He couches his demand in needing to know whether Daphne is pregnant, but it’s clear that he isn’t letting this marriage wither on the vine. Daphne intends to return to her family alone, but Simon insists that separate households won’t be tolerated.

Whistledown arrives bearing news of Colin and Marina’s scandal. At the heart of the conflict is of course a possible pregnancy and the deception tearing asunder that which has been just united. Oh god, this classic moment of a rake who resisted marriage, but won’t consider sleeping apart from his wife even when they’re fighting? PUT IT IN MY VEINS. Daphne is looking to decamp to the duchess’s chambers while Simon won’t countenance his wife sleeping next door. The couple deliver messages to each other at the socially distanced dinner table via the footmen.

Still at Clyvedon, Daphne and Simon duel via the noise created by angry piano playing and enraged pigeon shooting, in a tightly edited and extremely fun scene of an unhappy family being unhappy in its own way. Are the tensions and risks of this AU suddenly gone just because we need to spend some time digging into interpersonal conflict? In episode four, we went to the mountaintop and saw a stupendous vision for an inclusive historical romance world in the English long 19th century, and now in the back half of the show … nothing. While we lose most of the court intrigue and prince storyline, we also receive no additional information about how race works in the Bridgerton alternate universe. The second half of Bridgerton transitions into a show that I think is far more in line with the expectations for what a historical romance TV series would look like. We have just about one hour to go and zero therapy in sight: can these people possibly reach the promised land of Happily Ever After this season? The truth of Simon’s childhood starts to emerge and his resistance to breaking the vow he made to his father almost visibly starts to crack when he hears Daphne’s wails at the end of the episode. The couple retains all the heat and more of their early honeymoon, but Daphne’s anger and Simon’s fear add an edge to their interactions, even when they’re frantically trying to fuck on the staircase. While these problems are rooted in Regency mores and laws, the feeling of being hemmed in by the shit options offered by contemporary society translates unfortunately well across time.ĭaphne and Simon’s pained love struggles to wiggle through the walls around their hearts. Henry Granville explains his choice, which seems to have the cooperation of his wife, to be married to a woman while privately in love with Lord Wetherby. They’re summoned back to London by a Whistledown-fanned scandal involving Marina Thompson’s pregnancy by another man, and Marina struggles to justify her decision to enthusiastically encourage Colin’s courtship. At Clyvedon Castle, Daphne and Simon can barely exist on the same plane without wanting to throw their whole partnership in the trash in the wake of last episode’s revelations. We spend the episode seeing the fallout of decisions made by people who feel like they have no other options, but still bear the judgement of their confidants and society. While evidence of leg day and a squat routine among the nude male actors demand the label “female gaze,” it’s the serious treatment of emotions related to pregnancy that most effectively cements Bridgerton as TV for women. The episode ends with Daphne’s period arriving - in distressingly hemorrhagic fashion - despite her dream of motherhood, as Marina’s attempt to make an abortifacient tea leaves her unconscious on the floor at the Featherington house. Early in the season, Bridgerton addressed the danger and pain posed to women by Regency childbirth, and this episode pairs Daphne’s desperate hope for a pregnancy with Marina Thompson’s increasingly limited options for avoiding life as an unwed mother.

Daphne and simon bridgerton baby