A Deep Dive Into Bridgerton: "The Viscount Who Loved Me" (S1, Ep. 8)

The finale to the hit Netflix series hits all the right notes, and then some.

Well, gentle reader, here we are at last, the finale of Bridgerton. It’s now been nearly a month since the show aired, and I’ve really enjoyed walking through my thoughts on the series with all of you, diving deep into the episodes to tease out their hidden complexities and richness. I hope you’ve enjoyed these as much as I have and that you’ll stick around for more of what I cover here at Omnivorous. In case you didn’t know, joy and beauty are what we’re about here, whether that be found in the world of pop culture or politics or anywhere else. 

But anyway, I digress. Let’s dive right into the season finale, “The Viscount Who Loved Me.” 

As you’ve probably guessed by this point, the episode sees the conclusion of the three major storylines that have occupied the season. After rescuing Kate from her horse-riding accident, Anthony feels tormented, and so does she. Ultimately, of course, they come to realize what’s been clear from the very beginning: that they belong with one another. Meanwhile, Lady Featherington, Penelope, and Eloise all realize equally shattering things, with consequences that will no doubt continue to echo in the seasons to come.

Let’s start, then, with Lady Featherington. We all know that I worship devoutly at the altar of Polly Walker, and this episode shows why I am right to do so. Throughout this season, we’ve watched the redoubtable Lady F. try to navigate the fraught waters left behind by her husband’s ill-timed death. While there were some hints she might engage in a bit of a love affair with her husband’s cousin, the newly-minted Lord Featherington, in this episode she finally realizes what’s been clear all along: he’s a miscreant and a fraud.

A friend of mine remarked that Lady Featherington has a heart of granite, and I think there’s a lot to that characterization. As was the case with her most famous character, Atia of the Julii in Rome, she is a matriarch who cares deeply about her daughters and their welfare, even if they drive her to distraction. Are her actions toward Lord Featherington unscrupulous and perhaps even a bit unethical? Absolutely. But, as I’ve remarked before, the truth is that Lady Featherington is this series’ sharpest character. She’s long realized that beneath all of the pomp and finery of the ton there is a brutal, cut-throat world, one in which survival of the fittest is the only guiding principle. If she wants to have her daughters attain the respect she has so long desired, then she is going to have to take desperate measures, and so she does. We may not entirely approve of what she does, but we can at least respect the simple amount of bravery it takes for her to do them.

In this respect, Penelope is very much her mother’s daughter. There have been faint glimpses this season of just how much of a Featherington she has always been, sly (almost feral) glances that have suggested there is more to her than just the bubbly person she seems to be on the surface. Nicola Coughlan deserves a great deal of credit for bringing out these shades of Penelope’s character, allowing us to see her for the cunning creature she truly is. Like her mother, she knows what it takes to succeed in this world and, while she might lack the worldly charms of some of the other members of society, she knows that it’s the cruel blade of gossip which cuts the deepest. Unfortunately for her, she shows just a bit too much of how much she knows, which leads Eloise to finally figure out her secret identity, and their deep friendship comes crashing down around both of them.

To be sure, the friendship breakup scene is one of the most difficult that we’ve seen this season, in part because we know how very much it costs both of them. Anyone who has ever had a vicious argument with a friend–one from which it proves almost impossible to return–knows how easy it is for matters to escalate, whatever our wishes might be in the matter. They’re angry at one another, and deservedly so, but the truth is that they have more in common with one another than they have with almost anyone else. Both, after all, are women who are not satisfied with their lot in life, though they have taken very different routes in their efforts to express themselves. They also each have a point: Eloise is right to reprimand Penelope, but Penelope is equally right to point out that Eloise is jealous of her willingness to actually do something rather than just talk about it.

Of course, this all begs the question: will they ever be able to see past this argument to resurrect their friendship? So much of their story has been about their friendship and their seemingly unbreakable bond. Throughout the season, however, we’ve seen their life trajectories taking them in very different directions, and now, with this split, that tendency seems primed to continue. The struggle for Bridgerton, however, will be to keep the Featherington and Bridgerton strands connected rather than running on parallel tracks.

And then, of course, there’s the moment when Anthony and Kate finally confess their feelings for one another. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for, and it more than delivers. Of course, most of this is due to the phenomenal chemistry between the two leads, who almost catch the screen aflame with their obvious desire for one another. For me, though, the best part was the ending, in which we get to see them as they have so rarely been: truly, deeply happy, and in love, playing pall mall with the rest of the Bridgerton clan. Is it a bit cliche, maybe a bit too-good-to-be-true? Obviously, but why else do we watch a show like Bridgerton?

Overall, I thought this was a very well-executed finale. It managed to bring together all of the various story threads that we’ve been engaged with this season, while also setting up some interesting material for the second season. In particular, it seems clear by this point that the next season will focus on Benedict and his romance. Let’s hope that this show finally finds its way to showing some queer folks.

So what do I think of this season of Bridgerton? I thought it was, in a word, excellent. It managed to keep enough of what made the first season so compelling while also setting off in its new direction. While I know some missed the exuberant–if at times quasi-ridiculous–sexiness of the first season, for me the second season’s focus on feelings rather than titillation was one of its greatest strengths. What’s more, I also appreciated the fact that we got to see more of the recent history of the Bridgerton family, which helps to explain so much about their actions and their ways of looking at the world. 

By this point, we know that the series has already been renewed for a third and a fourth season, so it seems certain that we’ll get to see more of these characters in the years to come. I do hope that the new seasons take some important lessons from their predecessors and that they manage to achieve a similar balance as this second one has done.

Thank you, gentle reader, for joining me on this little jaunt. I do hope you’ll consider subscribing to Omnivorous. I have lots more pop culture chatter to share with you in the weeks and months to come!