Progress or pattern? ‘Bridgerton’ season 5 teaser ignites mixed reactions

Fans applaud “Bridgerton’s” first queer couple, while others question Shonda Rhimes’ storytelling and approach to representation and romance.

Dearest gentle reader, “Bridgerton” is returning to Netflix for a fifth season, expected to take the show into all-new territories. This week, the Shondaland production shared first-look images of its forthcoming season, revealing the leads of the series’ next chapter: actresses Hannah Dodd and Masali Baduza. And for the first time, the regency romance/drama will center on a queer love story. 

“What we really want to achieve is giving a realistic view of queer love onscreen and [giving them] a happily ever after. I think [this] is really important for a lot of the queer community to see onscreen, to know that it can work out, and that they deserve to also feel love,” Baduza, who plays Michaela Stirling, told Netflix’s Tudum. 

That choice has been met with both celebration and critique. For some longtime viewers and readers of Julia Quinn’s novels, the pivot feels like a departure from a long-anticipated arc. Many had hoped to see Eloise, played by Claudia Jessie, step into her own romantic storyline as the diamond of the ball this season. 

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But the more layered critique emerging online has less to do with Eloise and more to do with a broader pattern some fans say they’ve noticed in Shonda Rhimes’ work. Across shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” Rhimes has built a reputation for complex, compelling storytelling, but, some argue, also for portraying Black women’s romantic lives in ways that don’t always center Black love in its fullness.

“As a lover of Bridgerton and supporter of Shondaland. I’m starting to think she works for the CIA. 🤨 She promotes certain stereotypes of Black women that I just don’t see her doing to other races,” one user wrote on Threads. 

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That critique isn’t new. Conversations about the prevalence of interracial relationships in Rhimes’ shows, and what that might signal, have circulated for years.

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 And while Rhimes has not directly addressed every iteration of that criticism, she has consistently defended her approach to storytelling: one rooted in depicting a world that is expansive, varied, and reflective of her own lens.

“When people who aren’t of color create a show, and they have one character of color on their show, that character spends all their time talking about the world as ‘I’m a Black man blah, blah, blah,’” Rhimes told ThinkProgress in 2013. “That’s not how the world works. I’m a Black woman every day, and I’m not confused about that. I’m not worried about that. I don’t need to have a discussion with you about how I feel as a Black woman, because I don’t feel disempowered as a Black woman.”

She echoed a similar sentiment years later when talking about her Netflix series with Sky News: “The idea that I am writing the show looking like I look, that it wouldn’t occur to me that there should be more people in the show who look like me, I feel like that’s an obvious point. Why would I write something that doesn’t include me in any way?”

At the end of the day, there is a real, legitimate hunger, particularly in Black communities, to see Black love stories told with the same grandeur, tenderness, and unapologetic romanticism that “Bridgerton” brings to every other pairing. At the same time, one could argue that Rhimes’ work has always reflected something true: Black women love in multitudes, and their stories are not monolithic. And in season 5, she’s extending that logic into a queer love story that, if executed with the care Baduza has already promised, could help another group of Black women feel seen.