collected thoughts on the creloise matter (Big And Detailed Spoilers Ahead):
if itās dual character assassination, itās dual character assassination and irredeemable and frankly uninteresting and unfortunately the show becomes unwatchable for me personally. if itās purposeful setup? itās bloody brilliant. i mean it could actually be bloody brilliant. there are a few lines that feel very purposeful: penās ādid you ever truly like her?ā and the moment with cress and her mother when cress protests being cruel to the btons. both of which come after the creloise breakup and, you know, the uhhhh cessation of scenes together. creloise was dead. there was no reason to continue to examine the corpse. unless it wasnāt truly dead. ok, so there is now incredible potential in the CreloiseSituation(tm).
they hate each other. perfect! cressida was suffering all season and eloise was a truly terrible friend - i mean, comically selfish and villainous - that is to say, cressidaās actions (antagonistic as they were) were explained and justified within the narrative and eloiseās were not. ok! thatās fine. in the past, cress has been the unjustifiably cruel one. if anything, they are now on equal footing in terms of illogically hurting each other. so, they hate each other. which just means their growing back together could be that much more satisfying.
eloiseās choices didnāt make sense. they justā¦donāt. if her arc this season was to show her growth separate from pen, and it ends with nothing mattering to her but pen, itās just nonsensical. (dont get me wrong- iām glad they made up! their friendship is a core pillar of the show! but taking a season of development apart and introducing new dynamics into eloiseās life only to end her precisely where she was in season ONE is justā¦huh??) that is, unless elosieās decisions donāt make sense YET. unless the point of her abandonment of a friend IS the abandonment. unless this is precisely the base a following season would need to portray el from a starting position of moral inferiority- a facet of her character not yet explored.
creloise both out of mayfair now. coincidence? wellā¦maybe! i guess! but also, outside the set and setting of society. idk, that just screams landscape of possibility to me.
theyāre both on the cusp of substantial development! cressida at rrrrock bottom and eloise striving to find experience and purpose. weāve never seen cress this low and tortured or el this alone and unsure. idk. parallels.
nothing that made us love them so much in the first place has changed. theyāre still mirrors. theyāre still unflinchingly honest with each other - often the only ones who are. theyāre still (deliciously) (occasionally) mean. the foundations are still there. and tbh, if all of this was purposeful, there is SO much conflict and strife between them that i actually really love it. the angst! the tension! the possible banter! eloise abandoned cress at the worst possible time in her life and cress betrayed eloise (out of desperation but facts are facts) and neither of them got an explanation. and for a summer and a season they were very much alone together and enjoying each other and the betrayals sting because the friendship mattered in the first place. and that broken dynamic is just. so yummy. and the hate is there because the embarrassment is there and the embarrassment is there becauseā¦.i liked you. and you burned me. and i cant believe i was stupid enough to like you. but i did like you, i did.
also, iām sure the showrunners were understandably wary about how the audience would react to cressida this season. up until now, sheās been a glorified extra; the personality-less stereotype of the loveless, callous debutante bridgertonās grand love stories exist to subvert. in s1 she was a joke (daphne and simon laughing about her scripted flirting) and in s2 she was the hopeless and petty mean girl. there was no reason for the audience to like her, because she was hardly a character and certainly not a person. i imagine suddenly linking her to everyoneās fan favorite eloise was seen as a huge riskā in case of a negative reaction, cress could hardly be established as a romantic prospect as well, possibly guaranteeing a large portion of screentime to someone the audiences donāt even like. creators obviously shouldnāt feel the urge to cater to an audienceās whims of how they think a story should go - this would be very bad!! - but i do think the extreme outpouring of appreciation for cress this season might enable the writers to utilize her more in the future. sheās a real character now with depth and her story has established loyalty in fans- narratively there is freedom there for some satisfying payoffs.
all this to say, this season reduced my expectations to not quite zero, but somewhere around one. the finale was crowded and unfocused and more than a few things just did not make sense and the queer rep felt very sudden and trite - for shock value, practically - and we were forced to watch creloise hacked to piecesā¦.but, i maintain, if it was all purposefulā¦.idk. i personally donāt think all hope is lost.