Bridgerton – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap & Review

The Duke and I

Daphne races back home as episode 5 of Bridgerton begins. She gets back in bed and pretends like the duel never happened. Instead, she approaches Lady Bridgerton in the morning and tells her she’s now engaged to the Duke.

Daphne claims to be overjoyed as her Mother excitedly asks her daughter to reveal all. Daphne tries her best to smile through this as news of their engagement reaches the infamous Lady Whistledown. The latest gossip centers around whether this is big news or done deliberately to conceal a scandal of some sort.

The next day, Simon and Daphne head out again by the promenade but things are clearly tense between them – especially given Simon has been drinking half the night. When she tries to hold his hand, Simon pulls away.

At the Featherington household, the love triangle continues as Colin arrives with flowers for Marina. Penelope is obviously jealous and asks her Mother whether this match-up is appropriate or not. She assures her daughter that it is.

Anthony meanwhile arrives to pick up Siena but learns that she’s gone and left town. He’s disappointed but Daphne too is disappointed given her marriage to the Duke is less thrilling than she expected.

Cressida arrives to lend her opinion though, taking Daphne away while she’s dress shopping and confirming, in no uncertain times, that she knows what happened that evening. Daphne does her best to threaten back, given she’s close to being a duchess, but as Cressida walks away it’s obvious this has had quite the effect on her.

Even worse, the Archbishop Of Canterbury refuses to indulge the marriage. When Lady Bridgerton finds out, she deduces that it could be Queen Charlotte getting involved.

Prince Friedrich decides to head back to Prussia as Queen Charlotte hears that the King has awoken and he’s now lucid. As Charlotte continues to meddle in the affairs of those in high society, Lady Danbury tasks Simon and Daphne to go her themselves and profess their love in front of her.

Elsewhere, Lady Featherington is propositioned by Marina to try and woo Colin and win him over instead. In order to do that, she’s going to seduce Colin and pretend like the child belongs to him. Penelope however, happens to be listening from the doorway.

In the morning, Daphne and Simon stand before the Queen and admit the truth that they’ve been fooling everyone. At least, to begin with. Simon gives an impassioned confession to Charlotte, confirming that seeing his friend with the Prince made his fondness for her grow stronger. What began as friendship has quickly blossomed to romance and now he can’t stop thinking about her. On the back of this, Daphne is eventually allowed to marry Simon.

That evening, Penelope pleads with Marina not to seduce Colin but she refuses to do so and promises to be a good wife to him. Taking him aside, Marina tries to kiss Colin but he pulls away and tells her she’s a lady. However, he agrees to marry her by the end of the Season.

Eloise continues her hunt for Lady Whistledown, eventually catching the ear of Queen Charlotte at the party who wants to know what she’s found out. Eventually she agrees to indulge her.

In the morning, Daphne heads out with Simon ready to be the Duchess as she bids farewell to her family and their home. Their wedding night is not as lavish as Daphne was expecting, especially when she finds out they’ll be staying in an inn that evening due to the long journey back home.

Eventually they make it to their destination and finally get a chance to talk. Simon has been distant with her because she wants children and a family and he can’t give her that. However, he does go on to say the words he told the Queen are true. In fact, the truth is they both care for one another and their love burns. One thing leads to another and the two finally make love in a very awkward sex scene to close out the episode.

The Episode Review

With Simon and Daphne now wed, the episode itself discusses many points around love and relationships with both characters now finally opening up and communicating together by the end. It’s been coming for a while but finally these two are on the same page. Even if it does lead to a pretty awkward sex scene between the two.

The various subplots revolving around this pairing though are very half-baked and lack much originality. The love triangle between Marina, Penelope and Colin is pretty underwhelming while the search for Lady Whistledown isn’t given much screen time when it could be a decent mystery unto itself.

Hopefully when the truth is revealed it’ll be as surprising as our “XOXO Gossip Girl” revelation was.

For now though, Bridgerton delivers an okay episode but with the conflict and tension between Daphne and Simon seemingly over, will the show allow our supporting characters a chance to shine?