The first installment of Bridgerton Season 3 left me wanting. Namely, wanting more from Colin (Luke Newton), wanting more for Penelope (Nicola Coughlan), and wanting more groveling. Thankfully, part 2 delivered on all but the groveling — but I’ll take it.
The moment the trailer for part 2 dropped, I set my hopes for the season on those final four episodes. After a lackluster start and the tepid union between the main couple — sorry, no amount of Pitbull could make that carriage scene interesting and no amount of charm could make that proposal romantic — the season was riding on its second part for redemption. But did it wholly deliver?
What promised to set the second half apart from part 1 was higher stakes. The season opened with an inexplicably still-lovelorn Penelope and hot-pirate Colin engaged in a Cyrano plot. Though it felt like lots was happening, none of it really moved the characters forward. Season 1 saw Simon wrestle with the weight of his father’s legacy while Daphne confronts the truths of life and marriage. Season 2 saw Anthony wrestle with the weight of his duty as Kate also wrestled with hers. While Penelope has the real challenge of trying to find a husband so she can escape her family, what does Colin want? To be a pirate? Even should-be momentous events like their first kiss did nothing to push them closer to each other.
Penelope remained cripplingly insecure, and Colin’s remained aggravatingly inept. There was the makeover — which didn’t really work on anyone but Colin — the useless courtship lessons — which also didn’t really work on anyone but Colin — and the almost-proposal from Lord Debling to the tune of Nick Jonas’s “Jealous.” Yet, the characters never experienced any major growth in these moments. Penelope was once again crying because a man didn’t want her, and Colin failed to even risk telling her his feelings until after the ball. That Debling didn’t propose was just sheer Bridgerton luck, making it easy for him to propose to Pen competition-free.
With the marriage proposal secured, Penelope and Colin have to create a life together as a couple — with the secret of her authorly identity looming over them. Like the balloon in episode 3, this was surely going to go haywire. But, like the balloon in episode 3, I was along for the ride. Especially with the promise of a Lady Whistledown hunt spurred by Queen Charlotte herself.
Does Colin find out Penelope is Lady Bridgerton in Season 3?
Finally, Colin finds out that Penelope is Lady Whistledown in Season 3, part 2. But it’s not how Penelope wishes it to come about. After proclaiming all season that he despises Lady Whistledown and wants to see her pay for what she has said about his family (and a particularly cutting passage about his own transformation), Colin is thrilled at the prospect that someone will root out the writer thanks to the Queen’s challenge. But when he discovers his own soon-to-be wife is herself the scribe, he has an existential crisis.
Gone are his sanctimonious claims of concern for his family and the dignity of the Ton — or whatever. Poor Colin Bridgerton is just embarrassed his fiancée is a better writer than he is. Plus, since we’re primed to choose Penelope’s side, having known her secret for two seasons, Colin’s ire just doesn’t hit. Especially since it comes from a place of jealousy.
But this revelation does have one surprising consequence: how it changes Penelope. For a moment, it seems like Penelope is going to give up her column. “Women don’t have dreams,” says the iconic (for better or worse) Lady Featherington. “They have husbands.” So, while she didn’t cease her writing even when she lost her best friend and even when the queen was hunting her down, she vowed to stop for Colin — after all, wasn’t he her biggest dream?
But after speaking to Madame Delacroix, fellow girlboss and lowkey scammer (we have to stan), she realizes that Whistledown isn’t separate from her, it’s part of her. Not even a clandestine kiss with her husband-to-be can change her mind this time. So, instead of cowering in front of Colin after the Queen crashes their wedding breakfast, she refuses to give up.
This is the first time we see Penelope standing up for herself in real life, not just in her column. Prior to this, she oscillates between people-pleasing and lashing out in bitterness — a vicious cycle and a clear sign of low self-esteem. Now, she’s finally found herself. And she did it without Colin’s help.
While this season has its share of girlboss and Barbie feminism, this quiet change in our female lead is the most impactful moment of the season. Because it lasts. From this moment on, Pen metamorphoses before our eyes. More than her makeover in part 1, her self-acceptance and refusal to give up her identity even for Colin transforms her from a wallflower to the powerful, capable woman she’s been all along.
In this moment, I see a future for Pen where she is the “girl husband.” Colin might be a nepo-baby, but Pen is the one bringing home the bacon and clocking in with her column. She’s the problem solver. She’s the one with power and personality — something Colin lacks. Like Zendaya in Challengers, I picture her cradling Colin on her lap and telling him to step it up. I picture her leaving vicious — but loving — notes on his book. I picture her telling that man to stop whining and step it up. Quite simply: I picture her replicating Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) in her relationship with Viscount and Chief Simp, Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey). Girl husbands for the win!
How does Bridgerton Season 3 end?
Bridgerton Season 3, ultimately, starts and ends with a whimper. It feels like an unfulfilling heist movie, where the stakes are high, the expectations raised, but the characters get out fine without any surprises or obstacles. The show felt as though it was going through the motions: introduce a problem, have the characters fight, have them make up and make out, repeat.
Even with the introduction of actual problems, Penelope gets through them unscathed — with everything she’s ever wanted in tow. And, in the end, she achieves it simply by telling the truth … which she could have done the whole time? I do appreciate, however, the writer’s refusal to paint Penelope as a damsel in distress. Though Colin tries to save her, he fails. And ultimately, the biggest-best love confession in this season comes from her. “Just love me,” she pleads. Although personally, I’d rather fall to ruin than beg my husband to love me — but that’s just me.
In the end, Penelope fixes her problems and everyone else’s: she comes out as Lady Whistledown (happy Pride, I guess?), throws the fraud investigators off her mother’s scent, and prevents the ruination of the Bridgerton name. In a flash forward to a year later, she has a baby, Colin writes his book, and Lady Whistledown is allowed to continue in the light. Happy, yes. Boring? Also, yes.
What’s more interesting is the development of the secondary characters. As Polin plods along, the other Bridgertons and members of the Ton grow more rounded as characters than the season’s protagonists. While all these extra storylines felt like distractions in the first half of the season, in the second half, they relieve the pressure off Polin’s lackluster love story and give us other characters to root for — or against.
Cressida’s arc from villain to sympathetic heroine to villain again makes me curious about what’s next for her. Eloise’s adventures in the Scottish Highlands promise to let her finally go beyond talk and actually live her life. Benedict really was having a jolly pride, and I am excited to see his newfound bisexuality explored in upcoming seasons. But I’m most excited for the invisible Bridgerton, Francesca.
After disappearing for most of the previous seasons, Francesca was a nonentity at the beginning of Season 3. Played by the exquisite Hannah Dodd, Francesca was constantly away visiting relatives in Bath and always playing that damn pianoforte. But over the course of the season, we watched her blossom from the Queen’s reluctant sparkler, waiting passively for an acceptable match, to standing up for herself and declaring her love for the equally awkward Lord Kilmartin.
And while some may be confused — does Francesca’s marriage in this Season mean she won’t have one on her own? — eagle-eyed viewers will have noticed the instant romantic spark with her husband’s cousin, Michaela. The introduction of another queer relationship is surprising and highly anticipated for many viewers. Especially fans of the book who might recognize this character as “Michael” in the Julia Quinn novels.
