Queen Charlotte: Bridgerton's sexy prequel marries spectacular hair with social commentary

During the first two seasons of Bridgerton, Netflix's hit TV adaptation of the Julia Quinn novels, there was a distinct sense that the world showrunner Shonda Rhimes was building had a post-racial sensibility, where people of all backgrounds could reach the heights of nobility if they simply had their wits about them.

Now, Netflix has released the prequel series, Queen Charlotte, which charts the path of how the high society of Bridgerton came to be so diverse.

For this week's wrap panel, culture writers Jael Richardson, Jen Sookfong Lee and Jackson Weaver joined host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss, among other top stories from this week, the unexpected excellence of Queen Charlotte, and how it fairs at addressing the racial politics at the center of its narrative.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Jael, you have watched the first two seasons of Bridgerton multiple times. This new show is a prequel of sorts. It's got Queen Charlotte, who's much younger. She's just gotten married. What do you think of the new show?

Jael: I'm obsessed. I love it. When I first heard about it I thought it was just a prequel, so we were just going to go back in time further? But what I love about it is actually we go back in time, but we also stay with where we left Queen Charlotte, Lady Danbury and a young Lady Bridgerton. And what I love about that is that it actually is more like a season three Bridgerton than a season one Queen Charlotte. We get all the juicy goodness, a little bit more backstory, a little origin story. I love a good origin story.

Elamin: Same, same.

Jael: And Shonda Rhimes is just genius. I mean, the way that stories are told, the way that stories unravel, the soundtracks that go with the story. I cannot with this woman, I cannot. It's so good.

Elamin: Wow, Shonda Rhimes' number one fan in the house. Can I just tell you my biggest problem with Queen Charlotte? Lady Whistledown, who's the narrator — sort of the Gossip Girl of Bridgerton — is the same age in the prequel as she is in the current series!

Jael: We just close our eyes and forget about that part.

Elamin: OK, fine. We're not going to talk about Lady Whistledown for the rest of this. But can I just say, Bridgerton kind of got on the map for giving us amazing costumes, for giving us really wild sex scenes for what Netflix was giving. Does Queen Charlotte do the same?

Jael: Oh, it does. We have to talk about the hair.

Jackson: The hair! Oh my goodness.

Elamin: Go off, go off.

Jackson: It was crazy!

Jael: The hair is so impressive. Queen Charlotte's hair is just something to study in university textbooks; it is so good. And then … what I love about the sex scenes, too, is that they say something. They say something about queer romance. They say something about women and pleasure. And so they're doing more than just showing us sex. They're talking about what it was like in that time.

Jackson: Power dynamics.

Jael: Yes, yes.

Elamin: Tell me more, Jackson.

Jackson: I mean, going back a few points: the hair. Oh my goodness. I was just entranced by it every other scene.

Elamin: I don't know how it stays up. I would like a study on this.

Jackson: Recently — like a year or two ago I guess — there were studies as to whether these hairstyles were actually possible. It's only recently they figured out how to do a lot of these things in real life. But when we're talking about the power dynamics, I absolutely got the same thing. This was not a tame rom-com thing; I guess I had my blinders on and didn't know what Bridgerton really was.

Elamin: Welcome to the party, pal.

Jackson: I was expecting it to be like, "Oh, they fall in love, blah blah." But no, there's real things being said. I'm a convert into the world of Bridgerton.

WATCH | Official trailer for Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story:

Elamin: Another one, I got another one. OK, I do want to switch gears a little bit in terms of talking about Queen Charlotte because in the show, the fact that Queen Charlotte is Black is a really big part of the storyline in Bridgerton, and the reason for that is interesting. In the first couple of seasons of Bridgerton, you see this society that is mostly post-racial; it's got a pretty diverse cast in general, but race doesn't really come up as a topic. In Queen Charlotte, it is very much a topic. It is very much part of the way that this show is trying to explain how that society came to be. Jen, what do you make of the fact that they made race such a big part of Queen Charlotte? Did it work for you?

Jen: In some instances it did…. I will say, part of the charm of the first couple of seasons of Bridgerton was this kind of post-racial [society]. People were just there; they were just allowed to be, and I really love that in a literary sense. I think what Shonda Rhimes has done with Queen Charlotte is that … it's almost like she's writing it for herself in the way that writers sometimes write a lot of backstory that doesn't ever make it into the final product.

Elamin: Right, like, "This is how the world came to be."

Jen: Yeah, and that she needed to understand it, but it actually became a show. So there are moments where I thought it's more than I expected from a Bridgerton. But there were also moments where I thought it was quite lovely. As an editor, I would have pared back some of that a little bit and made it showing us more rather than telling us as much as she was.

Elamin: Jael, what did you make of it?

Jael: I strongly disagree. First of all Shonda is a genius, so I feel like anything she does, she has made the choices; I mean, I think as a writer, you see across her experience—

Elamin: Grey's Anatomy season 25, she's a genius?

Jael: That's true. But I think she's dipped out on those ones.… I feel like the initial touch was there and then people failed her.

Elamin: Yes of course, of course.

Jael: But I think what what was really interesting for me is, I think it served as a really important commentary on Harry and Meghan — this idea of the great experiment with Queen Charlotte and King George, and the way that this could play out, and the way that this could make a difference, and the ways that it doesn't bring people together initially. For me, it was so powerful in the parallels to Harry and Meghan in multiple ways. I know that they're not king and queen, but in terms of what they could have been to the monarchy and what they could have done, I felt like it was a very intentional commentary on that situation and circumstance. I stand by that.

Elamin: That's fair. That works for me. I haven't finished the season yet. What I like about this is that we sort of told you guys we were going to talk about the show. Jackson, you went all in and you finished the whole season in, like, two days. Are you going to go back and watch the first two seasons also?

Jackson: I don't know. I'm going to be insufferably agnostic in between the opinions we've given…. I hate and love aspects of it. I watched the whole thing, I loved it. The parts that I really liked were where we've got these power dynamics. The commentary on race wasn't as difficult as people dealt with in real life, of course, so it was a little bit of a pull back from the things that people have to often grapple with all the time. So it's a little bit of a relief. But one thing that I'm not a huge fan of in the litany of royal movies/TV shows/media is the "gilded cage" narrative that we always get.

Elamin: It's hard being a royal, Jackson.

Jackson: It's so hard.

Elamin: You don't want to feel bad for royals. Is that what this is?

Jackson: I mean, The Favourite was great. The Great was great. Spencer was amazing. But all of these things are always about how hard it is to wear the crown, and I think I get it at this point. Your gowns are fantastic. Your hair is amazing. You have all these jewels. You have stolen things from other countries. It's kind of hard to keep feeling bad for you. So yes, I like the racial aspects of it that kind of adds the real prevalence of Black people into European history … but the royal thing, I don't care that your cage is golden. It's gold. OK?

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jean Kim.