Entertainment and Media

How to Ensure the Demise of a Hopeless Romantic in Eight Episodes: A Review of Bridgerton, Season 2

Diya Sebastian 

Dearest Gentle Reader,

Did you miss me? I certainly missed the glitz, glamor, and gossip of my most beloved period piece. Bridgerton returned on March 25th to rid me of my endless boredom and to transport me to the Victorian age in hopes of becoming the diamond of this season. Season 2 did not disappoint in terms of the opulence and the outrageous shows of wealth, as evidenced by Queen Charlotte’s own personal zoo equipped with peacocks and zebras. But everyone knows I’m here to comment on one thing and one thing only: the enemies-to-lovers trope. 

This season’s scandalous soiree mainly follows the Viscount Anthony Bridgerton, played by Jonathon Bailey. His love interest, the force of nature known as Kathani “Kate” Sharma, is portrayed by the stunning Simone Ashley. I will not hesitate to admit that I spent about thirty minutes screaming my lungs out when I found out that Shonda Rhimes had changed white Kate Sheffield into Kate Sharma, the brown goddess that I desperately needed in my childhood. Mind you, The Viscount Who Loved Me was my favorite novel out of the entire series, but finding out that I would finally see the desi representation I desperately craved in a period piece genuinely made my entire year. 

For those of you wondering why this is a big deal, allow me to break it down for you. When you think of a brown person in TV or the movies, I’m willing to bet your mind immediately goes to Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb or Ravi from Jessie or literally any role played by Mindy Kaling. The reality is that all these characters just reinforce harmful stereotypes about brown people (see the Model Minority Myth) and go as far as making fun of our culture, our food, the way we dress, and the way we talk. God forbid an immigrant has an accent, Rebecca, it usually means they can speak multiple languages fluently. And no, your four years of high school Spanish do not count. Not only is the fact that we are underrepresented on the big screen infuriating, but so is the fixation on highlighting our “otherness”. When brown people are featured in any way, like in the Netflix show Never Have I Ever (which was groundbreaking TV, but guess who produced it? Mindy Kaling…), it’s almost like everything they do is a grand spectacle. Eating rice and lentils for dinner? Mind-blowing! Arranged marriages and weddings that last four days? OMG! Kissing a white boy? God, someone call the priest! 

Bridgerton, though,  did it differently, and I couldn’t be more thankful. The Sharmas are Indian, but they’re not Indian in the way that we spend five episodes fawning over their foreignness and dissecting their every move. Instead, we see small details sprinkled throughout the entire season without there being anything quite striking about the Sharmas that separates them from the rest of the ton. The small scenes like Kate rubbing coconut oil into her sister’s hair and making her own cup of chai, the traditional Indian jewelry like jhumkas and bangles, and the haldi ceremony were so comforting to see. It was even better knowing that this was like any family tradition in the show, such as the Bridgertons’ annual pall mall games, and not something that needed crude commentary. BUT, we also need to talk about the fact that Bridgerton cast a brown person of darker complexion for this role! Colorism is rampant across the entire globe, but especially in India, where having a fairer complexion is almost like winning the Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The movie industry in India is dominated by pale actors and actresses, the great majority of whom promote skin bleaching products, resulting in a nation where being darker is apparently the worst curse to bestow on anyone. And Simone Ashley shatters all these barriers with her enthralling performance that you’ll have a hard time looking away from, as well as by being devastatingly gorgeous. 

Okay, let’s return to the couple of the year. Anthony Bridgerton’s list of requirements for his future viscountess was quite disappointing, and frankly, cemented his “Capital R Rake” reputation. “Tolerable, dutiful, suitable enough hips for childbearing, and at least half a brain” is quite an insult to all the young ladies in the ton and made me want to throw him out of his carriage. But Kathani “Kate’ Sharma quite literally knocks some sense into him with her sharp tongue and clever wit that is no match to his own. Kate wants Anthony to stay away from her younger sister, Edwina, but Anthony believes that Edwina will make a dutiful viscountess. If I were to give advice to myself two weeks ago (before I watched this show), I would advise getting another defibrillator and a pillow to scream-cry into. The TENSION between Kate and Anthony was suffocating, and the longer they denied their love for one another, the more gray hairs I acquired. I’m pretty sure my eyebrows were as high as Lady Danbury’s by Episode 8. 

The enemies-to-lovers trope in this season is exquisite, as we go from menacing threats, to longing glances across the dance floor, to soft touches in dark hallways, to crying over each other. The roller coaster of emotions is not for the faint of heart, but the bickering between Kate and Anthony, as well as their palpable chemistry, makes this season one for the ages. I have at least three folders dedicated to edits of Kate and Anthony, which are mostly just them hurling insults at each other. But the show got really good once we saw Anthony prioritize love over his self-imposed responsibilities, and saw Kate realize that she was allowed to be happy too. Kate and Anthony had a lot in common, but especially their fear of failure and of disappointing their families, which resonates with everyone. 

              If I were to perfect this season though, I would add a couple plot changes. First of all, put the OG bee scene back. People catch Anthony and Kate in the garden when he’s trying to save her from the bee, and because it’s so scandalous they’re instantly betrothed! I was not happy that they played this trick on Lord Featherington, as we could have resolved all the drama with Edwina. Secondly, why was there so much Featherington in this season?! Forgive me, but it felt like more than half of every episode was spent on the Featherington plight. They have Penelope’s season to deal with that. Let me have my full Kanthony season. Speaking of Kanthony, they really dragged out their whole “I'm doing what’s best for my family” arc for far too long. So much could have been solved early on if they communicated instead of trying to kill each other with their eyes. Finally, why on Earth was Edwina so bratty in the show? Like, I understand that your sister falling in love with your fiancé would be aggravating, to say the least. But Edwina had to be blind not to see what was happening, and how dare she throw everything Kate’s done for her back in her face? When Edwina said Kate was merely a “half sister”, I wanted one of the peacocks to peck her eyes out. Although this season had its ups and down, its representation and its portrayal of the enemies-to-lovers trope more than redeemed it, and made it a smashing hit. 

Top Ten Kanthony Quotes, Ranked

“You are the bane of my existence, and the object of all my desires.” - A

“I am a gentleman. My father raised me to act with honor, but that honor is hanging by a thread that grows more precarious with every moment I spend in your presence.” - A

“I have loved you from the moment we raced each other in that park. I have loved you at every dance, on every walk, on every time we've been together, every time we've been apart. You don't have to accept it, you don't have to embrace or even allow it. Knowing you, you probably will not, but you must know. You must feel it in your heart, because I do." - A

“Do you think there is a corner of this earth that you could travel to far away enough to free me from this torment?” - A 

“You know, there will never be a day where you do not vex me.” - K

“Is that a promise, Kathani Sharma?” - A

“It has been you. It has been you this entire time. Spinning my world off its axis, making me reconsider everything I have ever told myself.” - K

“That scent. It has remained imprinted on my mind ever since that night of the conservatory ball on that terrace. Lilies.” - A

“Despite the fact that I’ve lived the better part of my life for them. And yet still, all I find myself thinking about, all I find myself being able to breathe for, is you.” - A 

“I have never met anyone like you. It is maddening, how much you consume my very being.” - A

Should You Care About the Grammys?

OPINION

Isaac Hoffman

A few weeks ago, the 64th annual Grammy Awards took place. Held to showcase the very best in music from the previous year, the Grammys have recently become the subject of scrutiny. Just this year, there were multiple controversies in the months leading up to the awards, most notably surrounding artists like comedian and singer-songwriter Bo Burnham who weren’t nominated in categories in which their fans thought they deserved to be nominated. There have also been several debates over which genres certain works should be nominated for, and even where the separation should be between genres themselves.

To many, the biggest fault in recent years of the Recording Academy, the collective of music professionals that hosts the Grammys, was neglecting to nominate singer-songwriter The Weeknd for any awards at the 63rd annual Awards in 2021, which followed the release of his critically acclaimed album After Hours. The Weeknd later called the Academy “corrupt” for this and announced that he would not be submitting any of his future works to them.

Even prior to the last couple of years, the Grammys had been criticized for “snubbing” artists who were nominated but lost to “worse” nominees, or who weren’t nominated for a certain award in the first place. Some of these snubs are still talked about to this day, and it would take multiple pages to describe them all.

Despite these controversies and criticisms that keep piling up, people still pay attention to the Grammys, with the most recent show receiving an increase in viewers from the previous year. Whether people watch to see their favorite artists perform live or just to see who wins, it is indisputable that the awards have remained a mainstay of the music world. On top of this, the Grammys remain an event that sparks discussion about music and brings attention to rising artists. With all of this said, the question remains: should the Grammys remain a cornerstone of culture the way they are, be significantly changed in order to adapt to modern expectations, or be ended entirely?

To keep it brief, my personal opinion on all of this is that I don’t care. I’ll look up the winners after the Awards end and might even watch some of the performances, but ultimately I couldn’t care less about the Grammys. I don’t think they should be completely canceled, but I also don’t think they need to remain such a huge deal. To answer the question posed by the title, you should care about the Grammys if you want to, but shouldn’t put too much focus on who wins and who doesn’t; ultimately forming your own opinion about music is what matters.