Fans may be disappointed to hear what Shonda Rhimes has to say about the potential release of Queen Charlotte Season 2.
Spinning off the hit Netflix romance series Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte told the prequel story of its titular royal, following the Queen in her younger days as she met King George and was intertwined in a carnal subplot of her own.
Queen Charlotte has continued to appear as a character in Bridgerton Season 3 (read more about Bridgerton Season 3 here); however, news regarding revisiting her spin-off series has remained scarce.
Shonda Rhimes Downplays Queen Charlotte Season 2 Prospects
Series creator Shonda Rhimes commented on the idea of pursuing a Queen Charlotte Season 2, not holding anything back.
Rhimes, who serves as showrunner on both Birdgerton and its spin-off Queen Charlotte, told Variety during an April 2024 profile, “I don’t want to tell a story that doesn’t need to be told” and thus, “I don’t want to make a second season of Queen Charlotte:”
“I feel like I’m having a conversation with Netflix! They ask me this question all the time! I’m trying to figure it out still. I don’t want to tell a story that doesn’t need to be told — do you know what I mean? I don’t want to make a second season of ‘Queen Charlotte,’ and you’re going to be, like, ‘Well, that was not that great.'”
This comes just about one year after the Bridgerton creative told Entertainment Weekly, she was “not ruling anything out” when it came to any further Queen Charlotte stories:
“I could live with Charlotte and George forever, but we told a very specific, closed-ended story that I think is a complete tale of this complicated, imperfect love. But I’m not ruling anything out because I never know.”
While this may seem like a big change from Rhimes, she has remained constant in her feelings that Queen Charlotte Season 1 was telling a “very specific, closed-ended story.”
Rhimes remains focused on the Bridgerton franchise, with Parts 1 and 2 of Season 3 of the beloved Netflix romance hitting the platform in May and June respectively.
Will Queen Charlotte Season 2 Ever Happen?
As time goes on, the likelihood of Queen Charlotte getting a second season feels like it creeps ever downward.
As Shonda Rhimes made clear, she has no motivation to revisit that story with a potential Season 2, following Charlotte and George after the events of Season 2.
Instead, much of the creative’s efforts seem to be going towards the Bridgerton series proper.
A fourth season of the mainline romance series was announced in April 2021, indicating that the Bridgerton train has no sign of stopping.
What seems more likely than Queen Charlotte Season 2 ever seeing the light of day would be Rhimes and the Bridgerton creative team pursuing another entry into the A Bridgerton Story line that Queen Charlotte was a part of.
Thus far, Queen Charlotte marks the only series to fall under that Bridgerton Story banner.
What is stopping Rhimes from working on another spin-off in that vein, perhaps focused on another major matriarch of the series (i.e. Ruth Gemmell’s Lady Violet Bridgerton or Polly Walker’s Lady Portia Featherington)?
While there are no proper spin-off books to adapt outside Queen Charlotte (aside from a few anthology novels), this could be an interesting way to keep the spirit of the series alive, and further expand on the Bridgerton name outside the core series.
