A new season! A chance to begin the game again, with some unknown players but with the rules staying the same. As it was for the high society of 19th-century London, gossiping about which rich young men will woo which comely young ladies at this year’s social events, so it is for a hit TV show on its return, tasked with providing the same thing, but different. The writers of Bridgerton, Netflix’s period drama smash, enjoy some knowing puns as their characters spend episode one of the second run wondering what this “new season” will hold.
What does it hold? A new protagonist for starters, as per Julia Quinn’s source books, which deal with each of the eight Bridgerton siblings in turn. Eldest daughter Daphne is now married and almost entirely absent, so the pressure is on senior son Anthony, Viscount Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) to get on with picking the best woman in town and converting her into a viscountess. Before he throws himself back on to the carousel of balls, parties and recitals he meets Kate (Simone Ashley), an intriguing stranger with whom he shares a provocative verbal spar, the sort of encounter that truly excites him. Dutifully putting that out of his mind, he rocks up to the first ball of the season and is introduced to Edwina (Charithra Chandran), an impressively capable type who is soon earmarked as the ideal fiancee for a man of Anthony’s stature. Have a guess who Edwina’s older sister is.
