(THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE BRIDGERTONS, SEASON 4, PART 1)

Let’s stop thinking about Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and that statement that continues to be the object of all our desires. Let’s forget Colin Bridgerton’s (Luke Newton) hot carriage ride. Let’s ignore, even if just for five minutes, that silly smile we get when we imagine someone. Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) planted in the middle of some stairs.

Starting in the fifth and sixth seasons, the women of the most coveted family of the Regency will once again take narrative command in The Bridgertons. The series that adapts the books of Julia Quinn It started with Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and soon it will be the turn of Eloise (Claudia Jessie) and Francesca (Hannah Dodd) to enchant us with their love stories.

At the moment, it is not known which of the two will arrive on Netflix first (if we follow the order of the novels, it should be Eloise), but both are gaining prominence in the latest installments, advancing their respective plots, especially in the fourth, a clear indication that they will take over from the male Bridgertons.

Although the precedent set by Daphne, constrained by the corset of a perfect and complacent period woman, could discourage many fans, Eloise has proven to have nothing to do with her older sister, destroying molds and conventions based on sarcasm in that Regency reinterpreted by Shonda Rhimes.

And what about Francesca? It may be hard to believe, but she was destined to give us the best season in fiction. We say it was because, although the Netflix series has substantially improved Quinn’s novels and its protagonists (even Hyacinth -Florence Hunt- has shown her sharp personality), the sixth daughter of the family is not being portrayed as her literary counterpart deserves.

We are not exaggerating when we say that Francesca’s book, The heart of a Bridgerton, It is the most revolutionary and profound, the second favorite of the person who writes these lines. However, the fourth season of The Bridgertons has insisted on ignoring the character’s potential and reducing her to a more withdrawn and practical version of Daphne, just as innocent, but without beating around the bush. We analyze how Netflix is ​​killing the best female character in the Quinn saga.

Francesca Bridgerton in Julia Quinn’s book

Julia Quinn dedicates the sixth book of her saga to Francesa Bridgerton, The heart of a Bridgerton. On the pages, he is the most mysterious member of the family, who is barely mentioned until his turn comes. Before reaching her novel, we only know that she lives in Scotland after having married John Stirling, Earl of Kilmartin, and that she is widowed two years after the wedding, when John suffers an aneurysm.

Thus, Francesca and John’s relationship that begins in the third season of The Bridgertons is doomed and the great love story that the young woman will live will be with another character that the series has already presented to us: Michaela, Michael Stirling on the pages. Michael is John’s cousin and has always been secretly in love with Francesca. When John dies, Michael inherits the title and lands of Kilmartin, but, suffocated by guilt over his feelings for Francesca and haunted by the feeling of living the life of his cousin, who was like a brother to him, he flees to India.

The heart of a Bridgerton begins with the couple’s reunion four years after Michael leaves. Francesca is preparing to give the wedding season a second chance because she wants to have a child and Michael has just returned to England. The latter’s love soon intensifies as she begins to see him with different eyes, to feel an attraction that goes beyond friendship. Mutual interest soon comes face to face with shame and guilt over John’s ghost.

The heart of a Bridgerton It is the most different novel in the saga, a more adult, melancholic, complex story, covered in layers and nuances. Face grief without filters, the passion tinged with guilt and the internal conflict that can occur when giving yourself permission to love again after a painful loss. Let’s add to that the most sensual couple of all and we will have Quinn’s most accurate and well-rounded romance.

Francesca Bridgerton in the Netflix series

The third season of The Bridgertons She laid a solid and faithful foundation to the literary saga: Francesca was a shy but practical young woman, much less fond of socializing than her sister Daphne, but aware of the importance of finding a husband during the wedding season, unlike Eloise. with her and John Stirling (Victor Alli), We viewers experienced what seemed like a slow-burning love, without uncontrollable passion or grandiloquent gestures.

We said goodbye to her newly married, preparing to leave London to move to Scotland with her husband, Eloise and Michaela Stirling (Masali Baduza), John’s cousin, with whom he exchanged nervous glances. She experienced two key moments at the end of the third season: first, during her wedding, when she showed displeasure by kissing John; and then, when, captivated and high-eyed, she was unable to introduce herself to Michaela.

The third installment vaguely but recognizably painted that woman that readers fell in love with in The heart of a Bridgerton: a little out of place, more taciturn than the rest of her siblings, but tremendously mature, determined and decisive. It didn’t matter that Michael had changed sex; Francesca seemed to remain the same.

However, in the fourth installment, the Francesca who returns to London distances herself from the Francesca of the novel. Her reserved character translates into an excessive, almost ridiculous innocence, which brings her dangerously close to Daphne and limits her arc to a single conflict that also develops quite superficially. What conflict? Her entire world revolves around her lack of attraction to John and, consequently, her inability to climax.

In the third season, Francesca was a young woman with things clear, mature, enigmatic, a particularly intriguing Bridgerton sister, glued to a piano. In Part 1 of the fourth it only accumulates uncomfortable conversations about the meaning of orgasms with Penelope (Nicola Coughlan), Violet (Ruth Gemmell) and John. It is difficult to recognize the Francesca of the novel in her.

Francesca deserves more in ‘The Bridgertons’

As we explained previously, Francesca’s book speaks frankly and deeply about second chances. The protagonist was happily married to John, with whom she was deeply in love, and although her motivation for remarrying is not love, but motherhood, Michael reawakens those feelings in her.

It is a love different from the one she felt for John, a love that at no time detracts from or forgets the previous one, a love that reflects who Francesca is now, which Michael provokes in his most mature version. That’s why his story turns out to be so real, because it destroys absurd fantasies about better half and unique loves to validate the second sparks and the possibility of starting to see a person with different eyes.

Michael, for his part, is very beloved among readers because, in addition to being the most suffering character in the Quinn universe, he is also the most dedicated, the epitome of a tormented period hero. He has been in love with Francesca since he met her, but he loves John like a brother and suffers in silence. If you think Anthony Bridgerton invented longing, it’s because you haven’t met Michael.