hoes mad, hoes mad, hoes mad

on franchaela, sapphic stories, wlw and the like

BRIDGERTON S5 IS GAY!!!!!!!! 🌈👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

bridgerton (2020) is dear to my heart. i lovingly call it 25 year old girl cocomelon. watching s1 in 2020 dumped me into this world where love did win and that was all that mattered. s2 only extrapolated this (and is widely known as the best season) and the show has been renewed up to s6 with shondaland & netflix.

(i want to also acknowledge at the top of this letter that while i have loved watching the show play out on my screen that the treatment of the actors of color on the set & some of the writing choices are HUGE disappointments for me. everyone involved MUST do better and it is more than shameful!!)

(i also have not read the books — no shade to JQ — but i just don’t love a grocery paperback romance. and i’m much more attuned to the ‘20s kind of woke-washing that the show has versus the early ‘00s going on in the books).

now that i have my disclaimer out of the way, i can talk about this upcoming season. i was expecting eloise to be next, and while i can dive into all of the merits and intricacies of her character, that’s not up for discussion today.

with fran’s setup in s4, it totally makes sense she and michaela will be the s5 leads. it’s almost so obvious i can’t believe i originally thought they’d let her mope around for all of s5 with eloise front & center. i’m really also excited that it seems jess is centering the queer joy aspect. that is so crucial — bridgerton has done that im a lot of other aspects already, and this shouldn’t be any different. and i love love love hannah and masali’s attitudes being similar so far. knowing this story will be taken care of and is in good hands is so exciting.

(i also saw a tiktok comment — that is where i got the image at the top of this entry and the title is a reference to the tiktok, thank you to @gleekficied — where someone basically said eloise doesnt even WANT to go next, so that’s also warranted! like eloise should be s6, but again, i digress)

michaela’s appearance at the end of s3 was an amazing moment of television. my jaw was on the FLOOR! watching hannah dodd’s reaction was pure gold, and already knowing where francesca’s story was going only made me that much more excited.

i do think that fran is a really amazing, legitimate example of a queer story. not necessarily the sparkly dresses nor the race blind london marriage mart — but francesca and michaela’s feelings. we’re already aware that francesca married john and that michaela isn’t married. there have been plenty of scenes the last two seasons where we’ve seen francesca be speechless or annoyed or looking longingly at michaela’s presence, frustrated with her lack of “pinnacles” with john (sidebar, again, some of this is environmental/societal but some is not!) and michaela’s bubbly fun personality masking the more emotional aspects of her. all of these are so true to the queer experience, and while we don’t have exact labels yet for either woman — that doesn’t matter. their feelings are real and valid and we see them everyday. i think, if lesbian is the correct label for francesca, she is a fantastic story to tell and share of compulsory heterosexuality. not the only story, of course, but a good one. one to learn from. and i’m so excited for her to have that full, blossoming gay ass wlw kind of love.

MORE SAPPHIC STORIES ON THE MAINSTAGE!!!!!