Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
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LINDA HOLMES, HOST:
"Bridgerton" is back again. The second half of the latest season just dropped on Netflix. And naturally, the course of true love continues to not run smooth. Colin and Penelope may have finally declared their feelings, but there's a lot left to figure out. For one thing, he hates Lady Whistledown, and she is Lady Whistledown. It's all bound to come out eventually. But as always, we're pretty sure they'll figure it out.
I'm Linda Holmes, and on NPR's POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR, we're talking about the conclusion of "Bridgerton's" third season.
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HOLMES: Joining me today is the co-creator and host of the NPR podcast Wild Card, Rachel Martin. Hello, Rachel.
RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: Hi, Linda.
HOLMES: And also with us once again is Kristen Meinzer. She cohosts "The Daily Fail," a podcast that does comedic close readings of the tabloids. Hello, Kristen. Welcome back.
KRISTEN MEINZER: Hey. So excited to be back. Thank you.
HOLMES: We talked about the first half of the third season back on May 20. We're going to be talking about everything that happened in the second half of the season. So consider this your spoiler warning. Also, consider it your hot and steamy warning. This is "Bridgerton." We will be talking about sex and sex scenes. You would be disappointed if we did not. So consider that your other warning.
As of this point, Colin and Penelope had just had their first hot and steamy hookup - got to that very quickly - and then they immediately got engaged. They are played by Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton.
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LUKE NEWTON: (As Colin Bridgerton) Are you coming with me?
NICOLA COUGHLAN: (As Penelope Featherington) What? Your family will see me.
NEWTON: (As Colin Bridgerton) For God's sake, Penelope Featherington, are you going to marry me or not?
HOLMES: As we return for these episodes, Eloise, Penelope's estranged best friend and Colin's sister, is terribly upset, both because she never saw this relationship coming and because she knows that Penelope is secretly the gossip columnist Lady Whistledown. She's played by Claudia Jessie. Colin hates Lady Whistledown for the things she's written about him, about Eloise and even about his first season fiance, Marina. Remember Marina?
So the big question is now that Colin and Penelope are together, how long can their happiness last before he finds out? The answer is two episodes, and then the last two are spent...
MARTIN: (Laughter).
HOLMES: ...Dealing with the fallout from that. Meanwhile, Colin's other sister, Francesca, is still trying to arrange a quiet wedding to John Sterling. Cressida Cowper is trying to escape her unhappy home. Colin's brother, Benedict, is exploring his sensual self with Lady Tilley Arnold. Anthony and Kate are pregnant. And the brother of Lady Danbury is intrigued by Violet Bridgerton. (Imitating gasping sound). If this sounds like a lot, it is a lot. So let's get right into it. Rachel, how did you like these four episodes - crowded enough for you?
MARTIN: I mean, just hearing you tick off all the things that transpired, it's kind of amazing what they fit into those episodes. Listen. I wanted the fairy tale. We all watched this show for the fairy tale, and we got the fairy tale in the end. I loved the resolution. I thought that Penelope - we were all worried before that Penelope wasn't going to get her due, that somehow her voice, as Lady Whistledown, would be quieted. And that doesn't happen.
I thought we got to see her stand at the center, you know, quite literally and metaphorically speaking, of this storyline and in her life. And I thought that was beautiful. And Colin loves her not despite it but, in the end, he loves her because of it. I'm not quite sure I bought that pivot, but we can talk about it. But listen. There were butterflies, Linda. I mean, come on. It was a beautiful metamorphosis.
HOLMES: How about you, Kristen?
MEINZER: I just needed more Penelope in this. I needed more. Linda, when you just listed off all of the subplots, you didn't even include all of them. You left out the part where Penelope's mom is trying to outwit a solicitor, who...
HOLMES: Yep.
MEINZER: ...Maybe is onto a fraudulent storyline.
HOLMES: And I left out the Mondrichs, who kind of fade at the late part of the season but have a bigger part earlier.
MEINZER: And then Penelope's sisters with possible pregnancies, trying to throw balls, have their standing in society still stay there. I mean, there's so many other plotlines. And I just wish that at least half of them, if not most of them, were gone. I am so bored with Francesca and Kilmartin. Every time they're on screen, I just groan. Like, why are you taking up space when we could be with Penelope, Eloise and Colin?
MARTIN: Because Netflix wanted two parts, Kristen. They wanted two parts.
MEINZER: It's just maddening. But I feel like just Eloise, Colin, Penny and actually Cressida - the four of them together could have taken up all eight episodes beautifully, but they're just crowded. They're so crowded in this.
HOLMES: Yeah. I have to say Kathryn VanArendonk wrote a piece for Vulture that just published that's called "Bridgerton Just Can't Pull Off A Climax," which I thought was very funny.
MEINZER: (Laughter).
HOLMES: And I think she's right because one of the things she points out is that they just have a lot of trouble structurally shaping a season so that it ends in a satisfactory way. Even though they're very good at the buildup, and they're very good at the setting up conflict, they have some issues on this show bringing things to a satisfactory conclusion. And that's basically how I felt.
MEINZER: Right.
HOLMES: It was always going to be a challenge to fit in both the relationship developing between Penelope and Colin and Colin getting over the fact that she's Lady Whistledown. That, to me, is a lot for eight episodes - just those two things.
MEINZER: Right.
HOLMES: And then you add in all these other things. And so everything, to me, felt rushed. I didn't really follow - you know, Rachel, you talked about not necessarily buying his pivot. I definitely didn't. I felt like it was also very muddy. Like, at first, he was super angry. And then it was like, well, are you going to call off the wedding? And he said no because...
MARTIN: He's a man of honor.
HOLMES: ...They had been intimate, and I'm a man of honor. And I was like, this doesn't necessarily seem like it's what he would do.
MARTIN: Right.
HOLMES: But it puts them in the same position that Daphne and her guy were in in the first season.
MARTIN: Right.
HOLMES: They get married, but it's not happy, right?
MARTIN: Yeah.
HOLMES: But then it's - like, at the wedding, he kind of smiles at her. And it seems like now maybe he's over it. But then later, he's mad again. To me, it's very bumpy how...
MARTIN: Yeah.
HOLMES: ...They move through it. I think it has to do with how crowded it all is.
MARTIN: I think you're right. I wanted more bumps. I actually wanted there to be a more nuanced pivot.
HOLMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: It could've been solved by just pausing and really building out each one of those emotional bumps for him because that's what it would have been like, right? Like...
HOLMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...I got to go through this emotion and this one and this one. But instead, it was just all this shorthand. And what we needed him to recognize was that he actually was jealous. And it was Cressida Cowper who actually then plants the seed, like, oh, maybe you're actually jealous that Penelope is this writer and has this notoriety and this talent that you don't have.
HOLMES: Yeah.
MEINZER: Yeah, that's an interesting little thing that they don't spend very much time on (laughter).
MARTIN: No. And then all of a sudden, he just admits it ultimately. And I think that could've been really teased out. And then all of a sudden, he gets to be a published author. I was super annoyed by that.
MEINZER: (Laughter).
MARTIN: I'm like, can't this just be her thing?
HOLMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: Can't she just be the writer in this relationship? But, no, Colin...
HOLMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...Also must be a writer.
HOLMES: No. She inspired him to write a travel memoir, I guess.
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MEINZER: Yeah. I totally agree with you on all counts there about the jealousy of the writing, about the bumps not having enough time to breathe. I found myself continually relying on the Baroness von Schraeder rule.
MARTIN: Tell me what that is.
MEINZER: That's a rule I made up, or maybe it does exist. In "The Sound Of Music," she is the captain's girlfriend. And she tells Maria, nothing's more irresistible to a man than a woman who's in love with him. So I just kept on having to say to myself, well, I guess that's what Colin's storyline is. He knows Penny's in love with him, and that's why he's marrying her even though he's mad at her. Penny loves him so much that it makes up for the fact that he doesn't really love her. He just finds it irresistible.
HOLMES: Yeah.
MEINZER: Yeah, so I just kept on saying Baroness von Schraeder's name over and over again (laughter).
HOLMES: Yeah. I think Penelope also spends a lot of time in this season just feeling very bad and pinched and worried. And I think eventually that wore on me a little bit. As opposed to her getting to sort of enjoy her new love, she's kind of very fretful the entire time 'cause she's constantly afraid of being found out. And she's constantly, you know, worried about what he's saying about her and what he's saying to her.
And, you know, something we talked about the last time we were all together is the fact that the Eloise and Penelope relationship is perhaps more emotionally resonant than the Penelope and Colin relationship. And I definitely deeply felt that as that relationship sort of healed in a way that felt more nuanced to me.
MEINZER: Yeah.
HOLMES: And when you eventually see Penelope and Eloise sitting on the couch together, having a laugh, that was very, very touching to me because I knew how much they had missed their friendship and how much their friendship meant to them.
MARTIN: So I loved this. I thought a lot about this because before, we talked about how we were worried - I think, Linda, you in particular - that Colin wasn't worthy of Penelope. Like, he's just not as smart as she is.
HOLMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: He's not as clever. And we want her to maybe have an intellectual peer. He's not. But one person does not have to be your all things...
HOLMES: True.
MARTIN: ...Right? And so I love that this show is like, this is who she loves. And he's a kind person, and she loves him for that. The end. And then also, here's her intellectual peer, Eloise, who is her dear friend. And I love that the show treated those almost equally, you know, as important in her life - maybe not if you interviewed her mother about it. Like, Lady Featherington was all obsessed with the marriage part.
HOLMES: Yeah, yeah. I was not sure that I bought how quickly things healed between her and her mother...
MARTIN: Right, that was another tough pivot.
HOLMES: ...Toward the end. And I felt like she was a little quick to suddenly be willing to kind of forgive all with her mother and sisters. And they were a little quick to forgive all with her. And it wasn't totally clear to me how money greased those wheels.
MARTIN: Also, her mom is not nice. If she didn't let Penelope take credit for that gift that she gives them, that's not nice.
HOLMES: No, she's - her mother is not nice.
MEINZER: (Laughter).
HOLMES: Kristen, what do you think?
MEINZER: I think they were trying to make things tidy. And when you have this many storylines, and you're trying to tidy up each one, some of the tidying is just going to look a little bit forced. And so I agree with you. At the end I'm like, oh, everything's happily ever after. Oh, three babies born at the same time.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MEINZER: Oh. Everything just was a little too tidy with all of the storylines. And I didn't need that. I just needed most of those storylines to be cut.
HOLMES: Yeah. And some of that is romance stuff. You know, that has a tendency to happen...
MARTIN: Yeah.
HOLMES: ...In some romance books. But I agree with you.
MEINZER: But can we talk about sex and the love scenes in this? 'Cause that's why a lot of people are watching Bridgerton.
MARTIN: Oh, fine. Let's.
MEINZER: And that's why a lot of people want to watch, and I have some issues with how - (laughter).
HOLMES: All right, tell me your issues.
MEINZER: OK, so I really loved at the end of the first half of Season 3 how things are getting hot and heavy in the carriage. And it's like, oh, I'm fanning myself. This is good stuff. The next episode we see, Colin is taking Penelope to what is going to be their new home. And there's some sexy, you know, stuff happening. They're getting undressed in front of the mirror, and Penelope looks fantastic. And Colin looks fantastic. Everything's looking good and then before you know it, they're on the shezlong, and it is over with so fast.
MARTIN: Right.
MEINZER: It kind of just illustrates the point you made earlier, Linda, about maybe they don't know how to do the climax of things.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MEINZER: They know how to do all the buildup, but, yeah, they could do better with that, I think.
HOLMES: My reaction to that scene was, like, that just does not look comfortable.
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MEINZER: The angle of the back of the shezlong?
HOLMES: The angle of it. It's not that big. It's not really a two-person...
MARTIN: Yeah.
MEINZER: How can you move here? You kind of have to stiffly stay in one place.
MARTIN: I read an interview with Nicola and Luke, and they both described that as being a really arduous scene to film. And when it was over, they were both just like, thank God...
HOLMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...We're now done with that.
HOLMES: Yeah, it didn't look comfy. I wanted more comfy for them. But I agree with you. I think the other sex thing that is going to get a lot of attention in this is that Benedict, you know, they have occasionally - maybe not even occasionally, maybe regularly hinted that perhaps Benedict is bisexual. That's been sort of flirted with a few times.
MARTIN: Yeah.
HOLMES: And here, he is introduced by Tilley, who he's been sleeping with, to a man who she also sleeps with, who is also interested in him. And eventually, the three of them have their threesomes, I guess.
MARTIN: Yeah, couple.
HOLMES: And she gives him a very, very 2024 speech about all love is beautiful and all that kind of stuff. And sure, that's a very enlightened attitude. Hooray for that. I'm certainly glad that they have incorporated a queer character. I do think it was a little bit like that story, in some ways, seemed to be happening just to happen. You know what I mean?
MARTIN: Totally. Completely.
MEINZER: Exactly.
HOLMES: I mean, obviously, it's about his recognition of his sexuality, which obviously qualifies as a story point. Maybe, partly because it is crammed in with all these other things that are going on, it feels a little bit like...
MARTIN: Checking the box.
HOLMES: Are we going to do this? Yes, we're gonna do this. And now we did it. And that's the story, you know?
MARTIN: I mean, are they going to pursue that? I mean...
HOLMES: Don't know.
MARTIN: ...I guess not because she - Tilley declares her love. She's like, all about more love with more people, but then oops, as soon as she has to share Benedict, she's like, actually, I just want you. And he's like, actually, I'm kind of into all this love with lots of folks.
HOLMES: Actually, I need more exploration time.
MARTIN: And if they had made this an actual storyline, then you could have gotten into those relationships a little bit more. I was confused about Paul. Where do you come from? Who are you? How did you and Tilley meet?
HOLMES: Well, and again, not really time for him to become a character as much as a just like, you know, the third person in the bed...
MARTIN: Right.
HOLMES: ...Like, more than much of a character.
MEINZER: Why do we need this many Bridgertons to have full love life storylines this season? In the past, weren't we able to just really focus on one character per season? We really got to focus on Anthony and Kate, for example. We really got to focus on Daphne and her storyline. But this season, it's like, how many Bridgertons are falling in love? I counted minimum four if we include Violet, the mom.
HOLMES: They did have a new showrunner this season, and I wonder whether this is - the new approach is kind of more diffuse storytelling, whether they want to have more things going on. I just personally feel like this was way too many. And it's not as if like, well, it's way too many stories, but they're all so good, right? It's too many stories. And to me, it's like, I didn't really need the Francesca story. And I do understand that them deciding to set up Francesca's story - she kind of has to have a subseason before her regular season.
MEINZER: But why does it have to be so boring?
MARTIN: She plays the piano, Kristen. Isn't that enough?
(LAUGHTER)
MEINZER: Sometimes, she looks across the room. Sometimes, she stands up.
HOLMES: Yeah. I could have maybe dealt with Benedict in Benedict's season rather than sort of putting that exploration storyline into this season. I think that Jessica Madsen, who plays Cressida, does a really nice job with that kind of evil character turning into, like, a slightly softer character and then kind of turning back into an evil character. She has a very specific task in this show, and I think she's good at it. But in the end, I didn't think I needed as much of the Cressida business as there ended up being. Now, it's kind of critical to ultimately how Penelope has to confess. I get how those pieces play together, but it took up a lot of time. It's an interesting roller coaster with this show.
MARTIN: I'm in it, guys. I stand by what I said at the beginning. Yes, I can poke holes and all these things. I still love it. It still made me happy at the end. And I have a certain expectation when I watched this show. And, yes, it may have been a crowded narrative, but I still finished it and felt pleased that I spent my time watching that show.
HOLMES: What's not to like about that?
MEINZER: Yeah. I still enjoyed it, too, and it's beautiful to look at. It really is a delight - the costumes, the hair. It's still delightful to me.
MARTIN: Yeah.
MEINZER: Yeah.
HOLMES: As long as I get a couple of really good, like, big, sort of overblown queen scenes every season, I'm happy about that. I need a couple queen scenes. I need some Lady Danbury. Listen.
MARTIN: Yeah.
HOLMES: I just needed it to be either more episodes or fewer things going on. And I needed Colin to be, like, 10% more interesting. But that's just me. Listen. He's a very handsome man.
MARTIN: I know, but, Linda, haven't you had friends who end up partnering with someone who's, like, cute, and you're like, that person is not good enough for you, but oh, well?
HOLMES: No comment.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: And you just have to love them anyway.
HOLMES: No comment.
MEINZER: And come on. He's not the most boring person on the show this season. That's Francesca or Kilmartin.
MARTIN: Right, right.
MEINZER: Come on.
HOLMES: That's true. That is probably true.
MARTIN: Maybe that's why they're there - to, like, make Colin more interesting.
MEINZER: Oh, to make Colin look better. It all makes sense now.
HOLMES: Just raise the - rising tide lowers all - raises all boats something. Anyway, one more thing I want to mention - today is the last day to take our survey about summer snacks. I don't know how you guys feel about summer snacks, but you'll find a link in our show notes. Would you rather eat a crab cake or lobster roll? What's the best treat from Dairy Queen? We are going to be revealing these results in a virtual live taping exclusively for NPR Plus supporters. The event is next Thursday, June 27, at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, 3 p.m. Pacific. If you miss the event, Plus subscribers will be able to hear the episode in their feed later this summer. If you are not a Plus supporter yet, go to plus.npr.org/happyhour. Again, that's plus.npr.org/happyhour. If you're already a Plus supporter, thank you. And you don't have to be, by the way, a Plus supporter to participate in the summer snack survey. Anyone can click the link and vote. It's in the show notes. That brings us to the end of our show. We want to know what you think about "Bridgerton." Find us at facebook.com/pchh.
HOLMES: Rachel Martin, Kristen Meinzer, thank you so much for being here once again to talk about "Bridgerton."
MARTIN: It was my pleasure. Thank you.
MEINZER: Thank you.
HOLMES: This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathima and edited by Jessica Reedy. and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all tomorrow.
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