The Stars of ‘Queen Charlotte’ Break Down That Emotional Finale
No one but Shonda Rhimes could make me cry over a King and a Queen hiding under a bed.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story premiered at the beginning of the month and it has been steadily making its way across pop culture and social media, with TikToks and tweets about how heart-wrenching the protagonists’ final declarations of love were and how Shonda Rhimes has done it once again. I say this from experience: I make no secret of being a Polin and Kanthony girl before anything else, but Charlotte’s “I will stand with you between the Heaven and the Earth” truly floored me and I don’t think I have recovered yet.
As of right now, pretty much every Bridgerton fan has probably had the chance to watch the love story of a young Queen Charlotte (played brilliantly by India Amarteifio) and her husband King George III (Corey MyIchreest), as the two struggle with politics, social dynamics that could have maybe been handled better, and ultimately, George’s illness—an actual part of history that we caught glimpses of in the main Bridgerton series.
This article will contain spoilers for the entirety of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, so be warned if you still haven’t watched or finished the series.
The emotional final moments between Charlotte and George
The series’ final beats show us how Charlotte and George find a way to live in their marriage while accepting George’s condition and never forsaking their love. The Queen Charlotte we’ve come to know, played by Golda Rosheuvel, rushes from her residence at Buckingham House to Kew Palace to tell her husband (played by James Fleet) that their son is soon to become a father.
The two slip under the bed so that George can “hide from the heavens,” and we’re treated to such an emotional moment in which they see each other as they were when they were young, and it shows us that the incredible love they have for each other has never changed—despite all that it was put through. It’s an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the show that’s delivered masterfully by the four actors involved, who have also taken to Netflix’s official website Tudum to discuss it further.
Rosheuvel says that, for her, “love is not about words. It really is a deeper connection with that person, an understanding that when you look at them, it’s there.” She goes on to address how Charlotte and George’s relationship has evolved from when we see them as young newlyweds to when the main Bridgerton plot takes place. Rosheuvel explains:
“Queen Charlotte knows what to do to help King George, whereas young Queen Charlotte is at the beginning of that journey. Queen Charlotte now knows how to communicate with the man she loves. She knows what he needs. She understands him. It’s a lifelong journey for them and you see that in that last scene.”
The actors also have an opinion on the fact that, as we know from Bridgerton, Charlotte and George do not live together. Both Rosheuvel and MyIchreest acknowledge that the separation is for their well-being, but only physically. “In that scene at the end, we see that George is still very capable of becoming lucid and seeing Charlotte for who she is,” MyIchreest says. “They don’t live apart emotionally.”
The equally emotional ending of the King’s man and the Queen’s man
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story also gave us our first queer love story set in the Bridgerton universe—I’m still keeping my hopes high for Benedict Bridgerton, my would-be bisexual icon, don’t worry—with the relationship of Brimsley and Reynolds, the personal attendants to the Queen and the King, respectively.
We already knew Brimsley from Bridgerton, where he’s played by Hugh Sachs, but this spinoff gave us a chance to see him just starting out in royal service—and also to see the love that binds young Brimsley (Sam Clemmett) with Reynolds (Freddie Dennis).
As you well know, though, we’ve never seen an older version of Reynolds. What’s more, the scene in which the two are dancing in the gardens to music from the ball thrown by Charlotte and George dissolves to older Brimsley dancing alone, prompting fans everywhere to wonder what happened to him.
“What was informing me when I was dancing is that [Brimsley’s dance with Reynolds] is a happy memory,” Sachs says. “That’s when Brimsley was in love and Reynolds was the love of his life.” Shonda Rhimes herself says that while we’ve never seen an older Reynolds in the palace halls in the Regency era, he “is not dead.” In fact, Rhimes says, “There’s a lot more I could write about that.” So now I simply have to hope we’ll see him in some future Bridgerton season.
What’s next for our beloved cast of characters
While young Queen Charlotte and young King George are the lead characters of this spinoff, they weren’t the only younger versions of beloved players we saw: Lady Violet Bridgerton and Lady Agatha Danbury both featured prominently in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. We got a chance to see some of their past, and the series laid some new threads for them to follow in the future.
On the one hand, we have a young Lady Danbury (played by Arsema Thomas) who has to navigate the advantages and disadvantages of being a widow and the inheritance of the noble title bestowed upon her husband, which she’s not sure will pass automatically to her son.
In the end, we see Lady Danbury refuse the proposal of marriage from Queen Charlotte’s brother and choose her own independence—something that we know from Bridgerton is the right choice, since the older Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) is a popular and influential member of the London ton who throws some of the most anticipated balls of the season.
As for Lady Violet, we caught a glimpse of her family life and of the strong bond she had with her father when she was a young girl (Connie Jenkins-Greig). Her most significant development, though, happens while she’s the adult woman (Ruth Gemmell) we’ve all come to know throughout Bridgerton.
While Violet still loves and always will love her deceased husband, Viscount Edmund Bridgerton, she finds herself having desires and wishes of her own. Now that she has recognized this, we will have to wait and see if she chooses to act upon them. Gemmell, for once, is very happy with this new road opening up in front of her character, and says that what’s really lovely for her “is that you get to see that life is not over for Violet, and that there is more to this woman than being solely a mother.”
A little easter egg for all you royal history connoisseurs
Another tidbit that the final episode of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story gave us is the resolution of Queen Charlotte’s efforts to produce a new royal baby to continue the Hanover line.
The crisis was sparked by the death in childbirth of the Queen’s only granddaughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the child of her oldest son, George, who will go on to first become Prince Regent—hence the name “the Regency era”—and then assume the throne as King George IV. If she had lived, Princess Charlotte would have become Queen in her own right, but after her passing, Queen Charlotte pressures her many sons and daughters to produce another heir.
That heir comes from the Queen’s fifth child, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and his wife, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. In the show, we see the two announce the happy news of Victoria’s pregnancy to the Queen, saying they have a feeling the baby will be a girl.
This feeling might have been written with a good dose of writer omniscience, but that is definitely right, as every royal history nerd might tell you. Their child will be born in 1819 as Princess Alexandrina Victoria and will ascend the throne in 1837 as Queen Victoria, following two of her uncles.
(via Tudum, featured image: Netflix)
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