From the moment she stomped to the foot of the stairs in Bridgerton House and shrieked “Daphne!” at the top of her lungs, Eloise (Claudia Jesse) has been one of my all-time favorite characters on Bridgerton. A little messy and a lot opinionated, the fifth Bridgerton sibling has played a supporting role in Netflix’s hit Regency-era romance series since the beginning, serving as a sideline commentator on the ton and the London season initially, before being thrust headfirst into the marriage mart herself. She’s also one of the driving forces behind uncovering the identity of the infamous gossip columnist, Lady Whistledown, who turned out to be none other than her best friend, Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), a revelation that fractured the once rock-solid friendship.
Now that the two of them have made up, however, and now that the truth about Lady Whistledown is known to all, this leaves Eloise in a bit of a plot limbo. With Penelope happily married to Eloise’s brother Colin (Luke Newton), and Benedict (Luke Thompson), the sibling Eloise was closest to, about to fall head over heels for the mysterious Lady in Silver, Sophie Baek (Yeron Ha) — not that any of them know that part yet — the second Bridgerton sister is a bit without direction. Season 3 ends with her deciding to accompany her sister Francesca (Hannah Dodd), Francesca’s husband John Stirling (Victor Alli) and John’s cousin Michaela (Masali Baduza) to John’s family estate in Scotland, though she promises Benedict she’ll be back in time for their mother’s annual masquerade. Though Eloise’s role in Season 4 is still unclear — I’ve got my speculation, of course, which I will get into — if Netflix doesn’t shuffle the order of the books again, Season 5 will finally see Eloise take the stage for a love story of her own.
What Is Eloise’s Book About?
“To Sir Philip, With Love,” the fifth book in the Julia Quinn-penned series, follows Eloise as she runs away from London to Gloucestershire to meet Sir Philip Crane, the husband of Eloise’s late cousin Marina Thompson. Eloise and Philip had been exchanging letters for over a year, beginning when she sent him a letter of condolence following Marina’s death, and continuing in a loose pen pal situation until he suggests she come visit him — with a chaperone! — to consider whether the two of them should marry. For Philip, it’s a practical arrangement, as he’s got two young children he doesn’t quite know how to handle, and to his mind, the 28-year-old Eloise is still single due to a lack of better options. Eloise, meanwhile, is reeling from the revelation that her best friend Penelope is not only Lady Whistledown, but is now also set to marry her brother Colin, even after Eloise had come to expect that the pair of them would stay single and “on the shelf” forever.
What follows once Eloise runs away to Sir Philip’s home is as you’d expect. Philip does not expect Eloise to be the firecracker that she is, and Eloise doesn’t expect Philip to be as much of a hands-off father as he is, not to mention the fact that his children, Amanda and Oliver, do not want Eloise there taking their father away from them, as they see so little of him as it is. Naturally, though, their little family finally works their way into Eloise’s heart, as she works her way into theirs, and it’s a happy ending all around.
The Problems With Adapting ‘To Sir Philip, With Love’
If the names Philip Crane and Marina Thompson are ringing a bell at all, then good memory, as we’ve already met both of them in the Netflix series. Marina (Ruby Baker) appeared in the first season, her backstory altered to be a cousin of the Featherington family instead. She arrives in London, ostensibly to join the marriage mart, but she is disinterested as she has a love back home, a young man named George Crane.
When she learns that she’s pregnant with George’s baby, the news quickly also reaches Lady Featherington (Polly Walker), who then becomes determined to marry her off and spare them all the ruin. Following an attempt to induce a miscarriage, and a failed engagement to Colin after Penelope tells him about the baby, George’s brother Philip (Chris Fulton) arrives and tells Marina that his brother died on the battlefield, but that he will do the right thing and marry her. The two are seen briefly in the second season, now with their twin babies Oliver and Amanda, and with Marina resigned to the turn her life has taken.
From the get-go, I was nervous about the eventual adaptation of Eloise’s book. Not because of anything Eloise-related; with how different she is in the series versus the books, an adaptation of her story can only make things more interesting. Rather, what makes me nervous is the circumstances under which she and Sir Philip meet. In theory, yes, she could still open up the line of correspondence to Philip after Marina’s death, even though it now makes less sense for her to do so as Marina isn’t related to her. But the problematic aspect in all of this, to me, is how Marina dies in the first place.
Gradually throughout the book, we learn that Marina was depressed, and had been for some time, before finally taking her own life. Besides that being much heavier in tone than anything Bridgerton has really done thus far, it’s also a problem for me for the series to write off their first Black female lead in such a way in order to serve the story of a white protagonist. Maybe the series will simply find another way to write Marina out, or maybe they’re going to use the opportunity to make things really interesting and take Eloise’s story in a new direction.
Eloise Is Finally Taking the Spotlight on ‘Bridgerton’
This is not to say that I want them to rewrite Eloise’s story completely. Besides a couple of elements in the novel that aged extremely poorly, I generally like Eloise and Philip’s dynamic. But as I said before, the Eloise in the books is not the Eloise in the show. The Eloise in the show is far more awkward and opinionated, and less at ease with doing things the “right” way, which sets her apart from her sisters, who have a better handle on the ton and its expectations. Her sisters-in-law, Kate (Simone Ashley) and Penelope, though outsiders in their own way, also have a much better handle on things than Eloise does. Eloise never seemed like she was fully comfortable in London and in the chaos of the season, which is why I love the idea of her going to Scotland with the Stirlings so much.
Though she’s already said she’ll be back in London for the masquerade, and will therefore likely be around for Season 4 as Benedict hunts for his mysterious Lady in Silver, I can’t help but wonder if taking her to Scotland is the show’s way of introducing her to a Philip Crane-like character, one she will maintain a correspondence with over the course of Season 4, and whose home she’ll run away to at the end of the season. Because by this point in the show, Eloise’s motivations are completely different than they were in the books. No time jump means she’s 19 or 20 at the most, rather than pushing 30, and resigned to her life as-is. Penelope’s romance with Colin, and her identity as Lady Whistledown are no longer big enough shocks to send Eloise running. The Eloise in the series is practically a different person than her book counterpart, and Season 5 following her love story, at this point, feels like an uncharted territory I cannot wait to explore.
Season 4 of Bridgerton is currently in production. Previous seasons can be streamed on Netflix in the U.S.
