The central theme of this season of Netflix romance series “Bridgerton” comes into sharp focus the end of the first episode.

After charming rakish second son Benedict Bridgerton at his mother’s masquerade ball with her witty banter and sense of wonder, our masked heroine rushes home. We see her remove her formal glove, shoes and mask. Suddenly, she is staring into the humble mirror in her bedchamber, her full face in view for the first time. And instead of finery, she is dressed in a maid’s outfit. The major roadblock to a relationship between Sophie Baek and Benedict Bridgerton will not be a misunderstanding or a clash of personalities or a one-sided desire to end a bloodline. Instead, it will be something quite tangible, especially during the Regency era. It will be about class.

It’s a fascinating moment for this season to hit our screens. On the one hand, as many viewers have noted, the uneven power dynamics of a Cinderella-inspired story — as this one definitively is — feel less fun to explore in fiction when we’re seeing the very real rollbacks of the rights of women in this country. (Part of why “Heated Rivalry” felt like such a salve to so many women viewers.) On the other hand, it’s clear that the writers injected some real class consciousness and modern labor politics into the text of the show. And that revamped text feels quite timely. (See: Mrs. Varley telling Lady Featherington off for using the language of “family” as a way to underpay her for two decades.)

In this episode, we get into it all: the class dynamics, the power of AAPI representation, the ways in which the Cinderella tropes work and don’t, the many ancillary B-plots, and the pointed ways that the writers changed the plot of the show from its source material. Hope you enjoy! Xo

This week, we’re diving into two topics that, somehow, both involve evil Stephens who want women to have their babies for nefarious reasons: the recent wave of high-profile, propagandistic pregnancy announcements in the Trump White House, and the current season of the dark teen soap “Tell Me Lies.”

First, we get into the MAGA baby boom. Over the past mo…

On this week’s episode of the Rich Text podcast, we’re tackling two totally disparate topics: the rage-fueled war on liberal white women and the end of “Love Is Blind Germany” season 2. Because, as we alway say… women contain multitudes.

First, we dive into the right-wing ire being directed at white women who are ch…

You know we had to come back and finish discussing the first drop from “Love Is Blind Germany” season 2, and we are doing that today! But first, we needed to unburden ourselves about a couple other Cultural Conversations: the Golden Globe Awards adding a Be…

We have long been fans of the Emily Henry romance-novel universe. So when we heard that “People We Meet On Vacation” would be getting the movie treatment, we were unquestionably excited.

“People We Meet On Vacation,” which was published in novel form in 2021 and dropped on Netflix in movie form on Jan. 9, follows polar oppos…

In 2026, the sun never sets on the “Love Is Blind” empire. With two US seasons a year, plus endlessly proliferating international spinoffs, there’s a new set of pod daters clamoring for our attention every time the last reunion has begun to fade from memory. And this month, we’re headed to Deutschland!

“Love Is Blind Germany” season 2 has landed, and if…

2025 felt more like a lifetime than a year. Personally and globally, a lot happened in the last 12 months — much of it filled with darkness and despair, but also punctuated by bits of joy and light.

To round out 2025 and welcome in 2026, we decided to sit down and tape a bit of a reflection. We discussed our highlights (Emma’s wedding…

When I got screener access to the season finale of “Heated Rivalry,” aptly titled “The Cottage,” I knew that the holiday break simply couldn’t stand in the way of a conversation about the back half of the super-gay hockey show that has become a solid 75 percent of my personality.

Unfortunately, Claire had to do things, like… spend time with family… and her children… and celebrate Christmas (fine, fine, fine), but as a Jew who found herself with some free time on her hands while in South Florida this week, duty called. Luckily, pop culture commentator Josh the RHONY Stan was game to watch the finale of the little Canadian show that has taken two nations by storm and hop on to chat all about it with me. We got into the overarching plot points of episodes 3-6, and then zoomed out to talk about the heated discourse that has surrounded “Heated Rivalry.” We laughed, we swooned, and we shared our hopes and dreams for the show’s second season.

Hope you enjoy! (And please forgive any slight audio quality issues. I was recording this from the floor of a bedroom in my mother-in-law’s Boca Raton home. We all do our best over Christmastime.)

Happy holidays, y’all! Here are the presents you didn’t ask for: two staggeringly bad seasons of scripted TV.

First, “Emily in Paris” is back, and this time she’s Emily in Rome, Emily Back in Paris, Emily in an American Embassy, Emily in Venice, and Emily Back in Paris Forever This Time. Emily is madly in love with …

On this week’s Rich Text podcast, we’re talking about a spicy new television show, and a “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” reunion special that dangled the possibility of spice and instead fed us white bread.

First, we get into “Heated Rivalry,” a Canadian sports romance show that has broken out into the mainstream since…