Dear Reader, did you miss me?

Netflix and Shondaland returned with the highly anticipated second season of Regency-set Bridgerton on March 25th, which follows author Julia Quinn’s second novel in the Bridgerton historical romance series, The Viscount Who Loved Me. It arrived amongst an embarrassment of riches for Regency romance: the second season of Sanditon began earlier that same week, and NBC audiences have been entertained by Jane Austen-themed dating show The Courtship. It seems to have contributed towards, even more than the arrival of the first season, a Regency furore, with articles on the internet covering everything from ‘Regencycore’ fashion to guides to buying eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century houses.

The second season sees the turn of Lord Anthony Bridgerton, the oldest of the eight Bridgerton siblings, to take to the marriage market of the 1814 London season. He is finally determined to fulfil his duty of finding a Viscountess, which his mother, the Dowager, spent much of the show’s first season badgering him about. He soon sets his sights on Miss Edwina Sharma, who has recently arrived in London with her mother and sister Kate from India, and quickly named by Queen Charlotte as the “season’s diamond”. However, although Edwina seems Anthony’s most suitable match on paper, it is her elder sister Kate, determined not to marry herself and instead all-too-preoccupied with securing her sister’s future, with whom sparks fly. Yet Anthony is conflicted: he does not want a love match in a wife like the marriage of his parents, as many years before, he witnessed the death of his father and the way grief crushed his mother in the aftermath.

If season one saw the romantic trope of the fake relationship have the Regency treatment, then season two is the archetypal enemies-to-lovers story, following Kate and Anthony as they are both exceptionally irritated by and overwhelmingly attracted to each other. It allows for extensive comparisons to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and the deployment of visual cues from previous period drama adaptations of Austen’s novel. Jonathan Bailey, as Anthony, receives the Colin Firth wet shirt treatment after he trips over Kate’s dog Newton (a potentially very historically inaccurate but otherwise adorable Corgi) and falls into a lake, and there is a moment where Kate and Anthony almost touch hands as he walks past her in a corridor, the camera focus on the small movement incredibly reminiscent of Matthew Macfadyen’s famous hand flex in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film. Bailey’s styling is even reminiscent of Firth’s Mr Darcy, though Anthony Bridgerton is more talkative and expressive than Austen’s hero ever was.

The ensemble nature of Bridgerton is retained, adding dimension to the original source material by Quinn. We see the aftermath of the reveal of Penelope Featherington as the notorious gossip writer Lady Whistledown at the end of season one. Now, Penelope is desperately trying to cover her tracks as her best friend Eloise Bridgerton tries to close in on discovering the true identity of the writer she once considered her idol. Queen Charlotte, again played brilliantly by Golda Rosheuvel and who, it has been announced, will have her own origins spin-off series, is similarly obsessed with unmasking Lady Whistledown, and is also invested heavily in the match between Edwina and Anthony. Much of the storylines concerning the Bridgerton siblings consider a search for purpose that allow the viewer a glimpse into the art and leisure of high society: Benedict enters study at the Royal Academy, Colin returns from a trip to Greece and apparently cannot stop talking about it, and Eloise becomes embroiled in a friendship with a printer who shares her interests in gender equality. This provides an interesting opportunity to reference Mary Wollstonecraft and explore, in a small way, gendered ideas about the circulation of pamphlet literature and intellectual conversation.

In a lot of respects, the storylines and production of Bridgerton’s second season are much stronger than the first, even though I devoured both. Accusations of queerbaiting during the first season go disappointingly unaddressed, with no obvious queer representation this time around. The colour-conscious casting of season two, however, has built upon the previous season, responding to concerns raised about how the show approached explanation of colour and race. Aspects of South Asian culture, and South Asian Representation more generally, are woven in seamlessly without clumsy explanation. Details such as the terms of endearment used between the sisters and the Hindi Haldi ceremony performed before a wedding (with a string cover of the adored Bollywood song Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham playing over the top) are never exoticised or questioned. It is simply part of the world of Bridgerton. Both Simone Ashley and Charithra Chandran, who play half-sisters Kate and Edwina Sharma, have spoken about their own experiences of colourism as darker-skinned women, so their high place in the Bridgerton “ton” is a landmark casting choice that has already taken the internet by storm. It has also enabled public debate about Britain’s colonial legacy in India, and Durba Ghosh has written about the real South Asian women in Regency England.

Hallmarks of the first season that audiences will enjoy are still present. Beautiful costumes, wonderful sets and exquisite hairstyling dominate – I think I fell more in love with Queen Charlotte’s wigs with each new one that appeared on screen. Even more classical covers of popular songs find their way into the soundtrack: a particular favourite was Madonna’s Material Girls accompanying the Sharma sisters into a mind-numbingly sparkling ball held at what, in real life, is Syon Park, a tongue-in-cheek reference perhaps to the way Kate starts straight away to show off her research of the aristocracy in finding Edwina an eligible partner.

The second season of Bridgerton is truly a feast for the senses and demonstrates in a lot of areas a conscious effort to build upon the success and controversies of the previous season in a way that foregrounds and nuances diversity without tokenism. In my eager anticipation of the promised third and fourth seasons, I hope this continues and expands in various areas the drama promised to include.