Flawed and free

It has not been long since I jumped onto the Nicola Coughlan bandwagon but if there is one thing I've learnt about her it's that she regulates whatever you see or know of her. For a person who is chronically online and also does not shy away from sharing a part of her life on social media, it is surprising to me how little we actually get to know about her personal life. In these past months, I know about her close friends but nothing about her dating history, there are rumours but baseless. She is sitting on the information and the heavens may fall but it would not be revealed.

I have seen a lot of discourse on Luke Newton and his supposed behavioural patterns post the Bridgerton part 2 release. Obviously, there is no denying that he was quick to dissociate himself from Bridgerton and his co-star. I am not into celebrity culture nor do I get whipped by chemistry but had been an avid supporter of Polin since I first saw Bridgerton. The early promo release gassed me up and I did find myself enjoying watching them together in interviews. They came across as a good team and that is where the fun ends. While one may argue about the lack of appreciation and reciprocation on Luke's part, I do give him a lot of grace for carrying the world tour with ease. I can only imagine as an introverted, anxious person myself how difficult it must have been for him to navigate. Nicola, obviously is a dream co-star. That being said, I did find myself questioning him for his stunt but later came to an understanding as to why he would be so quick to dissociate.

Nicola Coughlan uploading the wedding dance video might just be the ultimate fan service a celebrity could ever do because nobody understands how much I dreaded the unnecessary cut and overcrowding during their dance and how much I longed for it to be a little longer. If she was not my favourite celebrity already, she might have cemented that position just now.

I have not found it in me to do a rewatch of season 3 just to understand the season as a whole. I was seething in anger when I tried doing so. But the brain rot is real, I've been to work, engaged myself in other hobbies and very randomly in a day I am reminded of the utter nonsense that everyone in the Bridgerton team served us. It feels like a disrespect to me as an audience. The marketing of Bridgerton is very couple-specific, you emphasise it's a love story, a romance of two people, and you put these couples on aggressive press tours only for me to walk into the show to find an overabundance of irrelevant subplots. I did go in with some expectations and it has bitten me wildly. This is not to say that Luke or Nicola were failing in any parameter but the more I think of it the more I realise that the makers used their season as a filler, to be able to build thousands of stories for other characters and pay little to no heed to the leads. We can do closer analysis to find goodness in the mess but if that good and happy things have failed to translate on the screen, what is the purpose? Bridgerton is simple, it's a love story, it's romance, its not gothic, thriller, suspence or mystery, it needs to stay true to its nature.

I've seen some bizarre take on Colin's entrapment comment and Penelope's girlbossing as if dividing the Polin admirers into two. How can you love Penelope and hate Colin or vice-versa? You can't pit one against the other. In all fairness, Colin was justified in his anger at Pen, he had all the rights in the world to sulk, tear up, be mean or even reconsider marriage. Penelope did hide an ugly truth from him, the Penelope I knew would have fought the world if it meant she could keep Colin closer, to be Penelope is to love Colin. She did it in her own way in the show. Penelope went out of her way to reassure Colin of being enough, of loving him for simply who he was, appreciating him for his kindness and empathy.

The world as a unit is not talking enough about Colin's monologue in the mirror scene and I need people to get up and appreciate Luke Newton for that sultry, raspy, low-textured voice he used as we see Colin cascading pen's hair, chasing her cheekbones and lips and bosoms. It's freaky, it's sexy, it's sensual and the scene DELIVERS.