Bridgerton Season 3 released its final batch of episodes recently, with Part 2 arriving on Netflix on June 13th. It’s hardly a spoiler to say that the season, which focused on the friends-to-lovers story of Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington, ended with a happily-ever-after for the couple, affectionately dubbed “Polin” by fans.
As with any season of Shondaland’s regency romance series (based upon the book series by Julia Quinn), one element fans were eager to see was how this third season would continue the show’s trend of creatively incorporating string quartet covers of modern-day pop songs.
In Part 1, which released on May 16th, the song that undeniably became synonymous with Polin’s love story, thanks to its expert use in a key Polin moment at the end of Episode 4, was Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything”. This song appears in the now-famous “carriage scene” as a stripped-down cover by musician Archer Marsh, and it went extremely viral in the month between Part 1’s release and the arrival of Part 2 in June.
In this second half of Season 3, six more string covers are added to the tracklist (along with, of course, original score tracks from composer Kris Bowers, plus several more typical classical music pieces). Of these six new songs — Ariana Grande’s “pov”, Imagine Dragons’ “Thunder”, Demi Lovato’s “Confident”, Coldplay’s “Yellow”, Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me”, and Ellie Goulding’s “Lights” — it’s “Yellow that I personally cherish the most.
The Vitamin String Quartet (VSQ) cover of the song plays midway through the seventh episode, as Penelope walks down the aisle to marry Colin, the boy she’s loved since she was a child. It’s a beautiful arrangement of the song, the church is a beautiful setting, Pen is a beautiful bride, she and Colin share a beautiful moment mid-song — you get the idea. When this scene first happened onscreen, I mean it when I say that it was the single most surreal moment I have ever experienced as a fan of this show — and I’ll explain why.
First, a bit of backstory: for years, Polin fans had been hoping that “Yellow” would somehow make its way onto Bridgerton. The song had been a popular pick due to the obvious connection it has with Pen’s infamous color palette from seasons past, but fans also felt the lyrics held considerable significance to Polin’s love story and the idea of Colin finally seeing Pen in a new light after all these years (for example, the line “And your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones/Turn into something beautiful/And you know, you know I love you so”).
“Yellow” being Polin’s unofficial anthem feels so utterly ubiquitous that I truly have no idea when this suggestion first came about and subsequently caught fire in the fandom. It might have been when Luke Newton, who plays Colin, mentioned it in an interview at some point, or it might have been when fans discovered that Newton had performed a cover of this song on his YouTube channel years prior. Or it might have already been in the minds of fans long before Newton ever spoke of it, long before I myself entered the fandom in early 2022. However, I do know exactly when it first entered my consciousness.
It was less than a month after Season 2 had premiered in March of 2022, and fans’ minds had already begun turning to figuring out which Bridgerton sibling would lead the next season. Would it be Benedict, in keeping with Quinn’s book order? Or was Colin next, whose budding relationship with Pen had just encountered a massive snag — namely, Colin loudly declaring to a group of lords that he “would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington. Not in [his] wildest fantasies.”? (Famous last words, eh buddy?)
Amidst all this speculating, fans were also hard at work curating playlists for their favorite couples, which is how I came across a seemingly-innocuous tweet from Twitter/X user @westallenslife, suggesting the use of Coldplay’s then-22-year-old song for Polin: “If we don’t get an orchestral cover of “Yellow” by Coldplay in Penelope and Colin’s season then literally what was the point of everything”.
I remember reading this tweet, then immediately looking up the original version of the song and its lyrics, and then checking to see if a string quartet cover already existed — which is how I found the very same VSQ version of “Yellow” that became the soundtrack for the Polin wedding this season.
The instant I heard that cover, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was the perfect choice for Polin. It was one of those rare, tantalizing moments that creatives can only dream about, where everything falls into place and it all just makes sense. I promptly texted my close friend, declaring “Nothing has ever made as much sense as this” in all caps, and then proceeded to send her voice memos, in which I expressed such probably-overly-dramatic sentiments as “If this doesn’t happen, I will be devastated.”, and “Such a missed opportunity if they don’t do it.”, and “Never has there been a song so perfect in every element — the sound of it, the lyrics, the title.”
Needless to say, I was instantly enamoured.
So, then, fast-forward over two years, and you can probably imagine my utter delight upon learning that not only would we be getting this song in Polin’s season (a huge win in and of itself), but it was also going to be the very same string quartet cover that I first fell in love with in April of 2022.
And then, on top of everything, when I sat down on June 13th to watch Episode 7, the icing on the figurative (and literal) wedding cake was that that this song was used in the aforementioned Polin wedding scene, the first happy (onscreen) nuptials for a main Bridgerton couple.
As a fan, I really was not used to getting my way like this, to having my interests so directly align with those who crafted the show. It truly didn’t feel real.
It still doesn’t.
Never before has there been a song included in Bridgerton with as much fervent and long-standing fandom support as “Yellow”, with the string quartet cover used in show being the specific version I hold nearest and dearest to my heart, and with the song being heard in all its glory in a scene — the wedding — that’s arguably one of most important moments for a couple in any romance story. In a way, the use of this song represents all the love the fans have for this couple and this show, and, in turn, all the love Bridgerton has for its fans.
So yes, “Yellow” might just be the best song Bridgerton has ever included, for Polin fans everywhere, absolutely, but also for the one specific fan who’s writing this article.
Not unlike the stars Chris Martin sings about, it really does feel like Bridgerton was shining just for me with this song choice.
[All that being said, am I pushing my luck if I say that now I just need the show to include the Joseph William Morgan orchestral cover of Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted” in the eventual Benedict season? Or should I just quit while I’m ahead?]
