Lady Whistledown herself is getting a love story.
The upcoming third season of Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton will see the Netflix hit jumping ahead in the timeline of the Julia Quinn books on which the series is based to focus its love story around Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton).
When the show returns, viewers will see Penelope and Colin as their friendship potentially blooms into something more as she balances her double life, Coughlan revealed during a Netflix For Your Consideration panel event on Sunday night. Bridgerton returns to production this summer.
“Like Lady Whistledown, I have been keeping a secret for quite some time and I can confirm to you all that season three is Colin and Penelope’s love story,” she said. “I have kept that secret since two weeks into season two. This is the first time I am saying it here.”
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Penelope, as was revealed at the end of season one, doubles as Lady Whistledown, an identity she keeps secret from the ton and all of its characters, including Colin.
Each season of Bridgerton focuses on a Bridgerton sibling love story and has, so far, followed the order of the books; first with Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and Simon Baset (Regé-Jean Page) in season one, followed by Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) in season two. Penelope and Colin’s love story is told in the fourth book, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, which will mark the first time the series will go out of order. The third book in the series focuses on Benedict Bridgerton’s (Luke Thompson) love life.
Speaking to Netflix about the change, Coughlan says she thinks book readers will be satisfied — and viewers, “obsessed” — with the story, and that she and Newton have had several talks about the new plan with new showrunner Jess Brownell, who is taking over from creator Chris Van Dusen for the already renewed third and fourth seasons.
The second season left Penelope heartbroken after she overheard Colin mocking the notion of courting her. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about the ending, Newton said, “It’s really difficult to defend him in that situation because he’s done so much good throughout [season two]. … He’s obviously been celebrating, he’s had a few drinks with the lads and kind of just got carried away. But I don’t think he means any of it in a malicious way. He’s just like being one of the lads, and I think he would be devastated to know that she ever heard what he’d said.”
Citing the book that explores their love story, he added of his hope, “It’s really nice to represent different love stories and see how these two best friends, gradually, hopefully, perhaps they’ll fall in love. I’m really excited to see what the future brings and how much longer Colin can go without seeing what’s right in front of his eyes, really.”
He also questioned how Colin might feel when he finds out that he, too, has been kept in the dark about Penelope’s secret identity: “Is he going to be OK with being lied to for however many years? It’s put his family in very difficult positions every now and then. So it’s definitely going to stir things up, particularly now with Eloise sort of writing off her best friend. It’ll be really interesting if Penelope has any loyalty to the Bridgertons at all, because they’ve been kept quite safe because of their connection. And now she isn’t close with anyone because Colin’s been horrible and Eloise has found out everything.”
Coughlan, meanwhile, had her own predictions about how the events of the first two seasons might change Penelope, providing further challenges ahead for her and Colin.
“What she’s been through, I imagine it would harden her,” she told The Hollywood Reporter at the end of season two. “In this season, she’s very much on a journey where you see the success of how Whistledown is impacting her in ways she doesn’t realize. I think she’s become a little arrogant in certain ways, and she’s become sort of really needy of Eloise’s praise.”
She continued, “She’s spinning a lot of plates and not really managing it as well as she would like to think so. I think it’s a real ‘Pride comes before a fall’ type season for her. I think she’s fallen pretty much as low as she can get, losing Eloise, losing Colin. Whistledown’s all she’s got.”
Sunday’s panel, moderated by Yvette Nicole Brown, featured Dusen, castmembers Coughlan, Simone Ashley and Charithra Chandran, costume designer Sophie Canale and composer Kris Bowers for a chat about season two.
