The following contains
spoilers for "Bridgerton" Season 1, including the ending. For a non-spoilery read, check out Salon's review.
Poets and songsmiths attribute various powers to love: spinning Earth on its axis, acting as a miracle panacea . . . and apparently on "Bridgerton," un-whitewashing society.
It's perhaps no surprise that Shondaland's Regency-era adaptation of Julia Quinn's romance novels takes an inclusive approach, creating a far more colorful cast of characters than the source material or Jane Austen – the grand dame of the Regency subgenre – ever penned. But what sets the show apart from other color-conscious period casting is that this has been written into the fabric of the show, making it part of the alternate history or canon of "Bridgerton."