Bridgerton Season 2: That Ending Explained and All Your Questions Answered – CNET

It’s been a busy social season on Netflix’s Bridgerton. The regency drama about social machinations and a mysterious gossip writer named Lady Whistledown, dropped its second season on Friday. 

This round focuses on the oldest Bridgerton son, Anthony, as he searches for a wife, mostly ignoring the promptings of his various family members that love might be a key component of a marriage — not just duty. 

You can refresh your memory on season 1. Or if you’ve already raced through season 2 as quickly as Lady Whistledown wears down quills, here’s the ending of Bridgerton season 2, explained.

Of course, everything single word that follows is a spoiler. So beware.

Do Kate and Anthony get together?

The season comes to a turning point when Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma — after weeks of suggestively eyeing each other — finally cough have an evening to themselves. In the morning, Kate rides her horse in the rain. It rears up. She gets thrown off and hits her head. Anthony rescues her, and she spends the next several days unconscious. He remains stony-faced yet internally twisty. Mercifully, he has a conversation with his mother about true love being worth the trouble and the pain it sometimes brings. 

When Kate wakes up, Anthony visits and proposes marriage. While you might think the preceding events would clear the decks for them, Kate turns him down, insisting that she’s going to return to India.

That night, the Featherington family throws a ball. At the ball, Kate and Anthony dance together with apparently such intense vibes that everyone there (including the Queen) more or less understands the pair is in love and why Anthony and Kate’s sister Edwina did not get married. After one more conversation in the garden, where Anthony tells Kate he loves her and she tells him they’re probably going to continue to vex each other, they make out amid fireworks. While the viewer doesn’t see their wedding, the end of the episode shows them married and spending time with the whole Bridgerton family at the country estate, Aubrey Hall.

Does Edwina find a husband?

Edwina has a rough few weeks. She learns that her sister and finance are in love, as well as a few other family secrets, and somehow makes peace with all the deception after her sister’s accident. At the ball, she has a short exchange with the Queen, who mentions that her nephew (Prince Friedrich, who courted Daphne Bridgerton in season 1) happens to still be available.

What happens with Eloise?

This season the headstrong Eloise Bridgerton finds herself in a sticky situation. Her hunt for Lady Whistledown puts her in the path of a boy who works in Lady Whistledown’s print shop. The pair have a nerd love thing going on. It’s cute. The Queen, however, finds out that Eloise has been frequenting a print shop and thinks that Eloise is Lady Whistledown. Penelope, partly in effort to get the spotlight off her friend, writes a pamphlet exposing Eloise’s un-chaperoned visits with print shop boy Theo. Eloise ends up breaking things off with Theo and gives up her search for the gossip writer. 

Does Lady Whistledown’s identity remain secret?

Of course the moment Eloise has given up, she has a revelatory moment at the Featherington ball that — oh snap — her best friend is Lady Whistledown. It seems Penelope has gossiped a little too close to the sun. Eloise confronts Penelope. It’s not pretty. Eloise tells Penelope that she’s been making money tarnishing everyone in town. Penelope says that she’s ceased writing the gossip sheet and that at least she’s actually done something with her time. Eloise responds that she never wants to see or speak to Penelope again. At the end of the episode, Lady Whistledown in voiceover returns, and says she won’t be silent. 

Does the Featheringtons’ scam work?

After the death of the Featherington patriarch last season, the family’s been dealing with the appearance of cousin Jack to head up the estate. He spends much of the season with Lady Portia Featherington, plotting a scam to gain investments in a ruby mine in America from the locals and then take off with the money, knowing that the mine is a failure. 

Colin Bridgerton exposes the scheme, unaware that Portia knew all along. He threatens Jack, and Portia rolls with the narrative that Jack is a liar. She later tells Jack she’s going to keep some of the money and tells him to get out.