Parallel Bridgerton (Analysis) - Part 2 - Courting Lessons / Colin & Penelope's Wedding

Part 1:    • Parallel Bridgerton (Analysis) - Part 1 - ...   This video (Part 2 of 4 comparing these episodes) mainly focuses on the market scene and the beginning of the wedding breakfast. 🌕 Season 3, Episode 2 | "How Bright the Moon" 💍 Season 3, Episode 7 | "Joining of Hands" I very lightly touch on one of my favorite dynamics that I hope to make videos about in the future, which is the relationship between Anthony and Colin. I mean that both in terms of their interpersonal relationship and the relationship between their individual storylines within the context of the show. 🐝 I wish it had been shown more care in Season 3 (the scene between them the night before the wedding is a travesty, and they should be ashamed of what they wrote, imo 😹). But also, if this is the Anthony they're doubling down on at this point, I can't say it's TOO out of character or canon. I have to assume (hope, pray) that they will pull back on the Joey-fication of Anthony in Season 4. "Joey," referring to Joey Tribbiani from Friends, who is often referenced when people complain about TV characters who writers get really lazy and one-dimensional with once they latch onto something the fans are enjoying about the character. Yes, we want to see Anthony loosen up and be happy. No, we don't want him to look like his brains fell out on one of his fourteen unnecessary carriage rides home from nowhere in Season 3. At least I don't. 🎩 I talk a lot on social media (Hi, Threads fam!) about how Colin always behaves as if his destiny is Featherington House, like he's magically drawn there. And I think the show does A TON (no pun intended) to set Colin up as "father" and "man of the house" in general. From making his first major storyline an attempt to trap him as an instant husband and father, to casting men to play both his father and his grandfather who look most like him of all of the children. Violet always brings up how she and Edmund were friends first, as his patriarch portrait gazes down on his family. Then they give Colin a special connection with Violet, who also had a special connection with her father, and if you watch Queen Charlotte (Watch it!!!), you see that they pretty clearly put A LOT of similarities to Colin into his grandfather's character. I think this was very deilberate, especially since they made Queen Charlotte between Seasons 2 and 3 and there are several storylines in Queen Charlotte that set up, foreshadow, or mirror storylines in Season 3. 🧳 Mild spoilers for the book series here... Then there is how they chose to adapt the book series into a TV show. When they chose to center the TV show around Penelope Featherington, they brought Colin and Eloise forward, too, and these three are arguably the "main characters" of the overarching series so far. The opening scenes of Season 1 show us how they want us to approach this – not as the story of one family, the Bridgertons, but as the story of two families – the Bridgertons and the Featheringtons. One of the first things they show us is that the Blue family has a Green front door that opens onto a direct view of the Green family's Blue front door, almost like they're inviting each other in. They show the members of the two families looking across the square and waving to each other. Then they show us the children of the families always running between the two houses. 🐴 I don't need to get into all the ways Colin tries to be the man of the Featherington house here (though some of it is in this video), but it is clear by the end of Season 3 when Colin is standing in front of Bridgerton House with his wife on one arm and his mother on the other, holding down the fort as his sisters ride off and the viscount is, of course, once again nowhere to be found, that Colin is sort of now almost literally lording over the entire square. 😹 🦋 And yes, I know that Benedict is the one technically in charge of Anthony's viscount duties, at least, while Anthony is away. But Benedict is currently somewhat lost and has his own "journey" to go on next season. Where we leave things off with Colin and Anthony (who I'm sure will both still have SOME growth and SOME challenges in future seasons but will still be "settled" in their happily ever afters) is that Colin is very much feeling himself as Daddy Featherington, keeping his books and making his babies, living across the street from his beloved Mummy, and Anthony is very much into jetsetting with his hot girlfriend (yes, I know she's his wife) and being wild and free and sentimental. And yes, I do feel like this mirrored/"opposite" trajectory has been somewhat planned by the writers, because the groundwork is laid in the scenes between them in Season 1, as well as their respective Season 1 storylines, so more on those another time. 💝 Alright, I promised you an essay on something in this one, and I'm hitting the character limit now, so there it was, with literally 5 characters to spare. 😅 Yours Truly, Messy Cressy 💅