Wedding Season is a Romantic Comedy / Murder Mystery television series from the United Kingdom. It was created by Oliver Lyttelton for Star (Disney+).
Stefan Bridges (Gavin Drea) is a lovelorn doctor who has been carrying on a whirlwind affair with the mysterious Katie McConnell (Rosa Salazar), despite her engagement to the wealthy Hugo Delaney (George Webster). Stefan is soundly rejected when he interrupts Katie's wedding to beg her to leave Hugo and has resigned himself to misery...until the police arrest him. It turns out that the Delaneys were all poisoned at the reception, and Katie is the prime suspect. Katie convinces Stefan to go on the run with her and find the true culprit. As they try to keep both the police and the Delaneys' criminal enemies off their tail, Stefan tries to figure out Katie.
The show's eight episodes premiered on September 8, 2022 on Star and Hulu.
Not to be confused with the film of the same name that premiered a month earlier.
Tropes:
- Anachronic Order: The show jumps back and forth between Stefan and Katie on the run in the present and the various weddings and wedding-related parties over the summer at which they conducted their affair.
- Bad Influencer: Played With. Mitzi is a bratty influencer and the spoiled daughter of a crime lord, but she otherwise has enough mettle to survive a hostage situation and is sympathetic to her kidnapper Katie's struggles.
- The Big Board: The police have a board up for the Delaney case, with Stefan and Katie as the suspects in the middle and strings connecting them to other pieces of information and evidence. Stefan lampshades it as a board out of The Wire.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- In the fourth episode, the police arrive just as Stefan is about to get shot by Conrad.
- In the fifth episode Metts has Stefan and Katie cornered, only for Donahue to interrupt at the last second.
- Beta Couple: Stefan's longtime friends Anil and Leila, whose worst conflict is that Leila is frustrated with Anil's fixation on wedding planning. They contrast Stefan's dangerous liaison with Katie and their other friends' inability to hold down relationships. In Stefan's best man speech, he contrasts the difficult time he's having finding love (including looking pointedly at Katie) with how easy Anil and Leila make a good relationship look.
- Cliffhanger: The final scene of the show is Stefan watching Katie approach their shared car... and then the car blows up, leaving it unclear what happened to Katie.
- Dirty Cop: Metts, one of the two cops chasing Katie, killed the Delaneys on order of the criminal organization the Block and intends to make sure Katie takes the fall.
- Exact Words: Stefan asked Katie if she had killed all those people and she said no. She had actually only planned to poison Mr. Delaney.
- Femme Fatale: Katie is a modern version. She's a beautiful young woman with a mysterious past and a trail of bodies in her wake. She drags the hapless everyman protagonist Stefan into a cross-country adventure to clear her name, and he keeps helping her despite being told it's a bad idea at every turn because of how he is drawn to her.
- Is There a Doctor in the House?: At Suji's sister's wedding an old woman chokes, necessitating someone to call for a doctor. Stefan is a doctor and is able to perform an emergency tracheotomy.
- Mafia Princess: Mitzi, the daughter of the leader of the criminal group the Block, might be a spoiled influencer, but she has enough mettle to bust out of a kidnapping when she sees the opportunity and has the sense to steal her kidnapper's phone. She's also sympathetic to Katie's tribulations and even helps Donahue get medical assistance.
- Plot Allergy: Metts is allergic to sesame, which the protagonists exploit by stealing her epi pen and sneaking sesame oil into her food in an attempt to force her to confess to the murder of the Delaneys.
- Rejected Marriage Proposal: Stefan's girlfriend Vanessa turns down his proposal in the first episode, which is why he's more than a little lovelorn when he meets Katie.
- Runaway Bride: Lorna, the bride of episode 2, is left at the altar by her would-be husband.
- Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: The show opens with Stefan barging into Katie's wedding asking her to run away with him. She rejects him.
- Stag Party: Stag/hen dos are the wedding-related events in the flashbacks of the fourth episode.
- Stefan was pulled from Anil's stag do. When Conrad suggests it was the typical strippers-and-coke wild affair, the flashbacks clarify it was a proper sit-down at dinner.
- Katie was supposed to head to Las Vegas for her hen do, but it got cancelled. She convinces Stefan to go to Vegas with her instead.
- Tempting Fate: Stefan's friend tries to comfort him after Katie rejects him, saying it couldn't get any worse... cue the cops aggressively breaking down their door and arresting him.
- Viva Las Vegas!: Katie and Stefan headed to Las Vegas in the flashbacks of Episode 4, ostensibly for Katie's hen do. They gamble, Katie steals something, and nearly get married by a Prince impersonator in their escape.
- Wedding/Death Juxtaposition: At Katie's wedding reception, her groom and his entire family are fatally poisoned. The police thinks it was her fault, and so Katie and Stefan go on the run in hopes of finding who really did it.
- We Need a Distraction: Stefan and Katie need a distraction to steal Metts' epi pen at the merger wedding. The bride is an influencer and has posts celebrating her wedding being broadcast on screens. His friends flood the hashtag with porn, causing enough panic that Metts stands and leaves her bag.
- Widowed at the Wedding: Katie's new husband and his family all die at her wedding reception.
- Worst Wedding Ever:
- Katie's new husband and in-laws are all poisoned at her wedding. She is naturally the prime suspect and makes a break for it, taking Stefan with her.
- Mitzi, the bride in episode 7, is kidnapped by Katie.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once Metts becomes more of a liability than an asset to the Block by admitting the heroes have a recorded confession from her the boss has her brains blown out.
- You Killed My Father: Katie hates the Delaneys because they were behind her father's death, so she orchestrated an elaborate plan to get close to the patriarch and kill him.
- You Remind Me of X: Uncle Fred Delaney has a soft spot for Katie because she reminds him of his deceased daughter. It doesn't stop him from selling her out to the Block, however.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me:
- After Donahue catches on to Metts and tries to arrest her at gunpoint she tells him he wouldn't shoot her because he loves her. It's able to distract him enough for her to steal the gun and handcuff him to the desk so she can escape.
- In the final episode, Donahue says that Metts wouldn't shoot him because she's a good person and they've been through a lot. Once again she proves to be the more ruthless of the two and shoots him.
