Bridgerton – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review

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Simon and Daphne prepare for their honeymoon as episode 6 of Bridgerton begins. They arrive at Clyedon together and are immediately greeted by Mrs Colson who’s in charge of the hired help. Before their guided tour however, Simon intends to show Daphne their bedroom.

Eventually, Daphne is shown around by Mrs Colson who makes a point of showing her the nursery which, as we know, won’t be used in the foreseeable future if Simon has his way.

At dinner, Daphne moves across to sit next to Simon and talks of redecorating the place. With love blossoming between them, they head outside and start kissing in the rain. The old kissing-in-the-rain trope strikes again! Anyway, not long after we’re graced with a montage of sex scenes as the two seem very much in love.

As the Duke and Duchess busy themselves with the townsfolk and their problems, Daphne’s desire to please everyone causes her to inadvertently snub the farmers. This causes them problems with their income.

Realizing she’s out of her depth, Daphne heads back to the house and takes Mrs Colson aside, talking to her about Simon’s past. Through her we learn more about his estranged relationship with his Father, including rehashed elements of what we’ve already seen in flashbacks.

That evening Daphne learns exactly how to have children and has sex with Simon again. This time though, Daphne gets on top and forces him to orgasm inside her. Afterwards, she tells Simon he tricked her by lying about the reason for not having children.

With both of them gone, back in town Eloise has been charged by the Queen to uncover Lady Whistledown’s identity. Meanwhile, Colin confirms that he’s asked Marina’s hand to marry which certainly shatters Penelope’s dreams. Anthony confronts his brother about this too, questioning Colin’s devotion to Marina and refusing to give him his blessing.

Things are tense in the Bridgerton household, eventually leading to the room emptying as Colin speaks to his Mother about the marriage. While he believes this is a match made with love, Marina is obviously just using him to change her own fortunes. Penelope is not happy with this and refuses to indulge Marina given what she actually intends to do.

The two families are joined together for dinner that evening. Penelope refuses to stand by and listen, taking Colin aside and revealing the truth about Marina. She mentions Marina’s love for another and the letters too. Colin refuses to see this though and it’s only made worse when Marina shows and decides they should be wed sooner by heading up to Scotland. As they hug, it’s clear there’s not really any feelings for her toward him despite revealing that she loves him.

Determined to set things right, Penelope goes hunting for the love letters herself. There, she uncovers the forgery from Lady Featherington. Penelope tries to make Marina see sense but she instead burns the letters. She defiantly tells Penelope that Colin will accept her despite the pregnancy she’s currently keeping a secret.

As the episode closes out, the truth about Marina is revealed to the entire estate by Lady Whistledown.

The Episode Review

Marina’s deception does absolutely nothing to help her character this episode. It’s hard not to feel sorry for Penelope in the midst of all this and it’s a shame that Bridgerton didn’t go the route of showing appearance isn’t everything.

Early on I assumed Colin would end up with Penelope and snub her sisters in a love-matched marriage. That way, portraying a perfect example of a match made with love. Obviously that hasn’t transpired and instead we’ve got a lacklustre and under-developed love triangle.

And what of Daphne and Simon? Through a myriad of sex scenes this episode, we’re graced with stale and predictable storytelling between the two with the key word here being communication. It’s a trope as old as romcoms themselves where you find yourself exasperated that these characters don’t open up and admit the truth.

Daphne accepted this marriage under the pretense that they were not to have children. While I understand she’s annoyed between Simon’s trickery between “can’t” and “won’t”, all of this drama could be resolved if Simon just admitted what he promised his Father and why he won’t have kids.

Instead, we have this contrived miscommunication made worse by Daphne looking like the bad guy after getting an “advantage” over Simon. And now we could be looking at a child entering this angsty mess.

As we reach the third act of this series, it’s abundantly clear that Bridgerton is running out of steam and feels thin on content. The supporting characters in particular are really under-developed and have very little characterization. Hopefully that will change going forward but this episode is easily one of the weakest of the bunch.