Bridgerton
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Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Regency romance with an intimacy coordinator and a colour-conscious court; the sex is written from the heroine's side.
London, 1813, in an imagined Regency where the king's marriage to Queen Charlotte, a woman of African descent, has opened the aristocracy to families of colour. Violet, the widowed Viscountess Bridgerton, has eight children to see through the marriage season, and each season is chronicled by Lady Whistledown, whose anonymous scandal sheet all of society reads.
In the first season the eldest daughter, Daphne, is named the season's diamond. Simon Basset, the new Duke of Hastings, has sworn to his cruel father never to have an heir, and the two agree to a pretend courtship. Caught kissing in a garden, they marry. Learning that Simon can have children and has chosen not to, Daphne holds him during sex so that he cannot withdraw. They reconcile, and a son is born. The last scene unmasks Whistledown: Penelope Featherington, best friend of Daphne's sister Eloise, who has loved Colin Bridgerton for years.
In the second season Anthony, the eldest son and viscount, resolves to marry without love and proposes to Edwina Sharma, over the objections of her elder sister, Kate. Anthony and Kate fall for each other; at the altar Edwina sees it and walks out. After Kate is thrown from a horse, the two declare their love and marry. Eloise works out Penelope's secret and breaks with her.
In the third season Colin coaches Penelope towards a husband, falls in love with her and proposes, then discovers she is Whistledown. They marry on uneasy terms. When Cressida Cowper tries to blackmail her, Penelope confesses before the queen and the ton, and the marriage mends. Francesca, the third daughter, marries John Stirling, Earl of Kilmartin.
The fourth season belongs to Benedict, the second son, an artist in no hurry to settle. At his mother's masquerade he dances with a woman in silver who flees at midnight, leaving a glove. She is Sophie Baek, the illegitimate daughter of the late Earl of Penwood, kept as a maid by his widow, Araminta. Not knowing she is the same woman, Benedict falls for Sophie the maid and asks her to be his mistress. She refuses, returns his love, then leaves when she hears Anthony argue against her. Araminta has her arrested. The Bridgertons win her release, and the earl's will proves that Araminta embezzled Sophie's dowry; to escape prison, she agrees to present Sophie as the earl's cousin. At the queen's ball Sophie accepts Benedict's proposal, and they marry at his country cottage. Francesca is widowed when John dies in his sleep, and his cousin Michaela leaves without a word. Violet breaks off her engagement to Lord Anderson. Penelope has laid down Whistledown's pen; in the last episode someone else takes it up.
Starring
Phoebe Dynevoras Daphne Bridgerton
The eldest Bridgerton daughter, named the diamond of her season, who wants a marriage as loving as her parents' was.
Daphne Bridgerton’s story
Daphne comes out in 1813 as the queen's diamond, but Anthony drives off every suitor worth having and promises her to a man she dreads; when that man corners her, she punches him. She agrees to a pretend courtship with Simon and falls for him. When their kiss in a garden is seen, she stops his duel with Anthony and marries him, though he says he cannot have children. At his country house she works out that he can and will not, stops him from withdrawing during sex, and the marriage goes cold. Once she hears how his father treated him, they reconcile, and a son is born. In the second season she urges Anthony to be honest about Kate, and she does not appear after that.
Regé-Jean Pageas Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings
A duke rejected as a boy by his father for his stammer, who has sworn never to father an heir.
Jonathan Baileyas Anthony Bridgerton
The eldest son, viscount since his father's sudden death, who sets out to find a wife he will not have to love.
Anthony Bridgerton’s story
Anthony watched his father die of a bee sting and has run the family since. He drives off Daphne's suitors and challenges Simon to a duel; turned away by the opera singer he loves, he vows to marry without love. He chooses Edwina and spars with her sister, Kate, until a bee stings Kate and his panic gives him away. At the altar Edwina sees how he looks at Kate and walks out. He and Kate sleep together; chasing her through a storm, he sees her thrown from her horse. They declare their love at a ball and marry, and their son is born in India. In the fourth season he argues against Benedict's love for a maid, then stands at the altar as best man, telling him their father would be proud, and so is he.
Simone Ashleyas Kate Sharma
Newly arrived from India to see her younger sister married, she opposes Anthony's suit and falls for him herself.
Nicola Coughlanas Penelope Featherington
The overlooked youngest Featherington daughter, in love with Colin Bridgerton and secretly the author of Lady Whistledown's sheet.
Penelope Featherington’s story
Penelope is the wallflower nobody reads closely, and she writes the sheet everybody reads. She has loved Colin for years; when he proposes to her pregnant cousin, Marina, she exposes the pregnancy as Lady Whistledown before they can elope. When the queen accuses Eloise of being the writer, Penelope shields her with a column that shames her, and Eloise, working out the truth, breaks with her. She accepts Colin's help in finding a husband, and he proposes to her himself; then he discovers her secret, and they marry with the rift unhealed. Blackmailed by Cressida, she confesses before the queen and the ton, and the marriage mends. A son is born. In the fourth season she prints a last column and begins a novel, while someone else takes up Whistledown's pen.
Luke Thompsonas Benedict Bridgerton
The second son, an artist wary of settling down, who falls for a masked woman in silver and for a maid.
Benedict Bridgerton’s story
Benedict, the spare, drifts through the early seasons: a bohemian set of artists, a place at the Royal Academy Schools that Anthony's donation probably bought, an affair with a widow that he ends when she wants him alone. Named the catch of the fourth season, he dances at his mother's masquerade with a woman in silver who vanishes at midnight, and while hunting for her he falls for Sophie, a maid dismissed for fighting off an assault. He asks her to be his mistress; she refuses, returns his love, then leaves when she hears Anthony argue against her. As she prepares to sail for America he resolves to propose, and her necklace tells him she was the woman in silver. After her arrest he speaks for her in court, helps expose Araminta's theft and marries her at his country cottage.
Why it matters
Bridgerton asks to be taken as a fantasy, and it is one: a Regency in which the ballrooms are integrated because the king married a queen of African descent, and in which the story keeps to what the women want and are never told. Daphne's mother cannot explain a wedding night to her, and much of the first season is Daphne finding out for herself. Its creator, Chris Van Dusen, said the series was not colour-blind, because race is part of it. The same season's most debated scene cuts the other way: Daphne stops Simon from withdrawing during sex, and critics called it a marital rape that the series never names. A month after its Christmas Day 2020 release, Netflix reported that 82 million households had watched at least two minutes of it. Under the gowns sits a harder question: how much choice there is in a marriage market where every woman is ranked in print.