r/BridgertonNetflix

Source Netflix UK, full video tomorrow

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Still surprised they haven’t include a cover.

The likelihood of seeing Phillip in S5 is almost slim to none but I thought it would still be fun to imagine ourselves as the writers/showrunner and how we'd bring Phillip back after his long hiatus post-season 2?

Personally, this is how I'd do it if I was the showrunner and I had the opportunity to set Phillip up to be the next lead in S5:

Part 1:

• Since it's a 2 year time jump, I'd start off the season obviously in Eloise's perspective as she navigates being a single woman in her 20s. She starts the season with her mother again pressuring her to engage in the marriage mart but Violet gets sidetracked when Francesca announces she is going to reenter the marriage mart to find a new husband so Violet shifts her focus back to Francesca which gives Eloise some relief but then she realizes that with Francesca reentering the marriage mart, and seeing all of her siblings barely having time for her because they have their own lives and are becoming parents with many children being born, she looks to Gregory and Hyacinth who are also very close to joining society as they'll probably be around 18/19 and 16/17. She will realize that if she doesn't start her life now then she will be stuck with her mother for the rest of her life and that feels like nightmare for her. (Episode 1)
• So she decides to give the marriage mart a shot and start engaging with other suitors. But she goes about courting in an unconventional manner. She is the one who interviews ​her potential suitors, asking them out of pocket questions that make them uncomfortable, such as what their political beliefs are around women and their opinions about women having a career or university education which comically leaves them tongue tied. She is also easily annoyed and bored when a man isn't challenging her mentally or the conversation is not stimulating enough or the man isn't talking enough about himself OR if he talks too much about himself. (Episode 1 and 2)
• Violet tries to encourage her to approach courting in a delicate fashion but Eloise says that her strategy is the only way she can know how to do this. So, much of Part 1, Eloise would be having scenes with the men of the ton and nothings seems to work out and nobody stands out enough for her to consider courtship or marriage. (Episode 1 and 2)
• So as the episodes go on, maybe Episode 2 we get a funny montage of Eloise going on promenades with men (with Violet and Hyacinth chaperoning) and Eloise interviewing the men. But there's at least 1 or 2 who Eloise gives another "date" to and they are the ones who end up proposing to her and she then panics and decides to decline their proposals. Hyacinth and Violet are fighting with her because they thought the men seemed like good options for Eloise but Eloise said they just did not feel right for her. (Episode 2)
• Francesca and Eloise have two similar storylines of joining the marriage mart but their approaches are different but by the end of Part 1 around Episode 3 or early Episode 4,they both reach an impasse and realize it isn't working for them. For Francesca it's because of her feelings for Michaela but for Eloise it's because no man is interesting enough for her so they both give up on the marriage mart and Eloise says that her point is proven that there is no man that's worth giving up her independence and freedom for and that the marriage mart is all flawed so she tells her mother to leave her alone with this marriage mart because she's tried and it's not for her. Violet accepts this and leaves her alone and thanks her for at least trying. (Episode 3)
• By episode 4 however, Penelope and Colin receive a letter from Phillip Crane letting them know that Marina has died and when Eloise visits them to tell them that Violet has finally left her alone with the marriage mart business and that Francesca just left for Scotland, she notices that Penelope is crying and Colin is consoling her. Eloise immediately asks what's wrong and Colin tells her about Marina and she sees how grief stricken he is over her passing as he reminisces over her and how they hadn't spoken in years. Eloise is the first to ask how Phillip is coping but she doesn't call him Phillip but rather "her husband" because she doesn't know him personally. Colin and Penelope say they don't know how he's doing but they plan to attend the funeral to show their support to him. Penelope mentions how difficult it must be for Phillip now to be raising two small children all on his own and then mentions to Colin how they should write a condolence letter to Phillip before the funeral, and send a few flowers as well. Colin adds that he would appreciate that very much. Eloise asked Penelope if there was anything she could do for her and Penelope asked her to distract her with the latest gossip so then she goes into talking about this whole marriage mart business. ​(Episode 4)
• Eloise is focused on the part of writing a condolence letter to Phillip and wonders if she should write one. Even though Marina wasn't related to her, Eloise felt awful over how the ton treated her and she was going to be her sister in law once upon a time and she remembered how Penelope said writing can be cathartic to a mourning loved one so she thought maybe she ought to also write to Phillip. (Episode 4)
• Then later on in the episode, Eloise sits down in her room and begins to pen her first letter to Phillip. Then ​we get our first shot of a grief stricken and tired Phillip Crane in the following shot the next day (while he's in the greenhouse or his office) receiving the letter from Miles Carter or Gunning from Colin and Penelope Bridgerton and a vase of flowers that he places on the working table. Phillip reads the letter and thanks Gunning and told him he'll find a place to replant the flowers in the garden which is something Marina would've liked. Then Gunning hands him a second letter from a Miss Bridgerton. Phillip is confused as he then begins to read the letter and by the end of it is smiling because it cheered him up after a long day of reading and responding to condolence letters, preparing the arrangements for the funeral, writing letters to inform family and friends that Marina passed and dealing with his nuisance of children who were acting up ever since Marina died. (Episode 4)
• Then we get Marina's funeral in either episode 4 or episode 5 attended by Colin and Penelope. From Polins perspective they watch as Phillip is standing with his twin children dressed in black as Amanda and Oliver are solemn and in tears while they watch their mother's casket/tombstone ​while the minster gives his address. The funeral is on Romney Hall grounds. (Episode 4 or 5)
• Then during the wake/memorial service reception, Colin and Penelope meet up with Phillip ​and they offer their condolences to him and Penelope offers her regret over not visiting them more often but Phillip kindly tells her not to worry and that Marina spoke highly of her and she was happy to have a consistent letter correspondence with each other. Penelope then asks how exactly she died because it happened so fast. Phillip looks like he doesn't want to talk about it (leaving the audience intrigued to know how it happens) and Colin steps in to say he didn't need to talk about it and the important thing is that we should remember the life she did live. Phillip thanked him with a nod and added that Marina was such a good mother and that he doesn't know how he was going to raise the twins without her. Penelope assures him he'll of just fine. Phillip tells her he hopes so. (Episode 4 or 5).

Part 2:

• Episode 5, we get a time jump of a few weeks and now Phillip is integrated into the story after making his reappearance in Part 1 episode 4. We see his life at Romney Hall dealing with the chaotic children who are running around the house and Phillip is so overwhelmed with his life that he doesn't have the time or energy to reprimand them. He is busy with some botany research that has ties to Cambridge his alma mater and the professors there use his research in teaching. He is jealous of them because he wanted to become an academic professor before George died but he had to marry Marina and married men were not allowed to become professors or fellows because of the rules on celibacy so he gave up his dream of becoming a professor and it's one thing he will always think about every day of his life. While doing his research, Gunning comes in to tell him that he has a few letters of condolences he needs to reply to. Phillip decides to go to his office and begin writing back to friends and family and neighbors, and then he stumbled across one of the letters he had read but never responded to from Miss Bridgerton. Then he recalled something she said that he did not stop thinking about. he looks at the pile of letters on his desk and then begins writing back to Eloise. Then we cut to Eloise receiving the letter from Romney Hall from Footman John to her surprise and she begins reading it with a voiceovers from Phillip reciting the letter and noticed the pressed flower attached to the letter. (Episode 5)
• Then the next episode, Eloise and Phillip begin writing letters more frequently to one another and they start bonding on intellectual pursuits, talking about Phillip's work as a botanist and his studies and his time during Cambridge, Eloise tries to get as much information about university life through him and how his research was going, taking a vested interest in what he does as a vocation. She is intrigued by how articulate and intelligent his letters are and how knowledgeable he is on plant life and the world but not in a boring or dull way. He also asks her of her interests and she talks ad naseum about women's rights and politics and how she wishes women had access to proper university level education that men do and were allowed to work secularly in respectable jobs. She talks about her ambitions as well. They seem to develop an intellectual friendship and it feels like that and nothing more. Eloise is stunned that she can get along well with a man who doesn't brag about his vast estates or talk about how he wanted to get her wed and bred. They had thought provoking conversations. We get voiceovers of them reading and writing letters to each other and it's sparsed all across the episode while we also simultaneously see them doing their daily routines (Phillip in his office or in the greenhouse or in the garden while Eloise is either promenading with her sisters or Penelope or Violet, or sitting by the bench on her own or sitting by her desk or on the window readng his letters and smiling). Very Atonement, Letters to Juliet, Dear John or You've Got Mail inspired. (Episode 6)
• Then in the following episode we see Phillip being frustrated with his twins being unruly so he's finally had enough and has rules set upon them that they have to abide by. They can play but only outside and they cannot go to the lake but these rules are extreme and because he's overprotective over them, it might come across as overbearing but he doesn't want them to get hurt doing something they shouldn't. This is basically like Captain Von Trapp in Sound of Music. There is a tender moment that Phillip shares with the twins about how he's all they've got so he hopes they can understand each other and make each other happy and how he intends to be there for them. This is only for one scene because I don't want to see the twins much in S5. This is the last scene we see of the twins. Then we follow Eloise as she begins to act sneakily around everyone, hiding her letter writing and the family noticing how strange she's been acting as Hyacinth starts to follow her around and mentions to Violet how strange Eloise has been for weeks or months now. Hyacinth has her own subplot where she thinks Eloise is the new Lady Whistledown and how she intends to prove it by shadowing her and following her every move. Eloise secretly goes somewhere private to read or write letters to Phillip while Phillip is also quietly writing letters to Eloise. Gunning mentions that the children need a mother and he needs to start to think about possibly remarrying and although Phillip never thought about it, the first person who came to his mind was Eloise for some reason. (Episode 7).
• In episode 8, we don't see much of Phillip but we get a lot of voice over work from him reading letters that he wrote to Eloise but we do see a lot of Eloise and how she reacts to every letter that he writes to her. The more they talk about their hopes and dreams the more Eloise develops feelings, not for Phillip specifically but the idea of him and how their objectives align. Phillip then gets vulnerable and starts opening up about how Marina's death has affected his children and how the children could use a bit of stability in their life but he doesn't know how to give that to them because he can't act the role of a father and a mother to them. Eloise feels sympathy towards him and shares how her mother raised all of her children almost all on her own after her father died and commended Phillip for taking on that responsibility. Then they talk about education and how they both value it and while Eloise mention how she wishes she could be able to attend university one day, Phillip unknowingly plants a seed in Eloise's mind as he mentioned how he knows of a friend of his whose wife requested a tutor (who's also a friend of Phillip's and a professor) for a certain subject and how that seemed to help satisfy her mind and says perhaps she should come and visit him one day to see if he can introduce her to her, he thinks they could get along. Eloise thinks about this letter for the whole episode while she watches all of her family in happy marriages and being in love, watching her sister Francesca find love again and marry in this episode. She realized that love may not be for her but maybe she can design a life for herself that's suited for her and perhaps Phillip was the key to that so by the end of the season after all the events of Franchaelas love story have subsided, Eloise decides to take her own life in her own hands and then enlisted the help of Footman John to help her plan to sneak out of the upcoming ball the whole family was attending to go to an undisclosed location while everyone is distracted and after a few protests from Footman John and a handsome bribe from Eloise, John agreed to help her escape. They plan this to a T and once she was all packed and the carriage was loaded and as the ball went on while the family were all preoccupied she sneaks out and joins John as they leave Mayfair and travel to the country. Meanwhile, after a while the family is left wondering where Eloise ran off to as they noticed she's completely disappeared and then we cut to Eloise arriving at Romney Hall the following day, early morning with Eloise exiting her carriage and then arriving at Phillip's doorstep. (Episode 8)
• Once Gunning let's her in, he goes to call Phillip from the greenhouse and when they return we get the book scene of their first meet where a BEARDED Phillip "stops shorts, stumbles even" over her radiance and beauty while Eloise begins rambling on and on about her journey. Eloise is also surprised by how handsome he was and immediately feels a physical attraction to him that she tries to ignore because she's focused on one thing. Then once Phillip finally realizes who she is, he asks what she's doing here. She tells him she thought about what he said about his friend whose wife had a private tutor and how she wants that for herself. And also mentioned how he was looking for a mother for his children. Then she finally says your prayers have been answered. Phillip is left confused and requires more clarification. Then Eloise finally makes the proposal of marriage, stating that they can both help each other by agreeing to see if they were suitable to marry one another and it doesn't need to be romantic or have any particular affection at all. She will help him with the condition he helps her find a university tutor. They are simply two friends who agreed to marry for convenience sake and help each other out. That gives Eloise more agency over her decision to marry instead of being encouraged or forced to by a man. Then the episode ends on this cliffhanger with the epilogue being Franchaela related. (Episode 8)

What do you think?

I know it's unrealistic (even though I don't think it's unrealistic at all in a perfect world) and definitely NOT going to happen. We'd be lucky to even get ONE letter in S5 let alone all of this but this is how I'd set up Philoise's season if I WAS THE SHOWRUNNER. But I'm not so...

I just think this would be a great set up and have the casual fans engaged into seeing where this story will go. ​

What ideas do you have? What would you do if you were the showrunner? How would you reintroduce Phillip and set up Philoise in season 5?

Thank you Shondaland for introducing many non book readers like me to Benedict and Sophie's world. Which has indeed made us go back to books as well.

Happy june 05th, Benophie day🪁💕🥰

Like Luke told Yerin, they'll always be Benedict and Sophie. It really is the beginning. Even after 200+ years of their meet cute timeline at the masquerade ball🎭

Can't wait for future seasons, until then here's a pouty Benedict yearnington in the last 2 slides representing all of Benophie fans🫠

I'm so happy that I came across the Benophie world via Lukerin❤️ here are some pics I absolutely 🥰 (dammit there's a limit only to 20 photos, when I have a whole gallery)

To me, that interpretation ignores a lot of what season 3 actually showed us.

Penelope wanted a marriage built on love, and Debling was very clear that he would never be able to offer her that. He planned to spend long periods away from home, leaving her to manage everything on her own. While she may have enjoyed the freedom that came with his absence and found it easier to continue as Lady Whistledown, I don't think that would have made her truly happy. It would have left her lonely.

By contrast, Colin loved her. The season makes it clear that his feelings were always there, even if he didn't fully understand them until later. More importantly, he was able to give Penelope what she had always wanted: a partner who genuinely loved and chose her.

That's why I struggle with the idea that Penelope would have been better off with Debling when she is clearly happy with Colin. It's perfectly fine to prefer different ships, but I don't think wanting Penelope to settle for a loveless marriage is somehow a better outcome for her character.

What also surprises me is how much criticism Penelope receives despite being one of the most compassionate and complex characters in the series. As Lady Whistledown, she has certainly made mistakes, but she has also helped countless people throughout the ton, including members of the Bridgerton family. Whether people like her or not, I think her character deserves a lot more credit than she often gets.

Today, June 4th, is corgi appreciation day. I only think it is best that we use our time and efforts to pay homage to Newton and Austin, who portrayed him.

Anyways, much love and please remember what would Newton do.

sometimes I wonder, what do you think would have happened if Daphne had chosen Prince Friedrich instead of Simon? Would she have been happier, or was Simon always the right choice for her?

imo , The prince would have been a better choice according to daphne's personality.

[ SHOW DISCUSSION]

Original source is here and the cosplayers are cissysnow_ + jackofgraves  <3

Happy Pride Month! 🌈

Since it's Pride Month, I wanted to make a few discussion posts looking back at some of Bridgerton's most prominent queer characters and the conversations surrounding them.

The goal isn't to accuse anyone of homophobia, biphobia, or bad intentions, nor is it to claim that every criticism of a character is rooted in bias.

Instead, I'd like to look at some of the most common debates in the fandom, compare them to what we actually saw on screen, and discuss whether certain reactions might have been influenced by factors beyond writing alone.

I thought Benedict would be a good place to start, as he's arguably one of the most discussed and divisive queer characters in the fandom so far.

A quick warning before I start:

This post ended up being much longer than I originally intended. 😅

So if you make it all the way to the end, thank you! And if not, I completely understand.

With that said, let's talk about Benedict.

1. The Season 3 screentime debate

One of the most common criticisms I saw during Season 3 was that Benedict received "too much screentime" despite it not being his season.

What makes me curious about this criticism is that when fans calculated screentime for Season 3, Benedict was not actually one of the most prominent characters. Depending on the calculation, he ranked below characters such as Eloise, Portia, and even Cressida.

At the same time, many other Bridgerton characters have received substantial screentime outside of their own seasons:

• Anthony had major storylines before Season 2.

• Penelope had important storylines throughout Seasons 1, 2, and 3.

• Eloise has consistently received significant development every season.

So I wonder:

Was the issue really the amount of screentime Benedict received?

Or was the issue the specific story being told during that screentime?

I've also seen some fans argue that Colin deserved as much screentime in Benedict's season as Benedict had in Colin's season.

Looking at the actual numbers, does that argument still hold up?

Because looking at fan screentime calculations, Colin actually had more screentime than Benedict in both Seasons 1 and 2. Then, of course, Season 3 was Colin's own season, making the gap even larger overall.

This is part of why I find the "Benedict takes up too much screentime" criticism interesting.

If Benedict consistently had less screentime than Colin before either of them became leads, why did Benedict's presence become such a frequent topic of discussion?

And if Benedict was only around the eighth most prominent character in Season 3, why did the perception develop that he was dominating the season?

Another comparison I find interesting is Eloise.

Eloise has been one of the most prominent Bridgerton siblings since Season 1, despite her own season still being years away. Looking at overall screentime rankings after Seasons 1-3, she is significantly higher than Benedict and has consistently received major storylines each season.

Yet I don't remember seeing nearly the same level of discussion about Eloise having "too much screentime" or "taking attention away from the main couple."

To be clear, I'm not saying Eloise receives too much screentime. I actually think her continued development makes sense for her character.

What I find interesting is the difference in fandom perception.

Why does significant screentime for some supporting Bridgertons feel natural to viewers, while significant screentime for others becomes controversial?

Is it about the character themselves? The story being told? Audience expectations? Or something else entirely?

(Screenshot of a fan on reddit putting the time of each characters are above. It doesn't count S4 because I didn't find anything beyond S3 time screen)

2. The STI discussion

Another thing that stood out to me was how frequently people brought up STIs when discussing Benedict and Sophie.

Bridgerton has featured several rakes:

• Simon
• Anthony
• Colin (even tho that could be debated, he still had experiences with women before his season with Penelope. Tho I will argue not as much as the other leads)

Yet I don't remember seeing the same volume of discussion about STIs when people talked about Daphne, Kate, or Penelope ending up with those characters.

Why do you think this conversation became so prominent with Benedict?

Is it because audiences have become more aware of historical realities?

Or is there something different about the way viewers perceive a bisexual male character compared to heterosexual male characters?

3. "I thought Benedict was gay"

A reaction I saw surprisingly often after Season 3 was:

"I thought Benedict was gay. And will end up with a man"

Wanting more gay representation is completely valid.

But Benedict's storyline explicitly showed attraction to women as well as attraction to a man.

So I'm curious:

Why do you think so many viewers interpreted him as exclusively gay?

At what point does disappointment that a character isn't gay become bisexual erasure?

And how do fandom spaces generally handle bisexual representation compared to gay or lesbian representation?

4. The "immature Benedict" criticism

Benedict has always been portrayed as unconventional, artistic, and resistant to traditional expectations.

Those traits existed long before Season 3.

Yet it feels like criticism of Benedict as immature, directionless, or unable to commit became much louder once his sexuality became a larger part of his storyline.

Do you think that's true? If so, why?

And if not, can you remember seeing these same criticisms at the same level before Season 3?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives. Please keep the discussion respectful.