Bridgerton Season 1’s Quiet Betrayal of Daphne’s Happy Ending

Bridgerton Season 1 sold us the fantasy: Daphne Bridgerton gets the fairytale husband, the grand house, and a baby by the finale. Simon works through his baggage, the strings swell, cut to happily ever after. But if you rewatch that season with 2025 eyes, the glow fades fast. Daphne’s ending looks less like empowerment and more like she learned how to play nice with a system built to box her in.

Daphne: marketed as a feminist lead, managed like a debutante

The show positions Daphne as the diamond of the season: smart, poised, unflappable in the ballroom shark tank. She can spar with the ton’s rules and hold her own with the men in her life. Early on she even engineers that fake-courtship gambit with Simon (episode 2), which is both clever and effective. She clashes with Anthony when he tries to gatekeep her suitors and insists on choosing her own husband. On paper, that all screams agency.

The catch: almost every big move Daphne makes stays neatly inside the era’s approved lanes. She wants marriage and children not just because of love, but because that’s what a good eldest daughter is supposed to deliver. Her independence often runs through someone else’s cooperation (Simon) or a scheme, instead of clean, self-driven choices. By the finale, her victory is the most traditional one possible: respectable marriage and motherhood. That’s not nothing, but it’s not exactly radical either.

The marriage: romance on the surface, rot underneath

Daphne and Simon are textbook opposites who spark like crazy. The problem is they never resolve the core disagreement at the center of their marriage. Simon repeatedly keeps vital information from her. He tells Daphne he can’t have children, when the truth is he won’t have children. It’s a choice rooted in his past, not a medical impossibility. Daphne pushes and prods, trying to change his mind, which becomes the season’s emotional tug-of-war.

The episode 6 line the show draws... and then ignores

Here’s where it gets messy. In episode 6, Daphne takes matters into her own hands during sex to try to get pregnant. The scene has been widely recognized as a non-consensual act. The series frames it like a dramatic turning point for their romance, but it never really unpacks what that moment means for either character. Simon bolts to the countryside. Then the story smooths itself over when Daphne ends up pregnant, and we glide to the happy montage.

Boundaries, consent, power dynamics in a marriage — the show skims past all of that. Later seasons largely park Daphne on the sidelines and don’t make her, or the narrative, confront what happened. It’s a conspicuous omission, especially for a series that loves a big, cathartic confrontation.

So did Daphne actually get a happy ending?

Technically, yes: husband, baby, status. Emotionally, it reads like compliance with the era’s scorecard, not a meaningful win on her terms. The series treats her Season 1 arc as a romantic triumph, but avoids the deeper, thornier parts of that marriage. If you want the fantasy, it’s there. If you want the reckoning, it isn’t.

• Show: Bridgerton
• Seasons: 3 (as of 2025)
• Showrunner: Jess Brownell
• Based on: Julia Quinn’s novels
• Main cast: Jonathan Bailey, Simone Ashley, Luke Thompson, Nicola Coughlan, Claudia Jessie, Golda Rosheuvel, Luke Newton
• IMDb: 7.4/10
• Rotten Tomatoes: 84%

Bridgerton Seasons 1-3 are streaming now. Season 4 Part 1 hits Netflix (US) on January 29, 2026.

Was Daphne’s ending truly happy, or just a polished performance shaped by the world around her? Drop your take in the comments.