OK so I saw the Marina thing on twitter and I have issues with it for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with Phillip Crane being Eloise’s love interest. First, the optics of the whole Phillip-Eloise romance after they completely bungled Marina’s story are so bad for a number of reasons, but the most significant of which is that they are basically killing off the Black cousin who had a baby under questionable circumstances and after screwing with her for a whole season. I know that Phillip has kids in the books, and while I’m not sure whether they are his or not, and I don’t really care, BUT if the show continues down this path, it’s not great. Unless they have a long term plan, but it felt shoehorned in and I’m not happy about it. (Granted, I think the entire Marina story was a hot mess for a number of reasons, the aforementioned optics of it being a part of that.)

As for the Whistledown thing, I don’t really care that they revealed it this early, because I think it will make the upcoming seasons more interesting if we know who it is. Because TV is a visual medium, there’s a lot they can do to set up the reveal in the coming seasons if the audience is aware of her identity. I often think about how Gossip Girl just pulled GG’s identity out of its ass at the end of the series and it how it made no sense whatsoever. Here, even though we eventually know from the books that Penelope is Whistledown, if we see it in the next season and we see how it effects her relationship with the Bridgertons, it makes for more interesting television. In the books we don’t need these visual stimuli because the points of view in the text are focused only on the main characters and everyone else is secondary. But TV allows multiple POVs and it means you need more to build on. So having Penelope hide her identity is something that could help flesh out the storytelling.

My biggest issue with the whole season was how they handled Daphane literally assaulting her husband and forcing a choice on him that was not hers to do. Just because the gender roles were reversed from the usual way we see sexual assaults, does not make it less heinous. I think the book was even worse and there was no reckoning for Daphne, but the show let her off the hook pretty easily as well. And I get that a lot of it is her lack of sex education and that Simon was deliberately misleading her, but forcing him to have a child he did not want is wrong on so many levels. And I totally think his reasons for not wanting a child, while valid, are incredibly stupid. But the book did these mental gymnastics where he is basically gaslit into thinking he was wrong, whereas at least the show at least got him to get to the rational end and had him deal with his trauma to a degree. The book set up the trauma but then just brushed it under the rug because of twoo wuv, which, uh, no.

ALL THAT SAID, I absolutely adore the ridiculousness of the second book and sincerely hope they stick to it closely, because oh my God Anthony is the most ridiculous person ever and I love it. I cannot with his whole “I won’t love my wife” thing and then he’s all “Yes, I’ll totally marry the woman I can’t stop thinking about and lusting after but won’t love her“. Like, honey, no, that’s not how feelings work.

But also I love Kate because she is exactly the kind of woman Anthony needs. I can’t wait to see Kate kick Anthony’s ass both figuratively and literally in the game. Also, I need to see the whole Pell Mell incident played out in full because it was glorious.

We will not speak of the ridiculousness that is the bee sting, because it is so silly and yet one of my favorite absurdities ever committed to paper, and I love it.

I haven’t read past Benedict’s book yet, but I liked his book, but they could probably have it and another book overlap because I don’t think it would fill 8-10 episodes well. Also, I think they could do some interesting things if they flesh out the class and social commentary from that book. But it’s also literally just Cinderella, Bridgerton style.