I’ll Say It: The ‘Bridgerton’ Mommies Have Better Love Stories and Deserve Spinoffs
They need to give us Violet and Edmund courtship, STAT!
Bridgerton season 3 part 2 is out now on Netflix, and according to showrunner Jess Bronwell, season 4 might take two years to finish. We still don’t know who the next season will focus on, but, well, here’s an idea!
How about they pull off a Queen Charlotte and do another spinoff of one of the older characters’ love stories? Because—unpopular opinion—the Bridgerton mothers do have better love stories than the younger lot. And I’m dying to see all of them. Since season 1 of this Regency era romance series based on the books by Julia Quinn, I’ve been fascinated by the mothers on the show.
It was right after season 2 and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story that I was truly convinced that the lives of Queen Charlotte, Violet Bridgerton, Agatha Danbury, and Portia Featherington are stories I would love as spinoffs, because there’s so much to unpack there.
As Lady Danbury once told Kate Sharma, she has lived a life, and from what we’ve seen so far of her character in Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte, what a life it must’ve been! Her story in Queen Charlotte had a great plot line with Violet’s father, and now that Lady Danbury’s brother, Marcus, is flirting with Violet, it’ll be interesting to see how this affects their delicate relationship.
Speaking of Violet Bridgerton, she’s a Viscountess, a woman who had a rare love match, a beautiful marriage, and never gives up on the hope that her children will also find the kind of love she has known, because it is truly transformative. You could say she is as liberal as they could come in that era, always putting her kids first and sensing when they’re in pain.
And yet, this same woman, who confessed to her daughter Daphne that she and her father were often overcome with passion in their courtship days and took several liberties, was unable to give the “birds and bees” talk to the very same daughter to prepare her for marriage.
For me, Queen Charlotte will be the gold standard to beat, followed closely by season 2 of the main series, with Anthony and Kate. But the one love story that I am the most eager to explore is that of Violet and Edmund Bridgerton. In season 2, some of the most potent and heartbreaking scenes were about Violet mourning the man she loved so deeply: “Edmund was the air that I breathed. And now, there is no air.”
In season 2, Edmund Bridgerton became more than a picture on the wall. He was now a looming figure like Jack Pearson in This Is Us, whose absence from his wife and children’s lives majorly shaped a lot of their behavior. Edmund and Violet’s love story would make for some excellent romance viewing!
And let’s not forget Lady Portia Featherington, possibly one of my favorite characters on the show because of how grey she is. She is mother—her own words—and she is as mother as they come. Constantly shaming and mocking her daughters for their appearance or lack of intelligence, yet at the same time, she fiercely protects them and loves them in her own twisted way.
I’d love to know what Portia was like as a young woman, before she married a man who didn’t quite appreciate her. Did the marriage trigger her ruthless survival skills, or was it something else? Was there ever another man she truly loved?
I’m manifesting Shonda Rhimes recreating the Queen Charlotte magic with the stories of the other Bridgerton mommies!
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