Here’s what the series creator had to say.

Ever since the first season of Bridgerton hit Netflix, the Regency romance has had its audience in a seductive chokehold, not only with sequel seasons focused on other couples, but with the 2023 spinoff,Queen Charlotte. As we await the third season of Bridgerton, I know many of us have been wondering about whether a second season of Queen Charlotte is coming or not. Well, Shonda Rhimes just commented on it, and I actually love her reasoning regarding why a new season isn’t in the works yet.

Queen Charlotte was a huge success on Netflix by all measures, between critics raving about it and the series seeing an impressive 1.9 billion viewing minutes in just the first few days on Netflix. Here’s what Shonda Rhimes had to say about why Season 2 hasn’t been announced yet:

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.’

While I would absolutely love to see another season of Queen Charlotte, despite how sad of a love story it actually is, I really respect these thoughts from Shonda Rhimes when she recently spoke to Variety. When it comes to a series as popular as Bridgerton, I’ve seen it happen time after time where the writer’s room gets lazy and the quality of the show decreases. So I’m all in on Rhimes taking her time to decide how and why Queen Charlotte’s story should continue rather than jumping the gun and giving us a half-baked second season.

Unlike Bridgerton, seasons of which are based on novels by Julia Quinn, Queen Charlotte was an original spinoff from the mind of Shonda Rhimes. The series is based on the real Queen Charlotte, who was the wife of King George III and was alive from 1744 to 1818. After Golda Rosheuvel played the queen in the initial Bridgerton series, India Amarteifio brought something new to the character by detailing her marriage to George. It’s also fun to see how the series is diving deeper into other characters from the main show, such as Lady Danbury’s surprising romance.

While we wait for the hopeful good news at some point for the return of Queen Charlotte, it’s time to get excited for the return of Bridgerton. This time around, the first half of the season (four episodes) will arrive on May 16 before the other four drop on June 13. You can catch up on everything Bridgerton right now with a Netflix subscription.