Spoilers for the first season of ‘The Bridgertons’
Among all the libertine encounters and the outfits to make you jump your wig, ‘The Bridgertons’ also hid some details that make up what is to come in season two while explaining one of the show’s biggest mysteries.
When we first met the Bridgeton family, nine members appeared: Mrs. Violet Bridgerton and her eight children, Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory and Hyacinth. Two important questions immediately come to mind: First, where is your father? And second, what did he do against birth control? While the second mystery is never fully answered, viewers of the series soon learn that Edmund Bridgerton died just weeks after Hyacinth was born. But what we still don’t know is how.
Edmund was on edge because of all the high society scandal? Did you just collapse from exhaustion after having eight children? The Netflix adaptation has so far declined to reveal the answer, but fans of the books already know exactly how his lordship faded.
In the book, Anthony is terrified of the bees, believing that they will kill him too, and Benedict is understandably suspicious of them as well. While the show doesn’t address this directly, several bee-themed Easter Eggs are included in season one that deliberately alludes to this family-defining tragedy.
In episode seven, Benedict wears a small black bee embroidered on his neck. And on a broader scale, the entire season is marked by two shots that focus on bees. The Bridgerton house door knocker has a bee in the first scene, and then another bee appears on a window sill after Daphne gives birth at the end of the season.
That extended shot of a bee might have seemed gratuitous to viewers, but for die-hard fans of ‘The Bridgertons’, this final moment is fraught with the expectation of death. If Season 2 follows the source material story, future episodes will not only reveal the truth behind Edmund’s death but also focus on Anthony’s fear of dying at a young age.
Throughout the first season, Anthony ruled over the other Bridgertons because he believed himself the man of the house after his father’s death. As Edmund’s true death and the effect it had on Anthony are revealed, these controlling tendencies will be easier to understand, making him a more understanding character, and therefore more interesting.
The first season of ‘The Bridgertons’ is now available to watch on Netflix.
