Thanks for reading! Please leave a like, a comment, or share this post if you enjoyed it.
The time has finally come and I cannot contain my excitement!!! Bridgerton season 3 has concluded with last Thursday’s release of part 2’s four episodes, wrapping up Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington’s love story and it was fun. I had such a good time watching, the wait was well worth it, though as I tried to descend from the state of excitement that I was in while watching these last 4 episodes, I realized, with horror, that I would have to wait 2-4 more years for the next season. A season in which Colin and Penelope would take up considerably less screen time, leaving me with only eight episodes (only eight episodes!!) to return to and experience this love story. I can’t smile because it happened, I’m too busy crying because it’s over!!
I have so many thoughts about these four episodes, but before I get into them, let me just preface by saying I simply don’t have the time to get into everything that deserves to be talked about, but if you feel so inclined, please leave a comment about anything I missed and I will share my thoughts!
I have to say, I really loved these last four episodes. I’m the type of person who lives for the third act breakup in a romance. I love the conflict; I love the drama; and of course, the eventual reconciliation. And these last four episodes were basically all at the conflict level of a third act breakup. Obsessed!! We start this second half with Colin announcing to his family that he and Penelope are engaged, which angers Eloise more than she already is, because not only is the best friend she is at odds with marrying into her family before they have the opportunity to resolve their differences, but here are not only one, but two people she cares about pairing up and exiting her life in a way that she has to reconcile. That’s such an incredibly painful transition to navigate, made even more painful by the fact that she’s at odds with Penelope.
Eloise then gives Penelope an ultimatum to tell Colin that she is Lady Whistledown, otherwise she will divulge the secret herself. This coincides with the Queen’s announcement of a 5,000 pound reward for whoever can shed light on Lady Whistledown’s identity, an opportunity that Cressida Cowper sees as her way out of an arranged marriage to her father’s elderly friend. Cressida’s arc was so interesting this season, because we can see the position of desperation that she is operating from so clearly: her home is cold and distant and she is being pushed to marry someone of status or her parents will match her with someone themselves, inevitably resulting in an unhappy marriage with a man thrice her age. So, Cressida decides to announce, at Colin and Penelope’s engagement ball, that she is Lady Whistledown. Not only will the 5,000 pound reward fund her escape out of London, but the scandal of being the infamous gossip columnist will scare away any potential suitors her parents have in mind.
Cressida’s arc becomes less about being mean for the sake of it and more about being mean to reach a specific end. She sees everyone in her life moving about without a care in the world for her plight, even Eloise who she has recently befriended, meanwhile she is being suffocated by the idea of her future. She almost forces everyone to pay attention to her through her cruelty. So it’s no surprise when she blackmails the real Lady Whistledown for 10,000 pounds after her failed attempt to claim that she is Lady Whistledown. She’s such an interesting character, and I’m curious to see if/how she will factor into later seasons.
Eloise and Penelope’s reconciliation comes out of the dissolution of Eloise and Cressida’s friendship and Eloise’s concern for Penelope after the Queen’s announcement is made. As Eloise is the only one who knows Penelope’s secret, she is the only one who can provide advice and support, but her helping Penelope also threatens her relationship with her brother, who still does not know Penelope’s secret. Despite being in this tricky position, Eloise and Penelope slowly return to their old ways and it is so refreshing to see! Friendship breakups are the absolute worst because we don’t imagine friendships ending in the way that we might expect of romantic relationships, so seeing my girls together again was very cathartic.
Moving on to the Polin of it all, I was so happy with the moments we got between them. From the drama to the romance, I was obsessed with all of it, and have been going back to rewatch my favorite scenes. Was it perfect? No. Was it better than part 1? Yes. I’m not going to lie, part 1 had me a little bit worried about how I was going to like this season. It felt a little too tame for my liking (re: my above adoration for the third act breakup), but they brought it back in part 2 because I was on the edge of my seat experiencing heart palpitations the entire time.
As to not spell out every minute of part 2, I will just focus on my two favorite Colin and Penelope moments this season: Colin discovering Penelope is Lady Whistledown and Colin’s speech to Penelope at the Dankworth-Finch Ball in the last episode.
Colin, driven by his desire to protect Penelope, follows her to a working class part of London (read: unfit for a lady) only to discover that she has chosen to be there because she is delivering the latest edition of Lady Whistledown to her printer. When she turns around she realizes Colin has discovered her secret. This moment was everything to me. Colin’s single tear when he expresses how upset he is that he’s been lied to for years by someone he thought he could trust, and now by someone he’s proposed marriage to, but realized he doesn’t know? Stunning. He thought Penelope acting weird had been about him, about regrets she may have had about being intimate, or her rethinking her engagement to him, but the whole time she was acting weird because she had been keeping this secret from him. A secret that reveals that she has not only written unkind things about him, but most of the people in his family, and his future wife! I would be beside myself as well.
From this moment, Penelope is unsure if Colin still wants to marry her, but Colin makes it clear that they will go through with the wedding because he is “a man of honor” and they have been intimate. Colin, though, as pointed out in a tweet is still obsessed with Penelope (as any Bridgerton man is of his love interest) despite his anger, and once he moves beyond his anger is able to see that taking Lady Whistledown away from Penelope is not the answer (nor would she allow that) and that Lady Whistledown is Penelope. There is no separating the two.
Which brings me to Colin’s speech/love declaration during the last ball of the season. This may be my favorite love declaration that we’ve had so far (and the bar has been set high) because it really shows us the way that Colin was able to move past his anger and the way that Colin sees Penelope. He is vulnerable in sharing that the bravery and cleverness that he sees in Penelope stirred some envy in him, but that he has come to realize how honored he is to have a woman like Penelope love him, and that if his purpose in life is just to love her, then that’s enough for him. He even realizes that the letters he so fervently awaited from Penelope during his travels over the years are evidence that Lady Whistledown and Penelope are the same person, he just wasn’t paying close enough attention. And with the acceptance of the Queen, they no longer have to worry about the scandal ruining their family, and Lady Whistledown can retire her nom de plume and Penelope Featherington Bridgerton can rightfully claim her empire.
Such a lovely love story!!! I’m so excited to go back and watch all eight episodes in succession and see how they come together because I really don’t like the distinct separation between the two. I know the book is made up of two distinct halves, so perhaps they were trying to evoke that, but I could do without.
Winding down from my Polin ramblings, Eloise and Benedict’s sibling moments were so sweet (Claudia Jessie is right in shipping them) and in their last conversation we may have gotten confirmation that Benedict’s season is next (a girl can dream) because Benedict meets his love interest for (what he thinks is) the first time at a masquerade ball, which they speak about. Also loved that everyone who couldn’t believe that Benedict was a straight man was vindicated in learning that Benedict Bridgerton is, in fact, a bisexual man (Happy Pride!). Was there a real indicator that Benedict was gay in the first two seasons? All I know is that not a single person I’ve spoken to about this show ever thought that Benedict was straight.
Speaking of not being straight, Francesca Bridgerton, after having just gotten married to Lord Kilmartin falls in love at first sight with his cousin Michaela! Wow. I know enough about Francesca’s book to know that Lord Kilmartin wasn’t who her final love interest was going to be, but I was not expecting her to fall in love with someone else within the very season she falls for Lord Kilmartin.
I also loved Eloise’s arc this season. She was able to get off her high horse a bit when she realized that, when presented with the opportunity, she was unable to tell Colin the truth about Lady Whistledown. She still has a ways to go but she was able to understand other people’s perspectives a bit more this season, and we still have a couple seasons to go before we see the last of her, so there’s no need to rush her growth.
Lastly, I will just say that this is the first time I’ve watched a Bridgerton season right when it was released. I ventured into this world with Queen Charlotte, only after being broken down by the very enticing edits of Charlotte and George I stumbled upon on YouTube. Only after watching that shorter series did I fully buy into the world and go back and watch Bridgerton from the beginning. As a result, this is the first time I’ve been faced with the reality that I will not have a new season of Bridgerton for 2-4 years (a criminal amount of time). This begs the question for me of how Shondaland and Netflix intend to keep interest in the show so high for as long as it will take to finish each of the siblings’ stories. At the short end of the range, at this rate, we’ll be getting Benedict’s next season by 2026, the following in 2028, then 2030, 2032, and the last season in 2034. Will I still be watching when I’m 33? I mean, maybe. But asking people to wait a decade for a show to wrap up––a show that only releases eight episodes at a time, mind you, is kind of a big ask. Are they going to start combining seasons (more so than they did this time around)? Are they going to be able to speed up, as I know they’ve said they want to try to do? Something to think about.
But for now, I’m very pleased with how season 3 turned out, and I’m very excited to revisit it over the next few months (until I find something new to obsess over)!
And last but not least, my favorite musical covers: pov (they had to choose one of Ariana Grande’s most beautiful love songs and it could not have been more perfect) and You Belong With Me (almost a painfully obvious choice––down to the next door neighbor detail––that, again, could not have been more perfect).
What did you think of season 3?