Everything To Know About The Mysterious New Suitor On Bridgerton
He may be a new face to American viewers.
Warning: Spoilers for Bridgerton Season 2 follow. Bridgerton Season 2 is all about eldest Bridgerton sibling, Anthony, and his love story with Kate Sharma. But with all the changes from the original novel, The Viscount Who Loved Me, the series presented a few intriguing suitors who Kate could have chosen instead. For instance, had Anthony followed his original plan to marry Edwina, Kate could have ended up Mrs. Thomas Dorset. So, who plays Mr. Dorset on Bridgerton? Sam Frenchum is a realative newcomer, but he may be recognizable to PBS viewers.
As book readers will tell anyone who listens, the Edwina-Kate-Anthony love triangle is not directly from the novel, but an addition to the show. Anthony and Edwina never actually got engaged on the page; his engagement to Kate came before he could ask her sister and before anyone else could develop an interest in the elder sister.
But Anthony’s engagement with her younger sibling gives the series room to add an extra suitor for Kate. Thomas Dorset was initially introduced during the Royal Ascot as a pal of Anthony’s, who Anthony bribed to distracting Kate. But as Dorset admitted later, his interest with the elder Sharma sister was genuine, as is his interest in her life in Bombay.
As for the actor who plays Thomas Dorset, at first glance, Frenchum looks like yet another dark-haired 1810s suitor in britches. (The Bridgerton brothers are already interchangeable enough.) However, the actor has graced American TV screens before. Fans of the long-running Masterpiece Mystery series Grantchester will recognize him from Season 2, on which he played Gary Bell, the teenager wrongly accused of taking the life of 15-year-old Abigail Redmond.
That season-long arc was one of his longer stints on TV before Bridgerton. He’s done a few guest appearances on British soaps Doctors and Holby City. However, his significant role before that was as Jimmy Parsons in the film Private Peaceful, where he appeared alongside such British legends as Frances de la Tour and the late Richard Griffiths.
With Bridgerton Season 3 and 4 already greenlit, fans should not count Mr. Dorset out of the game yet. He may not have landed Kate, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be back eventually, maybe with a fiancée.
Bridgerton Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Netflix.
