Oooo, & I do also wonder what Michaela's feelings about motherhood are! Complicated, no doubt! Then imagine if Micheala & Fran settled into opposite feelings about it. Fran, growing up overwhelmed by a house full of siblings while knowing motherhood was her duty. But then discovering, wait, she doesn't actually have to do that??? Michaela, coming from a smaller family & knowing she'd never be able to make her own because of who she is & making peace with that. But wait, now she has a beautiful wife, something she never thought she'd have, & she suddenly starts feeling a certain longing when she sees children...

So basically yes to all of this.

Francesca just wants to fit so perfectly in a box that's not made for her and I love that Violet can see right through it.

And my baby Michaela has never imagined that she could actually live a life where she was not only accepted but truly loved by someone and their big ass family.

She gets to experience sisters and multiple brothers plus nieces and nephews galore. Seeing everyone together, the children with Francesca could bring out a whole new side of herself that she was expecting.

I don’t think the Bridgerton writers could’ve summed up comphet better than in this scene with this exact wording. The fact that Francesca KNOWS that something is not right but can’t put her finger on it.

I love that they didn’t portray Francesca as completely clueless in her journey to where she is going to end up in season 5, this pre-build up, especially this scene, shows that she is fully AWARE that her feelings for John, her marriage, her expectations for herself don’t line up with what they should be.

Even though it’s so painful to watch as a queer person because it hits too close to home, this anger Francesca feels is basically repression before she even realizes what is going on with herself. Some sort of shield protecting herself.

And the fact that she vents to Michaela about this is probably because she can feel that Michaela possesses some type of freedom that Francesca doesn’t have and it works so freaking well because they’re basically two sides of the same coin.

The scene where Francesca will come to realization in season 5 will probably be so beautiful, i genuinely can’t wait for the new season.

day 6 of drawing my favourite queer characters for pride month!

Instead, like the open eye of their insignia, they watch. They observe, and they collect information, which is fed back into Dewey's sub-library, in the hope of one day, eventually, bringing their enemies to justice. In that way, their organisation became more straightforwardly noble than it was in the past—but also significantly less effective. This weak, toothless version of the firefighters, unwilling to commit the morally dubious actions of their past, staunchly sticking to the moral high ground, is now no match for the firestarters, and is rapidly being destroyed.

They're no help to the Baudelaires, either. It's heavily implied that VFD were closely watching them since the very beginning of their series of unfortunate events, taking photos, writing reports. Surely, at some point, someone could have grabbed them by the ankles and rescued them.

The lead up to John’s death goes like this:

Francesca, Michael and John spend time together exchanging conversation —> Francesca, Michaela and John spend time together doing their puzzle and give us the cute final piece foreshadowing

John has a headache and retires for a nap. Same in both.

Michael/Michaela and Francesca spend time alone together. In the book, they go for a walk and chat. In the show, they make another puzzle offscreen.

Francesca goes to wake John up. She screams.

Now here’s the difference: in both show and movie, Michael and Michaela hear the scream and react. But. BUT! We don’t see Michaela go up to Fran and John’s room like we see in the book. There, Michael sees Francesca sobbing and knows upon seeing John’s body that he is gone. We see that grief and that immense, unbearable loss through his eyes.

In the show, we see Michaela react to the scream. We see her walk off camera, stunned and even frightened… and the episode ends. The next time we see Michaela, she’s curled up and quiet and the stillest we’ve ever seen her on the floor of the sitting room, dressed for her dearest cousin’s funeral and completely unprepared.

And I just find that so odd because on every other aspect of the scene they recreated the beats even if not the exact circumstances (puzzle vs walk, for example), so it stands out that we didn’t get that Michaela scene equivalent. From a filmmaker standpoint, it’s a good point to end the episode on. It’s not their season. It’s good drama and good character work to get right to Fran’s processing grief, which is the centerpoing to ep7.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? We haven’t yet seen Michaela through her own lens yet, we haven’t had glimpses at her full interiority as a character. Almost all of her scenes are viewed through either Fran or John’s lens. The only time she’s Alone and Unobserved that we see is when she hears Fran’s argument with Violet. The bulk of her character work is definitely coming in season 5, which will center her as a proper lead.

So my theory is that they’re saving this scene. That we will see this in flashback during s5 as we explore Michaela’s character. This is Michaela’s greatest loss. It’s her dearest cousin. It’s looking at his body and knowing that’s not John anymore. It’s the crushing, sudden weight of losing him and her world going upside down as a result. Look, it’s material that could be right up there with Anthony’s flashbacks to his mother’s “Edmund should be here!” speech when Hyacinth was born.

for that time, it's the best way she can live as a lesbian without having to be with a man