Why Bridgerton Season 2 Needed to Cut Key Book Scenes

Warning: Spoilers for season two of Bridgerton below.

Fans of the Bridgerton book series may be vexed by season two.

Why? Well, because some fan favorite scenes were cut or reimagined for the latest installment of the Shonda Rhimes-produced period piece, based on Julia Quinn‘s second Bridgerton novel The Viscount Who Loved Me.

In the show, for instance, when Kate (Simone Ashley) is stung by a bee, she has a panicked Anthony (Jonathan Bailey)—who lost his father to an allergic reaction caused by a bee sting—place his hand on her chest to show that she’s alright.

But in the books, the scene is far more intimate with Anthony trying to suck the venom out of Kate’s upper chest. Yes, you read that correctly.

So, you can understand why bookish fans are up in arms over the watered-down version of this Kate and Anthony encounter. One fan noted on Twitter, “What just happened. Why is Anthony engaged to Kate’s sister? He was supposed to suck that bee sting and be engaged to Kate. What’s going on?”

Another commented, “As a book reader I am frustrated that they took some of the elements of Anthony and Kate’s story that made it unique (being compromised over a bee sting misunderstanding and bonding over the death of their parents and the respective terrors they both faced over storms) and were glossed over in the show in order to focus on the tired, standard love triangle trope.”