Content Warning: Spoilers for Season 3 of Netflix’s “Bridgerton“

First, I want to say one thing: I was right that splitting “Bridgerton” into two parts was a bad idea. Netflix may have earned an additional month of subscriber revenue from that choice, but they lost some credibility in return.

Second, to the person who posted the massive spoiler about “Michaela” Stirling at 9 am on June 13th, the morning the second part of the season aired, I hope you get a UTI. Some of us have to work and can’t immediately put off all of our responsibilities to watch a horny TV show. You revealed a massive plot point the morning that show aired, which overshadowed my viewing experience.

Now that my little curse is out of the way, let’s talk about Bridgerton’s 3rd season.

“Season 3” of Bridgerton suffered from an abundance and dearth of ideas. Almost every main character had some kind of independent storyline, which included five of the eight Bridgerton siblings, but they weren’t all good or compelling.

The main storyline was supposed to be about Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton, the main characters from Julia Quinn’s mid romance novel, “Romancing Mister Bridgerton.” I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the Bridgerton books aren’t very good, but it is fun to watch beautiful people in fancy historical outfits dance to classical versions of pop hits and get their bone on. Plenty of other romance novels would have made for a better TV show, but to Julia Quinn’s credit, the “Lady Whistledown” angle from the first four books was unique.

Colin and Penelope (and Lady Whistledown) are supposed to be the main characters of the third season, but viewers don’t get to spend that much time with them. So much of the season focuses on other characters whose stories are mostly devoid of conflict and seem to be on screen just to exist. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve made a list of all of the additional characters and plot points:

1. Widowed Violet Bridgerton just may be ready to love again, and has a crush on Lady Danbury’s Brother.
2. Lady Danbury has beef with that Brother.
3. Anthony and Kate are back from Honeymoon Part 2.
4. Kate is pregnant and ready to assume the role of Viscountess.
5. Benedict is dating an older woman who introduces him to the joys of a Devil’s Threeway.
6. Benedict explores his sexuality, so good for him.
7. Colin is insecure that Penelope is the rich and successful Lady Whistledown while he’s just a privileged white boy back from his gap year.
8. Eloise is having beef with Cressida Cowper, who she dropped like a newborn foal.
9. Cressida Cowper’s family is planning to sell her into a miserable marriage to an aging fossil.
10. Francesca is still smitten with John Kilmartin (and they get engaged).
11. Portia Featherington is plotting a way to elude solicitors and keep the family home.
12. Prudence and Philippa are pregnant and salty that Penelope is getting so much attention.
13. The Mondrich’s are still learning the ways of high society.
14. The Queen has offered 5,000 pounds to whoever can unmask Lady Whistledown.

Please note: I’ve written the cliff notes version of what happened this season. If I wanted to discuss everything that happened in this season, it would take literal hours. So, I’ll try to address what went well and what should have been reconsidered.

I like Penelope Featherington. Nicola Coughlan is a great actress, and she does well in the role. I liked that so much of the season focused on her and her relationship with her work. Penelope is rightfully protective over her work as Lady Whistledown and recognizes that she has quite a bit of power as the anonymous writer. For me, the cat-and-mouse chase between her and Queen Charlotte has been one of the more interesting elements of the show, but I have a lot of unanswered questions. How did Penelope even become Lady Whistledown in the first place? Am I supposed to believe that 17-year-old Penelope Featherington was able to write a column and secure a publisher all on her own in the year 1813? How is a literal teenager so good at covering her tracks that the Queen of England cannot determine her identity? And now that her identity has been discovered, how is Penelope supposed to continue her work as Lady Whistledown? We know Penelope is intelligent and observant, but her success as Lady Whistledown also seemed contingent on her being ignored. As a wallflower, she could attend every event and subtly listen to people’s conversations. Now that everyone knows she’s Lady Whistledown, how is she supposed to collect life-ruining gossip unnoticed?

I have no clue if or how the show intends to address these concerns. Based on the show’s handling of Kate and Anthony’s storyline, my guess is season 4 will show Penelope as successful as ever. Penelope won’t have time to struggle because Colin will be such a wonderful partner that he’ll anticipate her problems before she has them. That’s the power of love, y’all. Once the couple’s season is over, they never have to have real conflicts again.

Penelope’s relationship with Colin takes a backseat as the show focuses on Lady Whistledown. While I didn’t mind the Lady Whistledown plot receiving so much focus, it created a problem where Penelope and Colin’s romance felt like an afterthought in what was supposed to be their season. As much as I despised the “Colin tutors Penelope in charm” storyline, the show misled us into thinking that would be a bigger part of the narrative. Instead, it barely took up a single episode, with the rest of the running time going to the Lady Whistledown plot, as well as all of the other tangents that consumed this season.

I don’t have the time to address everything that went wrong with the third season of Bridgerton, but I can say that I felt disappointed. Then, I was annoyed at myself for expecting anything better because these problems have been present since the show’s inception.

If I were to summarize my main issue with “Bridgerton,” it’s that what the characters say and do is sometimes at odds with how the narrative frames them. In other words, “Bridgerton” writers love to show us one thing and then tell us another.  

For example, in the first season, the writers chose to include that awful, awful scene where Daphne sexually assaulted her husband, Simon. She was angry that he took advantage of her naivete. After the encounter, there is a notable distance between Daphne and Simon. However, even though it’s obvious Simon doesn’t trust Daphne, the narrative doesn’t address her wrongdoing. Instead, she makes a dramatic, rain-soaked speech about how she loves Simon even though his daddy didn’t, and they reconcile. Her speech was perfectly nice, but the problem wasn’t that she didn’t love Simon. It was that instead of communicating why she was hurt by his actions, she escalated their conflict by hurting him. Love doesn’t solve mistreatment.

A lot of people are in terrible relationships where they love each other. Love is rarely the problem. You can love someone and treat them badly. That’s life.

But in a TV show, I’m not asking for too much when I say I want the story to make sense. If I’m supposed to like a character, I want that character to feel supported by the story. I don’t want “Bridgerton” to spend time showing me one thing and then have all of that work undermined by a few words from another character.

Which leads me to two storylines I think Bridgerton fumbled: the end to Eloise’s and Cressida’s friendship, and Francesca’s romance with John Kilmartin.

Eloise and Cressida’s friendship was one of the unexpected but very welcome storylines introduced in the third season. Although the two girls seemed diametrically opposed, their friendship felt genuine. Eloise brought out a kindness and humanity in Cressida, and Cressida did the same for Eloise. I had hoped to see their friendship continue and for Cressida’s redemption to continue, but that didn’t happen at all. Cressida is at an all-time low in the second half of the third season. Her father arranges for her to marry a grim, elderly man who plans to use her like a broodmare. Cressida is sad and desperate, having been sold out by her own parents, and tries to turn to her supposed friend for support.

And Eloise dismisses her. Despite all of Eloise’s modern feminist sensibilities, her response to seeing another woman in distress is to shrug her shoulders and give Cressida the 19th-century equivalent of “Sorry, I would give you money if I could but I don’t have any cash on me.”

Cressida, without support or hope, then acts desperately and stupidly and is punished by the story for said stupidity and desperation. Her plans fail, and she is sent off to somewhere, presumably to be alone and unhappy. Maybe she’ll come back next season, or maybe not. It depends on the whims of the Bridgerton writers and whether or not they think she could be useful to them.

It was disappointing. Cressida was well on her way to redemption and was treated like a villain even though her actions never came from a malicious place. In turn, Eloise may look like an awful hypocrite, but the show rewards her for abandoning her friend because Eloise is a precious Bridgerton, and the Bridgertons are always good and right.

Speaking of precious Bridgertons, let’s address Violet. The show has placed her on a pedestal as a wise mother who knows all and unconditionally loves her children, but she’s also displayed multiple instances of bad parenting. For instance, not explaining to Daphne the mechanics behind reproduction in season 1 led to Daphne entering marriage ignorant and unprepared. In season 2, we see that her crushing grief over Edmund’s passing forced her traumatized teenage son, Anthony, to assume the mantle of patriarch years before he was ready. He never had the chance to mourn his father because he was too busy trying to keep the lights on for himself, his mother, his seven younger siblings, and a presumed assload of domestic staff.

So yeah, I’m going to roll my eyes a little when her every word regarding love and relationships is treated like the gospel truth. This is also where I am again irritated by the “Michaela” spoiler, because once I knew how the season would end, it completely ruined my ability to enjoy John and Francesca’s love story.

If you’ve read my previous blog, you’ll see that I really liked how John and Francesca’s relationship unfolded. Francesca is shy and reserved, and yet by meeting John, she seems to have found a kindred spirit, someone with whom she can be her true self. Her and John’s relationships challenged expectations of what a love story could look like. Instead of “burning” for someone, you could meet someone who makes you feel at peace. And if you’ve spent your life feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated, peace is wonderful.

So here’s how the second half of season 3 undoes all of that. Fans of the Bridgerton books know that book 6, “When He Was Wicked,” is a complicated love story about the widowed Francesca and Michael Stirling. Michael Stirling is John Kilmartin’s cousin, who inherits the Kilmartin title after John’s unexpected death. Francesca is devastated by the loss of her husband and conflicted by the romantic feelings she develops for Michael. Michael, in turn, has always loved Francesca but also has to overcome feeling like he’s betraying his best friend and cousin by finally pursuing the woman he loves. “When He Was Wicked” addresses issues like loss, grief, guilt, betrayal, and infertility. It’s not a perfect book (I thought Michael’s past life as a manwhore/rake was cliched and unnecessary, and Francesca’s fertility issues were solved too easily), but I did think it was one of Quinn’s stronger books.

Going into Season 3, I knew that it wouldn’t matter how much I liked John Kilmartin because our boy was doomed. However, I didn’t expect Violet and the narrative to aggressively undermine his and Francesca’s relationship.

Violet doesn’t like John because he’s not demonstrably romantic enough with Francesca. Even though he values Francesca, shows an interest in her hobbies, and lights up when he’s around her, that’s not enough for Violet. John seems to be able to win her approval by dancing with Francesca at a wedding (he, like Francesca, is shy and reserved, so it’s a big deal for him to do this), but there are still some clear reservations on Violet’s end. On Francesca’s wedding day, Violet gives her a speech that more or less states, “I was so into your dad that I was speechless, but I guess your way is alright.”

I’m not sure if this is a universal experience, but I do think it’s common amongst people who are neurodivergent but raised by neurotypical people. It’s the experience of being judged for not having fun or being happy the way you’re “supposed to.” It is exhausting to try and constantly defend yourself for not wanting to exist the way you are expected to. As a young adult, I didn’t like parties, and I didn’t like staying out late, and for that, I was treated like a freak. Even though I was existing in a way that felt authentic to myself, I was constantly made aware by society, and by my family, of the ways in which I was living “wrong.” And it sucked. I felt like I was a social screw-up by not binge drinking on Fridays. The time for me to be “normal” was fast running out and I was making a series of horrible mistakes that I would forever regret because I didn’t try to have fun the way people my age were supposed to.

Obviously, I saw a lot of that in how Violet treated Francesca’s relationship. Sure, she was kind of supportive, but she didn’t hide her disappointment in John. Francesca had to justify her relationship with her mother multiple times before Violet finally conceded that maybe all romantic relationships don’t have to be exactly the same.

Then, in the last few minutes of episode 8, Francesca meets Michaela Stirling. And the newly-married Francesca Kilmartin is so attracted to Michaela that she’s at a loss for words.

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The message is loud and clear. Michaela Stirling, the girl who leaves Francesca speechless, is her real romantic interest. John, the nice man who Francesca fought for, is just the guy she married on the way to meeting her one true love. And he’ll probably die soon, and Francesca and Michaela will be able to hold hands and skip off into the sunset.

I won’t lie. The way this story played out made me disappointed. It’s one thing to change the entire direction of Francesca and Michael’s story – as Michael is now Michaela, Michaela won’t be able to inherit the Kilmartin title and fortune, essentially “stealing” John’s life. But it’s a different issue to build up a sweet, alternative love story, and then undermine it in the last few minutes of the season. It’s insulting to the characters and to the people who identified with that story.

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I love that period dramas are trying to embrace more queer storylines. I think that representation is important and positive. But in this particular case, it doesn’t work.

As I said before, quite a bit happened in “Bridgerton” this season, and I could write a book about all the things I wish the show had done differently. I could also write about the things it does well, although there was a lot less of that this season than in previous ones. I’m curious what all of these changes, and the mixed fan response, will mean for the next season, which is supposedly already in production. I guess we’ll have to turn in next season to find out, although I’m not sure how invested I am anymore.

Oh, and it was wild that Lady Danbury admitted to Violet that she shaboinked her dad. I would have taken that news to my grave.