Plot ideas to save Eloise’s season:
(based on my own thoughts, conversations I had with friends, and some wonderful, scientifically proven posts I’ve read)
Marina doesn’t die but merely runs away. Posted about that here already, but essentially Marina just leaves Phillip behind (with or without her children). He’s still a married man, so Eloise won’t feel pressured to marry him in any way. They can have an affair while she remains unmarried and becomes a famous author/activist.
She meets a working class man called Phillip (similar to Theo) and refers to him as ‘Sir Phillip’ to hide his background
Alternatively, it can also just be Theo who uses the pseudonym of ‘Sir Phillip’ (but either way, they don’t marry – because the class difference doesn’t allow it, but most importantly, because Eloise doesn’t want to)
Eloise falls in love with Marina instead of Phillip – and if Ruby doesn’t want to come back, they can recast Marina (but only with Ruby’s permission – if she wants for Marina to be hers alone, we can go for another storyline from this list)
They ditch Phillip altogether and bring back Cressida (tbh, from what I know about Eloise's book, she could actually be a fitting replacement for Phillip - theme wise)
Again, ‘Sir Phillip’ is merely a pseudonym – used by a gender nonconforming lesbian that Eloise falls in love with
Alternatively, ‘Sir Phillip’ is a trans man – which is the only scenario in which I will support Eloise marrying a man, because weddings like that very much happened during that time and it would be incredibly interesting to watch the show explore that (or maybe not)
Eloise and Phillip are both ace. And yeah, I know this show is all about sex. But we already have a dozen very sexually active couples – so they have more than enough characters to use for the obligatory sex scenes
This is not a ranking btw – all ideas would be equally great. Some of them can also coexist. Feel free to add more :)