TWO’S COMPANY
Bees are very significant in the world of Bridgerton. In the second season of this sexy, swoony, succulent Netflix series – so wildly popular more than 82 million people churned through it the minute it was first released on, you gotta hand it to them, Christmas Day 2020 – a bee is the first thing that you see, buzzing along the blossom-lined streets of Regency-era London. Bees are embroidered onto shirt collars; a bee sting is the means by which the family patriarch prematurely shuffled off this mortal coil. Or so believes eldest son Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), a soprano-wooing rake in season one and, now, levelling up to bona fide leading man status in Bridgerton’s sophomore offering.
There are also bees in a pearl-clutching moment in the second book by Julia Quinn, on which this season is based. About midway through that novel, a villainous insect lands upon the bosom of Kate Sheffield, or Kate Sharma, as she is called in the Netflix series, where she is played by star Simone Ashley. Fearful that Kate has been grievously stung, Anthony – and here, my dear reader, I hopethan that.
