#anways i know this was sitting in my inbox for an era now but life has been busy and i only just got around to writing my thoughts down

[literaetures]

Did you like the book or s2 of bridgerton better?

okay. i've gathered some thoughts after watching s2 (twice!) and while i adored the kate and anthony scenes and their amazing chemistry any time they were in a scene together, i feel like i've finally figured out why i didn't like the season very much

this post got quite long so i'll put it under a cut but tl;dr kate and anthony and the sharmas in general deserve more and better in what was supposed to be their season, but if you watch every single kate and anthony scene out of context in youtube compilations like i've been doing, it was amazing

i think this season's drawback was in structuring itself around a slow burn plotline

and that's so sad to say bc i adore slow burns!! they’re amazing! but the problem with s2 is that that the slow burn plotline doesn't reach a Point. a Peak. a sparkling, earth shattering moment where the build-up, the intense glances, the snide comments, the tension at every turn is finally Worth it

and i think this is bc every kate and anthony scene is always cut short or overshadowed by other useless plotlines in the first half of the season that continue to be dragged out to their boring conclusions in the second half of the season (like the featherington plotline! why! also giving eloise a love interest when she should've been way more focused on a n y t h i n g else like idk sneaking into university classrooms just to sit in on the lectures or seeing her spend more time self-studying wollstonecraft or someone to figure out her own ideas and her own identity rather than the theo plotline that didn't go anywhere or say anything meaningful since they were too busy juggling so many other plotlines in one season that only spans 8 episodes)

so by the time we get to the bee scene we think it'll pick up and we will actually get some forward movement into their story, but no. it just continues to move into this "we can't! but we want to! but we can't!" storyline that doesn't g o anywhere. and yes, you could argue that the pall mall scene also showed them understanding each other and progressing forward in their relationship, but that scene just shows how similar they are as opposed to becoming vulnerable with each other

which is why the library scene rewrite! just made me so upset! bc they gave anthony the panic attack that kate has in the book during the bee scene, and as a result, we don't have a single moment of understanding between the two, we don't get kate's backstory in flashbacks that would lend her any ounce of the same depth and character exploration that anthony gets surrounding his father, and we don't get any forward movement in their relationship or their progression as individuals bc they just spend the scene staring at each other rather than expressing their fears, their relationship to their family, all under the lack of pretense they are allowed to have in this empty room in the dead of night with the rain and thunder drowning out their conversation from the entire world. all of kate's backstory is rewritten and the parts they do tell you are told to you in little lines or long speeches as opposed to Showing you her trauma (which mirrors anthony's trauma!) and the weight of responsibility that she feels as an elder sibling (which again! mirrors anthony's trauma and shows you w h y they would be so compatible instead of just showing these long, intense stare downs and almost kisses and hoping the audience can read in between the lines) so they give her zero depth, nuance, or complexity to her character by getting rid of her panic attack and backstory and her eventual re-grounding like! come on! a strong woman who is so sure of herself and the world and what she wants out of it while hiding her true fears and feelings from everyone else who breaks down from the weight of responsibility but continues to keep going bc she would do anything for her family! come on!!! that would’ve been amazing to see!

and this goes for the rest of the sharmas as well. they rewrote edwina's character and didn't use mary in the story at all because they made kate into a mother figure but feeling responsible for your sister doesn't mean that you needed to sideline mary entirely! she's still a key figure she still knows the world of balls and courtship and could've easily added to their complex family dynamic but instead they barely use her and she's missing from so many crucial scenes and she could've totally teamed up with lady danbury and violet in all their antics!

which takes me back to the slow burn. i feel like i could've handled the season had kate and anthony gotten together in episode 7 instead of the last 15 (?) minutes of the finale. it felt like they wrote the entire season around the wedding episode but every scene in the episode that isn't centered around kate and anthony and edwina is so boring. everyone is just standing around waiting to see if the wedding will happen (also don't get me started on the love triangle thing). they could've easily had the wedding be half of the episode (if they wanted it that badly), had the ball sequence where everyone is dancing at the bridgerton's empty place at the end of the episode, and had edwina realize that kate and anthony clearly love each other which is evident from how happy they are how they're dancing so freely together and she would back away since she loves kate and would do anything for her (and then find herself a bookish nerd to read and discuss and recommend novels to now or in the next season bc she deserves a break)

then! the finale would be open to have a small, intimate wedding with their loved ones (a direct contrast from the showy over-the-top wedding while showing how much kate and anthony care for each other rather than what the anyone else thinks of them), allowed them to have their wedding night, and even kept the very last scene of the finale where they're at aubrey hall together trying out their new roles as a couple, so we would've gotten plenty of them being "enemies" but we still would've had an entire episode of them being "lovers" which is just as important in an enemies to lovers plot

the slow burn would've built up to something! a happy, prolonged conclusion where you get to revel in all these fun moments of longing and nerves and anticipation for kate and anthony's wedding and then the actual wedding itself!

and yes you could still make room for the lady whistledown part 2 reveal and breakup between pen and eloise in there but no annoying featherington plotline to distract you from kate and anthony living their best lives being in love and hot for each other for an entire episode (and colin and benedict can still have their forward movement too to get to the next seasons)

but with how the season plays out, you just cut from the "i love you" "i love you, too" scene immediately to the rest on the ton watching fireworks, and then another cut to kate and anthony in bed already married! we were supposed to see them married! we should've seen then happy and in love for longer than a handful of minutes at the end of the season! (tho i will say the direction in the last two episodes got better. some of the weird swinging camera and out of focus scenes in the middle of the season were confusing)

i feel like the show was structured in a way that they're trying to think about the "bridgertons" as a whole as opposed to each individual couple per season (so maybe in s3 we get edwina back on the marriage market? kate and anthony still get to be major characters for the next sibling's story? maybe even the prince will come back?) but i still feel like we deserved to see more of kate and anthony in love, happy, and content, etc. in their own season

but i did find things i enjoyed about this season! the humor, the sibling dynamics, newton, benedict's humor, daphne knowing kate is The One before anyone else, anthony calling for hyacinth to dance and doing that little pose to wait for her to get down the stairs, the k3g cover, all of the tension between kate and anthony, "how many fingers am i holding," lady danbury and violet eavesdropping, etc. but they're such brief moments that are overshadowed by so many boring storylines that they don't get to shine as much as they could have. out of context, the scenes are so good! but the way they decided to write out the plotline for this season was just. ugh. which makes me so sad bc i loved kate and anthony's book! and the way they rewrote the characters for the show! they had the schematics they only had to build on top of it but. sigh.

tl;dr part 2 bc this got quite long!! idk w h y kate and anthony with their amazing chemistry were pushed to the sidelines of their own season for the sake of other plotlines that weren't anywhere near as interesting as any time they were in a scene together. edwina and mary deserved way more and way better than they got. kate deserves to have a well-rounded and well-crafted backstory. if s3 doesn't have all of the romance scenes that kate and anthony deserved to have in s2 i will riot!!