does not even know herself, how she has always been a reflection of her sister.
That is a really deep realisation. With an older sister a lot of direction and helps comes from that role. In a very close relationship it is difficult to understand where one ends and the other person starts, because always together, they blend into each other in certain ways. That is maybe what Edwina needs, rediscovering herself without her older sister? To make her own choices?
This realisation comes very late though, at the wedding from Edwina and Anthony. It is really heartbreaking how far it went with the marriage. Anthony had no doubt in his mind to honour his commitment to Edwina. At the altar when the bride sees him glancing at his sister while behind her, she understands at once how different that gaze is towards her and stops the marriage.
Did you ever fall in love with the same man/woman as your sibling?
The other most interesting story line is the one of the struggling Featherington. Lady Featherington(Polly Walker ) is struggling financially after her husband died. Desperately waiting for the new Lord Featherington, who will be such a disappointment right?
From season 1 we know that Penelope Featherington is Lady Whisteldon. She our beloved cute Penelope, is put to a great test this season! Is she really this sweet cute girl, that knows too much gossip and can write so well, that she scribbles all the high society secrets on a paper, or is she a conniving money and attention seeking hateful person?
What do you think?
Eloises relationship with a commoner is also unheard of. First she makes her uncomfortable entry in society and then she still lingers for more in her life then having her own family and kids.
First she was a fan of Lady Whisteldon, but she became very weary of her after she exposed Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker) for being pregnant, driving bad name to the family Featherington and bringing her own family in a bad spotlight, since Collin was engaged to Marina.
Someone so near and dear to her, shun by society because of the harsh words of Lady Whisteldon. She starts to slowly despise this author, unknowingly that it is her best friend.
Eloise keeps all the copies of Lady Whisteldon papers, and at an event she notices another paper which looks exactly like the print of Lady Whisteldon. The address of the printing shop is written on this paper. Eloise, bored as always on these events, persuades her driver to go with her to that printing shop.
That is where she meets Theo(Calam Lynch). He is working there. After she asks him if they print Lady Whisteldon paper and if he knows who she is, he tells her does not know about Lady Whisteldon and that he is not interested in this gossip paper. She tells him that her interest goes beyond and that she wants to meet Lady Whisteldon to suggest her to write about more important topics than gossip. With her influence she could write more than only about the prospect of marriage of a woman.
Theo then gives her a woman rights manifesto and tells her to read this if she is interested in women rights. She should also come to their meetings.
She is surprised that he is knowledgeble and interested in women rights. Eloise really enjoys the manifesto he gives her and will also join the meeting.
Unfortunately, the Queen is trying to find Lady Whisteldon too, and Eloise becomes suspect number one after she visits the print shop. When the Queen tells her to finally be honest and tell her that she is the author, Eloise panics and is more pressed in finding Lady Whisteldon.
Now Penelope is pressed and nearly found out. She cannot let he friend take the blame or them find out about her. So she decides to write a harsh piece about the encounters between Eloise and the commoner Theo. At this point the Queen knows it can’t be Eloise, because Eloises reputation and family name has been trashed once again by Lady Whisteldon.
Moreover Eloise does not know that Penelope is secretly in love with Collin, and therefore had her own selfish reasons in exposing Marina. No one suspect her as the culprit of such disaster, since also her family reputation got shamed. This season she uses the same strategy with Eloise.
Marina is one of the first to know about Penelope’s love for Collin. Lady Featherington also knows about it, she is always seeing her daughter writing letters to Collin while he is in Europe.
How can Penelope hide the fact that she is Lady Whisteldon to her own family? I mean her mother and her sisters seem to always be there in the house together, hiding from them must be quite difficult.
Collin will only really understand Penelope affection after he goes and visits Marina in her new home. Marina is not really happy by his visits, she had her baby and it content now. I think she can’t stand to see her past mistake with him eye to eye. Or what do you think? Why did she want him to get out of her house as soon as possible? Before he leaves, she tells him about Penelope and that makes him think about their relationship much more than before.
After the exposé of her friend, Penelope stops writing. When the Featherington host a ball event, Eloise notices something in Penelope she had never seen before, her way of describing other peoples affairs only by standing there and following their body language.
Eloise is in shock once again this season. Alone, she goes to Penelope room and finds the place underneath the carpet where she is hiding all her proceeds from her endeavours as Lady Whisteldon. When Penelope enters the room she confronts her about it and is furious with her.
Is this the end of their relationship? What do you think?
Eventually, Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma will have their happy ending. When they both have the courage to realise that, what has caught them, is not mere chemistry, but real love.
We won’t see the wedding on screen. Maybe this is shown the next season? What we see is their passion and love for each other and how that makes all family Bridgerton and Lady Danbury very happy. Daphne baby is also there on the family estate. The last is a very peaceful scene.
What do you think about their happy ending?
Let me know in the comments.
If you enjoyed this article and want to read about season 1 check out
Bridgerton, When love is not enough for your happiness
Viscounts of Bridgerton, so vulnerable yet strong?
Let me know if you would enjoy an article about a certain character in Bridgerton.