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With Season 2 and the continuation of the Bridgerton family’s stories, will the show do something new with brother Benedict, or keep to the books?
Long-time fans of Julia Quinn’s hit romance novel series Bridgerton were excited to see Netflix adapt it for television. The streaming service and production company Shondaland jazzed up the first novel, The Duke and I, to create Season 1 — which debuted to massive success with audiences upon its release. While the show was marketed as a sort of nineteenth-century Gossip Girl because of the gossipmonger character Lady Whistledown, and indeed, the novels preface each chapter with the latest tidbit of gossip, longtime fans were surprised at just how much the show changed the novels.
Benedict Bridgerton, the second-eldest brother, received one of the more significant changes in the adaptation process. His character is an artist who feels his identity is being constrained. During the first season he becomes the friend of Lord Henry Granville, a gay man in the Ton. Benedict and Granville have a meet-cute of their own — Benedict criticizes a painting done by Granville without knowing he is the artist — and they have simmering (but unspoken) romantic tension that only increases after Benedict discovers Granville with his lover Lord Wetherby. Many fans saw their friendship as the beginning of an LGBTQ storyline for him, something that might be explored deeper in Season 2 or in Season 3.
If Season 1 is any indication of what Season 2 – and the seasons to come – will be like, Bridgerton is not a “faithful” or even beat-by-beat adaptation of the novels. The first season took significant liberties with The Duke and I, including but not limited to: making Daphne a new debutante rather than one who’d been on the marriage market before, adding the Queen Charlotte and Prince Friedrich storylines and including Marina’s romance with Colin Bridgerton.
The changes made to Benedict’s character and his arc came along with a myriad of additions and removals to the story at large, so it’s reasonable to assume that the adaptation of his novel, An Offer From A Gentleman, will not follow the story exactly either.
In An Offer From A Gentlemen, due to be adapted in Season 3, Benedict meets illegitimate daughter Sophie Beckett in a Cinderella-style story when she sneaks into the Bridgerton family’s masquerade. It’s love at first sight for the pair, but they can’t be together – Sophie was wearing a mask that night and Benedict has no idea of her identity. Their romance is a cross-class one as well since Sophie is forced to work as a maid after her wicked stepmother Araminta throws her out of the house for going to the masquerade.
But are Shondaland and Netflix beholden to keeping the same story from An Offer From A Gentleman? Since Season 2 has not been released as of yet, there’s little to compare how accurate Bridgerton has decided to be in its sophomore season. Longtime, dedicated fans of the novel would certainly be upset if Season 3 did not follow the Cinderella story or include Sophie at all. The show would certainly be the recipient of criticism and backlash if it didn’t keep at least some of the themes and characters from the novel. After all, the stories told in the novels were what made the series so popular with readers. Isolating them by completely changing the storyline and Benedict’s character arc – even if it means a win for LGBTQ representation and diversity in television – would not bode well for Netflix in the end.
The writing team could decide to scrap the Cinderella plot entirely and have Benedict enter a relationship with Granville like they teased in Season 1 – though that seems unlikely since Season 1 and Season 2 retained the Bridgerton siblings’ endgame love interest from the novels. What is more likely is that they will address the queerbaiting accusations in Season 2 and 3 by giving him a male love interest.
The Cinderella story can be made into a queer one, where Benedict meets a masked man at a masquerade ball and meets him again out on the Ton. He could even enter a marriage of convenience with another queer woman who wants the security marriage brings while they are both free to pursue relationships with the lovers of their choice. Benedict’s story is a classic fairytale set-up, but that doesn’t mean that Season 3 necessarily needs to follow it exactly. For now, viewers will have to content themselves with the Anthony Bridgerton-Kate Sharma romance in Season 2.
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