Dear reader,
Did you miss us? Bridgerton season 2 is here and we’re back to analyzing our favorite characters. As we can never get enough of the Bridgerton family, you have already read our reviews from the point of view of a reader, now we ask you to join us in the review from the perspective of a non-reader. It’s time to break down Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice.” Ready?
Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” is about the choices we make. In this episode some choices are imposed by duty, others by fear, and others by heart.
Before starting the review, dear reader, this author must make it clear that, in her opition, Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” is completely wrong in almost all. But before explaining why, let’s break down what worked and what didn’t so we can understand why this episode lacks the quality that this show has us used to. Here we go!
SIGNS…
In Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” as Edwina excitedly prepares for her dream day… Anthony looks miserable. They’re like the two sides of a coin.
Although all that glitters is not gold. It seems that Edwina’s sense of sight isn’t working as poorly as it seemed and she noticed that Anthony barely glances at her when she walks into a room. The problem here is that it’s precisely Kate who has to cheer Edwina up.
It’s an unnecessary mockery that Kate has to suffer through every little thing for Edwina. Although it’s cute what she says to Edwina about true love and this author is sure that she is thinking of Anthony as she says it, the torture Bridgerton puts Kate through is excessive.
Edwina really, really wants her sister to be happy, she just doesn’t realize that her happiness is with the man Edwina is going to marry. What will she do when she finds out? Well, a little later we will have the answer and it will not be pretty.
The detail on Kate’s mother’s bracelets is one of the nicest things about Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice.” At first, Kate chooses her sister over her again and gives Edwina her mother’s bracelets. But they’re too important for Edwina to use and it’s great that she notices. They don’t belong to her and she shouldn’t wear them, it would be like taking something from Kate that is rightfully hers — yes, the irony of this wasn’t lost on this author either.
So Kate ends up wearing her bracelets. It’s not only the only thing she has from her mother, it’s also something her mother would have wanted Kate to wear when she married the love of her life. And the love of her life is right there in front of her…marrying her sister. That’s why Kate can’t help but nervously play with her bracelets. It’s so easy to imagine that she’s the one at the altar, marrying Anthony…
SISTERS KNOW BEST
Daphne is against the wedding in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” and for that our, Duchess deserves everything she wants. She knows that Anthony is in love with Kate, no matter how much he tries to deny it. But Daphne is also aware that Anthony will not listen to her, he would only listen to his father.
It’s at this point that Anthony explodes. Because Daphne doesn’t know anything. She is not the firstborn, she didn’t have to take over the family and the title when their father died. She can afford to live her life, she can choose what she wants to do…while he can’t. He had to change so the family could survive. He had to sacrifice himself so that they could be happy… even if he wasn’t.
So Daphne doesn’t know but, in some things…she does. Anthony’s duty is not tied to unhappiness. He always felt that way because he believed that he should protect them. Anthony couldn’t protect his father from death and now he wants to protect his family to the point of exhaustion, in an attempt to feel that he is in control.
And he decided that he couldn’t afford to ever let them down, so he promised himself that he wouldn’t fail them and that he wouldn’t allow himself to be vulnerable for someone, with someone.
But in reality, Anthony can’t control what happens. He can’t protect them from everything. Some things just have to be. And everyone has a choice. He can choose to be happy instead of trying not to feel anything, instead of running away from everything love means, good or bad.
Anthony gets to choose the family he longs to have. But he doesn’t see that, only sees the family he has. It’s easy for Daphne to be selfish and focus on her own needs, simply because he’s there to meet everyone else’s.
But Anthony, as usual in matters of feeling, is wrong. Fighting for yourself, for your happiness, prioritizing yourself, is not selfish. And that he’s not doing it doesn’t make him a better brother, doesn’t make others respect him more, just makes them pity him because he chose to be unhappy for the wrong reasons.
A…WEDDING? AND SOME BRACELETS
Back at Church, Anthony is waiting at the altar for the wrong woman just as the right one comes down the aisle. Anthony’s look here… I have dreams with that look. He’s stunned. He looks at her with so much love in his eyes…he can’t help but imagine that it’s Kate he’s going to join his life with.
And when the real bride shows up, he ignores her. His eyes are still locked on Kate, he’s only able to see her, and Edwina, for the first time, seems to wake up and realize that something is happening. Kate can’t stop playing with her bracelet, the bracelet she should be wearing at her wedding. Then the bracelet falls off and the storm begins in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice.” Anthony rushes to pick it up, kneels before her, and puts it back on and it feels like such an intimate moment…almost as if Anthony is proposing…or kneeling before his wife.
Almost as if that bracelet was a wedding ring. It’s a magical moment, where only the two of them exist… and then it breaks at they try to pretend nothing happened. But it’s too late, Edwina finally meets her sense of sight and realizes what is happening here. Kanthony knows this is their fault…and they don’t know what to do next.
TREASON
The confrontation between Kate and Edwina is not long in coming in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice.” Edwina finally realizes how blind she had been all along and what Kanthony feels. She saw them, saw the longing looks on their faces, saw how Anthony had eyes only for Kate and how she had no eyes for anyone but him. Edwina was a stranger at her own wedding.
Kate tries, once again, to deny what she feels in a last desperate attempt to protect her. But she can’t, not anymore. The betrayal Edwina feels reverberates in her bones, in her blood. She feels cheated by everyone, by the most important people in her life. Kate tries to explain that she did it out of love, but her words are empty excuses for Edwina. What Kate feels is too strong and she doesn’t understand how she didn’t see it before. Does she love him? Kate doesn’t dare to say yes, but she can’t say no because she has just realized that this is what she feels.
And all the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit together in a way that destroys her sister’s happiness forever. That’s enough for Edwina. She can’t keep listening, not when the bitter taste of her betrayal is raw. She already knows everything she needs to know.
Kate runs away, crying her guilt and her sadness for Edwina, for her, for Anthony, for what could have been and was not. And she angrily throws away her mother’s bracelets, the symbol and the reason for everything that is happening.
This author prefers to save her opinion of Edwina for later, although she wants to point out that she just found out about everything and she has the right to be this angry. Her attitude is understandable. However, Mary’s attitude is not.
She kicks Kate out and doesn’t defend her from Edwina’s attacks, on the contrary, makes her feel worse. They’re both her daughters and, while it stands to reason that Edwina is livid and that Mary wants to comfort her, she shouldn’t have pushed Kate away like that.
PROMISED…
The subsequent conversation between Edwina and Anthony in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” is revealing to say the least. The masks fall and it’s time to put the cards on the table. Anthony is still hell-bent on marrying Edwina, but marrying her, for him, is a role for both of them to play. It’s the only thing Anthony can offer her.
What does Edwin want? This author is amazed that Edwina is seriously considering marrying Anthony, knowing that he is in love with her sister (and that she loves him back) but here we are. What does she want to do? Edwina always dreamed that Anthony would eventually fall in love with her. Edwina dreamed of the fairy tale…but she won’t get it.
And then there’s Kate…the way Anthony talked about her hurt. I understand that he didn’t mean it, but it hurt just. However, his words are as much to calm Edwina as to convince himself that this is what will happen. What he feels for her will pass, time and distance will make him forget her and free himself from that feeling that he wanted to avoid feeling at all costs, time and distance will make him lead the peaceful and empty life he planned to lead…
Although it’s still a lie. Because that’s not what he wants to happen, he wants her to stay by his side. Always. But he feels that he cannot pursue what he wants because of the duty he has to his family and the paralyzing fear of any kind of feeling that overwhelms him since his father died and his mother vanished with him.
This is what Anthony offers to Edwina. An empty life. A role to play. We still don’t understand that Edwina has something to think about after all this… but it seems like she does. Part of me understands it to mean that everyone ran her life, with good intentions or not, and now she wants to feel like she got it back but really, is there something to decide here? Because this author believes that everything has already been said.
WILL IT EVER BE ENOUGH?
In a forgotten part of the palace, Kate is still trying to collect herself after the first round with Edwina. Her mother’s bracelets are lying there, forgotten… and she can’t just leave them lying around like that. It’s the only thing she has of her and it’s so symbolic.
Those bracelets remind her of the downfall of the day but they are also symbolic of the moment when she almost felt like Anthony was on his knees, asking for her hand, she almost felt like it was her wedding. Her mother wanted her to wear those bracelets on her wedding day when she married the love of her life, just as Violet wanted Anthony to use the family ring for that very reason, and in some weird and twisted way, that happened.
Fate is on Kanthony’s side in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” and the two meet when Kate pulls herself together enough to go out into the world. She’s ready to face the world…but not him. However, Anthony keeps her from running away.
He’s amazed that Edwina didn’t give in. And in those words, he reveals how little the two know each other. Edwina was charmed by the man Anthony pretended to be and he always saw her as a means to an end. But with Kate…everything is different.
That’s why this author is quite disappointed with what he says next. Everyone asks Kate to sacrifice more and more of herself, her life, her heart, for Edwina, without even asking what Kate wants. Anthony was the first to do it, he was the first to ask her what she wanted to do.
And here he is now, asking Kate to once again sacrifice herself for Edwina, even trying to emotionally blackmail her into doing it. How the hell can he ask her for that? Kate sacrificed herself in every possible way, even to the point of turning her back on her ambitions and her desires, when will it be enough?
A part of this author understands that Anthony is desperate because Kate terrifies him. He’s terrified of loving her because he saw what love can do to a person in the darkest of times. So he’s desperate to get back to safety, to a life where he won’t feel anything at all. That’s the comfortable, even the cowardly, choice where he will be safe. But another part of this author wants to slap Anthony for being like everyone else.
Kate already feels guilty enough about what’s going on and she doesn’t need Anthony to make her feel even worse. So she feels the need to get away from him, but Anthony stops her again and gets dangerously close to her, takes her hand, intertwines her fingers… and asks her permission with his eyes…to kiss her. He won’t touch her if she doesn’t want to. And this is the Anthony we love, the one who puts Kate’s wishes above anything else.
Anthony is pure contrast. He’s a dichotomy. He’s afraid to embrace what he feels for Kate but, at the same time, he’s afraid that he will never feel this happy, this complete, again. Before meeting her, Anthony had an empty life. And he fears going back to it.
But this time Kate finds the strength to push him away…and say goodbye.
“HALF-SISTER”
The second round between Kate and Edwina in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” is much harder than the first…and this is when we have a real problem with Edwina. In the previous scene between them, it was normal for Edwina to react so emotionally but in this one, she is openly cruel to Kate. This author wants to make it clear that Edwina has every right to be angry but not to be cruel to a person who gave everything for her, including herself.
Kate never meant to hurt Edwina. She didn’t seek what she feels for Anthony and, despite her feelings, her love for Edwina is so great, that she also sacrificed her love for him. Because Edwina is more important to Kate than herself, she always was.
And now that Edwina throws everything that Kate sacrificed for her in her face calling her “half-sister” is like a slap in the face. Kate doesn’t deserve that. She gave everything to her sister with no reservations. Everyone asked Kate for one more sacrifice and she did it. And now Edwina treats her like she’s a stranger.
Let’s make one thing clear. This was cruel and unfair. Edwina has the right to feel betrayed by lies, deceit, and secrecy. She too has the right to take charge of her life and decide what to do – although it’s not lost on this author that Edwina chooses her words as if she marrying the man Kate loves is what Kate wants. Kate should have told Edwina what was going on.
Kate meant it with the best of intentions but she screwed up. But she did it without meaning to. However, Edwina had every intention of hurting Kate with her words and that’s not something you say if you don’t feel it. Kate gave everything for Edwina but Edwina proved that she would never have done the same for Kate if the roles had been reversed and that just shows Edwina’s immaturity.
The Church scene in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” doesn’t make things any better. What works in this scene is the fact that Edwina has realized that she doesn’t love Anthony, she never loved him, she only thought she loved what he appeared to be. Anthony didn’t feel anything for her either, she was just the perfect person to play a role.
And love is not that. Seeing the Queen and the King and all they share made Edwina realize that she has no idea what true love feels like. Edwina can’t blame him for that because she didn’t see him either, she never really knew him. Marrying him would be betraying herself. She deserves better and it’s about damn time she realized and reacted.
Yet again, Edwina’s anger is directed at the one person who gave everything for her: Kate. I mean, technically, Anthony also cheated on Edwina but she doesn’t seem as mad at him. Of course, Kate’s cheating hurt Edwina more, but is it all Kate’s fault? Because this author doesn’t agree with that.
Nor with the words that Edwina says to Kate just because, maybe the happiness that Kate planned for Edwina she also wanted for herself but nobody knows, do you know why? Because no one took the time to find out what Kate wanted.
Anthony was the first to ask her what she wanted to do. Anthony was the first to give her a real choice. So all of this that Edwina tells Kate here is bullshit and this author doesn’t buy it.
That said, as we’ve discussed on several occasions, Edwina makes a fair point in saying that she had no real control over her life until now and that deciding for herself what she wants to do is a personal victory.
FREEZE TIME…
After Edwina’s abrupt departure, the end of Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” finds Kanthony in the Church. The two are motionless, distant, but still there. Still stretching out the moment. Anthony didn’t know Edwina could be so determined to do what she did—frankly, neither did this author—but here they are.
The problem is that this moment is like a second suspended in time. It’s a moment lost amid the hurricane that awaits them when they leave the Church. It’s like the still moment that happens before dawn, before everything changes and time begins to run again.
And Kate wants it to last, she wishes with all her soul that the spell that keeps them there, immobile, is not broken. Because when it does, they will have to face the reality of their shared failure. They had a well-laid-out plan that entailed fulfilling the duty that they both felt was theirs…and they didn’t. Now, they must face the consequences.
So that moment in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” feels like the only time they’re both going to be able to breathe. It’s at that moment that everything starts to burn again, like every time they’re together. They both get closer. An invisible chain binds them together and brings them closer… Anthony softens his expression as he looks at her, really looks at her. And I promise you I almost lost it when Kate looks at his lips and Anthony looks at her with a puppy face.
It’s in that thousandth of a second that the two give in to their feelings for the first time and kiss so passionately that they devour each other, just as they have wanted to do almost since they met. It’s a kiss that they waited so long to give each other that they don’t have time for niceties. They burn with that kiss. And this author is here for this. It’s poetry. They’re poetry.
WHAT DOESN’T WORK
Now that we’ve broken down the scenes it’s time to talk about why, in general, Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” didn’t work at all.
The main problem is that this episode forgets that Bridgerton season 2 is about Kanthony and their story. It is not the story of Edwina or Edwina and Anthony. It’s about Kate and Anthony. But Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” is all about Edwina and Anthony and a wedding that wasn’t meant to be. This wedding should never have happened, we shouldn’t have come this far.
And, if they felt like it needed to, it should have happened before. We’re two from the season finale and we’ve barely had more than a few scenes of sexual tension between Kanthony. We wasted too much time with this, we wasted too much time with Edwina, a character who, honestly, has no other function than to be an obstacle for Kanthony.
Also, where is Kate in all of this? In Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” they only give voice to Edwina, not Kate, when Kate is the leading lady here because it’s her story. That is, in the first confrontation between them it’s understandable due to Kate’s shock and her guilt, but what about afterward?
Let’s be honest here, Kate sacrificed her whole life for Edwina. It’s a sacrifice that doesn’t weigh her down but this author doesn’t swallow that there is not a part of Kate that she always has to sacrifice herself so that Edwina has what she wants. There is no way that a tiny part of Kate doesn’t feel some resentment about that, because Kate is human.
And, once Edwina was venting, why doesn’t Kate also verbalize what she’s feeling? Although we trust that no part of Kate resents her decision, Edwina is throwing all her sacrifices in her face and Kate says…nothing. Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” doesn’t give voice to the leading lady of the show. WHAT THE HELL?!
By the way, what the hell does Edwina have to think after learning that the man she was going to marry is in love with her sister? This author believes that this is clear enough that she doesn’t have to think about anything else.
You did all wrong, Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice.”
PURPOSES AND EPIPHANIES
Polin continues to make our dreams come true in Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice” and alleviate the bitter pill that is this episode. Colin is getting used to trusting Penelope and having deep conversations with her that he doesn’t have with anyone else, and we’re here for this!
And when Penelope talks about her purpose, without her realizing it, her eyes sparkle and she smiles excitedly because that’s what being Lady Whistledown makes her feel like. For her, Lady Whistledown reflects what she wants to be, an independent, resourceful, courageous woman.
She’s already all that but she only dares to show it off as Lady Whistledown. Everyone has this idea of her and assumed that she was what everyone said: a bland spinster. But no one knows her, no one sees her as she is.
And she dreams of showing the world the reality about her without fear, without shame. Because when she becomes Lady Whistledown, it feels liberating for her. And this is one of the times Colin gawks at her without noticing it. He realizes for the first time that he also took for granted that she was just what society sees in her and, perhaps, she is much more than that. He had never heard her speak as passionately as at that moment, he had never seen her eyes shine like that.
What does he know about Penelope? What does he know about her dreams? Because she showed that her dreams are much more ambitious than he ever thought they would be. Penelope realized that she got carried away. She’s normally able to keep who she is well hidden but, at times like these, her excitement wins out over her modesty. And when Colin mentions Marina, she fears the worst.
Marina knows her secret. She knows that Penelope is madly in love with Colin and, from what she knows about Marina, she could have told Colin and ruined that peculiar friendship that unites them. However, Marina did a good thing for her. The only thing she told him is that Penelope cares about him. Marina tried to make Colin see that what he was looking for is right in front of his eyes. And the fact that he begins to realize this renews Penelope’s hopes…and this author’s.
Other Stuff In Bridgerton 2×06 “The Choice”
- Violet realizes that Daphne knows what is going on. A mother always knows.
- It would be great if Daphne commented on her husband’s absence from, you know, his brother-in-law’s wedding!
- Violet treating Lady Danbury badly is one of the best moments of this episode, sorry not sorry. Although I also like when they laugh together and Lady Danbury reminds me of the character I loved.
- Penelope begins to have problems with Eloise’s investigation…and her advice to Eloise to stay away from Theo is partly selfish-to avoid being caught by her-and partly for Eloise’s sake. The problem is that Eloise and Theo are too cute for me to want to split them up.
- What is up with the Queen? By the way, her intrigues are entertaining…although worrying.
- I hate Penelope’s “family”.
- Portia and Jack… no. Just NO.
- The scene between the Queen and the King is sadly beautiful… and I like that it helps Edwina see with her eyes what it means to love.
- No secrets between Peneloise, well…
- The Queen has more common sense than Lady Danbury and gives better advice. Period.
- Why is Polin always interrupted when things get interesting?
- Anthony won me over when he toasted to Kate with that sad look in his eyes…
Time to say goodbye, for now, dear reader, stay tuned for tomorrow to enjoy a new edition of our Bridgerton season 2 reviews from the perspective of a non-reader.
Love,
Lady R.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts about ”The Choice” with us in the comments below!
Bridgerton Season 2 is available to stream on Netflix.