Bridgerton season 2 episode 3, âA Bee in Your Bonnetâ is â¨magic⨠and let me tell you why.
For those of us who didnât read the book and knew nothing of what was going to happen, we truly went on an incredible and surprising roller coaster of an experience.
We start the episode with seeing the guy from Hellboy and being like âoh yay, itâs the guy from Hellboy!â
⌠only for him to die three minutes later. And that scene is rough. Itâs sudden and abrasive. And the sounds are jarring. The death is scored by tense strings. Then a moment of quiet. Then the AMAZING Ruth Gemmell begins taking us on Violetâs traumatic grief journey, which starts with her jolting Anthony (and us) out of the quiet.
And a thunderous heartbeat threatens him as he walks toward this entirely altered, unwanted life path. And thatâs obviously the beginning of his PTSD.
In the other flashbacks throughout the episode, we continue to hear horrific, heart-rending pain radiate out of Violet while Anthony must not only attempt to endure it, but cover his own grief. Anthony and his siblings (and again, we the audience) all have to listen to Violet grieve while sheâs giving birth! Screams on top of screams.
And the last flashback is technically quiet, but just as devastating because, like the moment of Edmundâs death, the quiet is weaponized. It signifies the death inside Violet.
It should go without saying that Jonathan Bailey is also a brilliant actor, but Iâll say it now anyway. Damn, he good! He and Ruth partnered perfectly in this grief journey. Serious props to them both because I felt this shit.
And then finally we come to the end. We had been immersed in the horrible aftermath of that striking tragedy. Between the flashbacks- in the present day- we had followed Anthony through the rooms and grounds where he had suffered silently. We had seen Edmundâs grave. We had learned that Anthonyâs greatest fears and insecurities all stemmed from that tragic event ten years prior.
And then another fucking bee comes along.
And I swear to god, the first time I watched this, when Kate got stung, my heart was pounding, I was terrified, and my instinctive reaction was âoh my god, is she going to die?!â In hindsight, itâs obviously insane to think that she would be killed off at all, let alone in this scene. But the very fact that, for a moment, that was a legitimate fear I had is exactly why this episode is so god damn brilliant. I felt what Anthony felt. And Iâm not the only one! Iâve seen other peopleâs similar reactions to this scene. The episode really is a roller coaster; easy, lighthearted moments (pall mall, drug tea), interspersed with the terrifying drops and loops that are Anthonyâs painful memories which constantly haunt him. And then it brought us right back to that first traumatic moment. Because Anthony has PTSD! And thatâs what PTSD does. Anthony is right back where he was, literally not far from the same spot outside Aubrey Hall, standing in front of a person he loves, watching them get stung by a bee on almost the same spot on their body. The tense string scoring comes back and Anthony panics because heâs completely helpless again.
And all of those elements- the setting, the scoring, the acting- combined to terrify us and make us forget something critical: most people donât die from beestings.
And hereâs where it gets really profound for me. Because itâs not just about how we feel Anthonyâs fear. Itâs also about how Kate completely obliterates it. Without knowing that history and without realizing the full extent of what her actions would mean, she does exactly the right thing. Rather than die and rather than also panic or shy away from his vulnerability, she meets it with her own in the form of care and steady assurance, which is true strength. And in so doing, she stops this cyclical moment in its tracks and completely alters the trauma. She puts his hand on her heart, and the heartbeat comes back. But this time, itâs not threatening. Itâs inviting.
And just like in the first scene, the moment is over all too quickly. Just like in that scene, Anthony is thrust onto a new path. But where that moment was damaging, this one is healing. And we feel that too. And itâs the greatest experience that art can give us.
And thatâs why this episode is magic. đâ¨
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