HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JONATHAN BAILEY! ★ 1988 APRIL 25
“I think [love]’s when everything suddenly aligns and you feel on the right side, when everything finally feels right… Now, I feel full of love and I wonder if I’ve always felt this way. I come from a nice large family. I believe that life gives you many surprises and that love comes in different forms. But in the end, the secret is really to learn to love each other and then make room for what comes and love it to the fullest.“
George never sent Archie to Panama. He got him a job with the NY-based investment firm that would eventually finance the Panama Canal. This is why Archie is initially grateful for the offer—because he assumed that his future-father-in-law was setting him up with a good job to take care of Gladys, rather than giving him an ultimatum to stay away from her. Actually going to Panama was never going to be part of the plan.
What would an investment banker do on-site in Panama anyway?
Having just returned from Panama to watch episode 5 of The Gilded Age- it is chilling to watch Russell essentially force that poor kid to leave his job and go to Panama to work with the canal company.
Ignoring the confusing historical inaccuracy that the Americans weren’t building anything there in 1882- America for some time thought Nicaragua was a better route but they wouldn’t even survey that until 1887. In 1882 it was the French in Panama. High off the recent opening of the Suez and naively assuming this project will be as simple. As Russell suspects - their plan is doomed and they would fail by 1889 when their Ill-conceived sea to sea plan was defeated by mosquitoes and geography and the entire endeavor goes bankrupt. So this kid is going to lose everything for writing to Gladys Russell. Thevbest case scenario is this kid is ruined.
More likely is that he dies of yellow fever or malaria and never makes it home. The project was defeated by the astounding mortality rates from malaria and yellow fever and the lack of understanding how to stop it. By 1882 the extent of risk from disease in the area would not be a secret. Russell is now responsible for the deaths of at least 2 people and we haven’t even gotten to the train crash.
With the news that there will be a Bridgerton spin-off limited series focused on a young Queen Charlotte, which will feature a young Lady Danbury and Lady Violet Bridgerton, I’m renewing my calls for Holliday Grainger and Chris Pine as Violet and Edmund Bridgerton, as well as throwing in a TONY AWARD WINNER PATINA RENEE MILLER as Lady Danbury. Please, thank you, and amen.
I am so unbelievably sad that they shaved Anthony Bridgerton’s mutton chops 😭😭😭
I realize that not everyone had their sexuality thoroughly warped by The Public’s production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, but dammit, Anthony was so attractive with those chops 😭