Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story steps back a few years to tell the story of how the ton and the royals came to include people of color. It also tells the tumultuous love story of King George III and Queen Charlotte as young people.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story explored two major story lines. First was the way George’s mother, Princess Augusta (Michelle Fairley), impulsively invited a group of people of color to the wedding between her son George and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a woman of color. Not only did she invite them, she granted some of them the title Lord and Lady and included them in the peerage.
The second major story line was the love story between Charlotte and George. Young Charlotte (India Amarteifio) came to England to marry Young King George (Corey Mylchreest). The two met on their wedding day and fell in love. The marriage got off to a strange start and grew stranger over time as Charlotte realized the King was mentally ill. She managed him, she calmed him, she kept him as sane as possible. And she loved him.
The love story was one of the best love stories I’ve seen. Between bouts of madness on George’s part, this couple managed to have umpteen children and years of happiness. Charlotte had a confidence and understanding about George’s illness that was far ahead of her time. Especially when considered against the ignorant and torturous antics of characters like Doctor Monro (Guy Henry) who did truly horrifying things to “cure” George.
This story of royal love is interspersed with the lives of the characters as we know them from Bridgerton season 1 and season 2. The future Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) wanted her grown offspring to produce babies. James Fleet plays the seldom seen older George.
The way the time jumps was handled worked well. Mostly the story was about the young characters, and once in a while we’d jump ahead to the characters as we first met them in the series to explore how the past had informed the future.
The other familiar characters from the Bridgerton series include Lady Agatha Danbury (Adjoa Anode) and Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell.) These two women were connected to each other and to Charlotte quite young and the relationship lasted many years. Young Violet (Connie Jenkins-Greig) and Young Agatha (Arsema Thomas) had some secrets that remained hidden for many years and formed a nice twist.
Charlotte’s man, Brimsley (Sam Clemmett as a young man and Hugh Sachs later) and the King’s man, Reynolds (Freddie Dennis), were lovers. There was plenty of sex in this mini-series, and the gay men were not left out. The mini-series was created by Shonda Rhimes based on the characters in the books by Julia Quinn. Neither of them are shy about making sure you get the full sex lives of the characters so you understand how it affected their choices and lives.
The secret to success with all the Bridgerton material that has come out of Shondaland up to now is the characters are so well-written and so complex that they are fascinating as human beings. It makes for good storytelling and enjoyable television. The stories are fictionalized, of course. You can get some of the real history on Wikipedia.
You might have begun your analysis by mentioning that this story is fictional instead of waiting until the end because: 1. most people are going to think that this is a documentary and 2. most people won’t read your comments through to the end.
Thanks for reading and for your comment.
Absolutely loved Guy Henry as Doctor Monro he is probably one of the most underrated character actors in this country!
Yes, he did a great job. At first I thought he might be smarter than the other doctors, but he proved to be just like them. Scary what doctors once did to people.