New ‘Bridgerton’ Season 2 Pictures Prove Netflix Knows What the Kanthony Fans Want

Bridgerton Season 2 is only 65 days away so Netflix has started to wantonly tease all the Regency-era fun to come. Today Netflix unveiled eight new images from Bridgerton Season 2, including a gorgeous tableau of Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuval) reading her Lady Whistledown in the palace, the elder Bridgerton boys fencing in a garden, and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie) engaged in a serious tête-à-tête. But the photos that have us kvelling the most are all focused on Bridgerton‘s new heroine Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley), Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), and Kate’s beloved corgi Newton.

These early Bridgerton Season 2 pics seem to promise that Netflix and Shondaland know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to adapting Julia Quinn’s beloved second Bridgerton book, The Viscount Who Loved Me. And personally? I’m more stoked than ever for Bridgerton Season 2 to premiere on Netflix on March 25.

First of all, let’s hear it for Newton and the promise of splendor he represents!

If you’ve only tuned into Bridgerton Season 1, you might not know that each book in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series focuses on a different Bridgerton sibling’s love life. Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor) was the subject of the first book, The Duke and I. The second book — the novel where I personally think the series truly levels up, on both a storytelling and steam factor — follows eldest Bridgerton son Anthony’s quest to find an appropriate bride. He soon sets his sights on the season’s diamond, a pretty young thing from out of town named Edwina (Charitha Chandran). His big problem? Edwina’s protective older sister Kate wants to ensure her sister has a love match. Oh, and Anthony and Kate immediate have one of those hot “Hepburn and Tracy” sparring things going on.

So what does that have to do with the cute, fat corgi sitting on Kate’s lap here? Well, Newton, her pet dog, gets to play a truly comic role in The Viscount Who Loved Me. The fact that Bridgerton Season 2 hasn’t forgotten Newton is huge. The realization that this pic feels ripped from the first chapter of The Viscount Who Loved Me? Even more monumental. Folks, Bridgerton Season 2 is going to lean hard into the details that make “Kanthony” one of the most beloved ‘ships in the series and I’m dying over it.

But the photos Netflix has released haven’t just convinced me they know which parts of the second Bridgerton book to keep; they also seem to intuit how to expand upon the story that’s already there. Indeed, one of the best parts of Bridgerton Season 1 is how it made Simon (Regé-Jean Page) and Daphne’s romance more complex than it was in the book. We got a dashing prince (Freddy Stroma) fighting for Daphne’s hand and beautiful ballroom montages. Pics of the Bridgerton brothers fencing and Kate shooting with the gents — the latter likely happening when the Bridgertons host an elaborate house party at their country seat — tease that our sparring lovers will get more opportunities to compete.

(Can we also talk about how Kate is already dressing in the “Bridgerton blue”? Decider’s resident Bridgerton recapper Sarah Marrs is always zero-ing in on how blue is the family color and the closer the Bridgerton children’s love interests get to wearing the shade, the closer they are to being embraced fully by the family. Kate owns blue.)

We still have yet to get an official Bridgerton Season 2 teaser, but suffice to say, it will probably have me — and the rest of the hive — buzzing for March 25.

Watch Bridgerton on Netflix