How Queen Charlotte shows a different side to Lady Danbury and Violet Bridgerton
Queen Charlotte episode 5 spoilers follow.
For the spin-off of a show that has become synonymous with steamy sex, the first fornicating we get in Queen Charlotte does not bode well. On a squeaky bed with her husband bearing down, a young Lady Danbury (played by Arsema Thomas, who has nailed the minute facial expressions of Bridgerton mainstay Adjoa Andoh) lies with the weary look of someone listening to an anecdote they've already heard half a dozen times.
"That was a good ride," Lord Danbury (Cyril Nri) eventually sighs, rolling off her to remove his false teeth and doze off. It's less sexy and more squeamish, but as Queen Charlotte begins to flash-forward to the present-day Bridgerton cast we recognise, these off-putting scenes gather significance for how they introduce the sexuality of the women of the Ton over 50.
The first two seasons of Bridgerton have seen Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Lady Agatha Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) orbit around the lingering looks and torrid love affairs of their younger counterparts. As is often the unfair fate of older women in television, they have chiefly operated in a maternal capacity – Lady Danbury to Duke Simon and Lady Bridgerton to her brood of Bridgertons – and conspired to matchmake together.
Yet when it has come to their own inner lives, Bridgerton has so far conveyed the message that Violet and Agatha are retired from sex and would prefer embroidery, gossip or gardening instead. That is until Queen Charlotte turned gardening into a sexual innuendo shopping list and, in doing so, brought these characters to life.
In the present-day timeline of the new six-part spin-off, Violet confronts her reawakened sexual longing after years of abstinence following the death of her husband. Meanwhile, Violet's own desire triggers Agatha to look back on a past love, as we see her passionate affair with Violet's father Lord Ledger unfold in the flashback timeline.
In the fifth episode of Queen Charlotte, Agatha and Violet attend an art exhibition loaded with "provocative" artwork – essentially naked bodies lounging on beds, but in the Regency era this is pornographic enough to make Agatha giggle. It's here that Violet confesses her "garden is in bloom".
She explains to an initially nonplussed Agatha: "My husband and I had a garden. A luscious garden with many varieties of flowers. When he died the garden died. Lately, without warning, the garden has begun to bloom."
Like a threatening demon lurking under the bed, Violet warns that her garden now "wants things". As if the various green-fingered metaphors weren't good enough, Violet then serves up the instantly iconic line: "I almost asked a footman to lie on top of me today." Good for you Violet! But she later tries to backtrack her so-called "outburst", begging Agatha to forget the entire thing.
Once women tip over 50, they are so often stereotyped on screen as sexless grandmothers and when their sexuality is addressed, like Violet, they tend to do so uneasily, probably reflecting a true-to-life suggestion that older women ought to be ashamed of their desire.
When Agatha and Violet later reunite in the exhibition after hours, Queen Charlotte saves the storyline from just being played for laughs and instead allows the characters to grow (the gardening metaphors will never end now).
Agatha reassures Violet in a moving monologue, which sees her hit on the truth of their roles so far in the Bridgerton universe, as pawns for "social chatter and marital schemes". She tells Violet: "We are full of gossip and story, but as women, we are never the topics of the conversation. Lady Whistledown never writes of our hearts. We are untold stories."
We're in a television golden age for powerhouse performances from older women – whether it be The White Lotus or Happy Valley – as opposed to being confined to the role of the meddling mother or stubborn battle-axe. Queen Charlotte in turn allows its older women to explore the sexuality of their characters in a compassionate way, giving two compelling but often peripheral Bridgerton figures a third dimension.
If older women of the Ton do indeed spend their time "endlessly matchmaking" the whippersnappers around them, as Agatha says, it's no great surprise that it’s taken a while to see them exploring their own sexuality. The only disappointment in Queen Charlotte is that while we are told of Agatha and Violet's desire, none of it is shown among the older present-day cast.
In a culture that doesn’t like to think about people with wrinkles having sex, let alone see them doing it, mature nude scenes are still largely absent from the mainstream. So far in the airbrushed world of Bridgerton, stretch marks and wrinkles have been kept under corsets.
Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University Torbjorn Bildtgard has described an "unwritten rule" for older couples' sexuality on screen, telling the i how it subtly enforces that "Sexuality should be hinted at but not shown outright."
Agatha and Violet's sexual openness is heartwarming and more familiarity with what older bodies look like would be the logical next step. While it feels a shame Queen Charlotte chose not to make it, the show has now teased the possibility of a Lady Bridgerton or Lady Danbury love affair on Bridgerton proper when it returns for its third season.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is available to stream on Netflix, alongside Bridgerton seasons 1-2. Season 3 is in production.
You Might Also Like
