Bridgerton Season 5 is finally in production, and we’ve got a brand-new round of fan outrage to deal with. Netflix announced that Hannah Dodd and Masali Baduza are the leads of the next chapter of the hit TV series.
Lady Francesca Stirling and Michaela Stirling being the focus was always going to cause a stir. For one, we’ve got the TV series veering away from how the books play out. But, on the other hand, the presence of the first two women to serve as the lead couple on the show was also going to raise eyebrows. Today, the fans are crashing out though, and that’s unnecessary.
Shondaland and Netflix rolled out a lush trailer featuring the two actresses looking out into the distance. This builds on the simmering familiarity we saw near the tail end of Season 4. The idea of a gender swapped version of Michael Stirling has been around for a while in Bridgerton. The second Francesca married John Stirling In the show some of us braced for some racist backlash whenever we got around to the plot of Francesca’s novel. Imagine all of our surprise when showrunner Jess Brownell helped make the decision to tweak her love interest into a woman.
There have been almost two seasons of television for viewers to gird their loins and prepare themselves for Bridgerton to tackle a lesbian romance. It’s not like the show sprung this on anybody. Bridgerton didn’t ask the audience to go with it without preparing them beforehand. Still, today’s reveal featured a lot of book fans expressing sadness that Eloise (Claudia Jessie) wouldn’t be the next protagonist. But, it also cloaked a lot of bad actors complaining about the lesbian representation in the show. Such is online fandom in 2026.
Fan reaction to the new Bridgerton leading couple
Andrea Malfoy might have the closest to a coherent take from the book lover side of things. She points out, “Changing Michael to Michaela completely alters the core of When he Was Wicked. And, for those of us who read the books, it’s not a small tweet, it’s the entire emotional foundation of Francesca’s story.
There are book fans that are upset. Then, there are these kinds of gems… One fan went, “ I’m in no way homophobic, but I do not want to watch an entire season of women kissing each other either. Hard pass.” Uhhhh…where do I start? Tell you what, I’ll tag-in Miss Kitty here to save us all the time. “Claiming you’re in no way homophobic and exhibiting blatant homophobia in the same sentence is wildly incongruent,” she replied politely.
SimplySamantha.dds had a take we can get behind. “If you are demanding historical accuracy or faithful adaptation for Brigerton season 5 but have no problem with cello versions of pop songs or all the other cinematic anachronisms, your homophobia is showing.” Frankly, I couldn’t agree more.
Calling the bad actors what they actually are
Influencer Francis Dominic also had some confusion for all this smoke with the new season. “How are people who are disappointed in the WLW announcement of Bridgerton, but are obsessed with Heated Rivalry in the same circle of the Venn diagram? Like…..?!?!?!?!?!” It’s a good question, because you would think that outpouring of support around our hockey boys would extend to other queer relationships. But, that is not the case! Media scholar and writer BJ Colangelo basically nailed one of the main tensions surrounding the outcry on Threads.
“The straight women rage crashing about the Bridgerton announcement are lesbophobic,” Colangelo argued. “This is specifically a response rooted in the intersection of homophobia and misogyny because it doesn’t take long to scroll their pages and see them gushing over MM literature. They’ll fetishize gay men, but they’re openly disgusted by gay women.”
What to do about Bridgerton?
The show is continuing for multiple seasons after Season 5. Also, showrunner Jess Brownell and Shonda Rhimes have both cautioned viewers. They shouldn’t expect things to play out exactly the way they do in Julia Quinn’s novels. That’s not to say we’re throwing out all of the narrative choices that the author made back in the day. But, TV allows room for these adaptations to take shapes that will surprise viewers occasionally.
Will there be a male couple one season? I wouldn’t bet against it at this point. *Gestures meekly over at the pile of money that Heated Rivalry managed to generate for HBO Max and Crave TV up in Canada.* Will the same sort of strange pushback exist for those changes? I sadly think that is probably the case. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. One of the things that makes Bridgerton so great is that everyone deserves a love story. Now, the fan base needs to calm down and let that happen.
(featured image: Netflix)
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