This story comprises spoilers for everything of Bridgerton Season 3.
The resident bully of Bridgerton, Cressida Cowper, has modified—actually. After a number of humbling seasons on the wedding market, the character performed by Jessica Madsen has stopped making an attempt to insult-sling her method to the highest of the eligible-bachelorette pile. As an alternative, within the present’s third season, she makes a daring declare that might forged her out of Regency London’s excessive society altogether. “You want to know who Girl Whistledown is? You shall know,” she publicizes earlier than a room of visitors at a celebration. “I’m she.”
This declaration is, after all, a lie. Girl Whistledown, the pseudonymous writer of the favored gossip pages that enthrall the ton and function the present’s framing machine, is de facto the pen title of Penelope Featherington (performed by Nicola Coughlan), one other younger girl who’d lengthy been neglected by potential suitors. But Cressida seems giddy with pleasure at her deception. She’s discovered a method to grow to be too scandalous to be marriage materials, liberating herself from her betrothal to a person greater than thrice her age, a match that her dad and mom made for her. Calling herself Girl Whistledown might additionally permit her to money in on a reward that Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) has promised to whoever can unmask the author. It’s a egocentric scheme—and a genuinely stunning twist for the collection. Cressida’s assertion has nothing to do with romance, intercourse, or the Bridgerton household.
Lastly, I believed. Really excessive stakes.
Bridgerton has been one in every of Netflix’s greatest successes as a result of it’s designed to fulfill, every season unspooling a trope-filled love story for a Bridgerton sibling that results in an inevitably glad ending. A faux relationship for Daphne Bridgerton changed into an actual one in Season 1, whereas Anthony Bridgerton’s enemy grew to become his lover in Season 2. For the primary 4 episodes launched in Could, Season 3 was no completely different: The friendship between Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) and Penelope blossomed into one thing extra. However the second half of Season 3, launched right now, provides refreshing layers to the present. It examines, by way of secondary characters equivalent to Cressida, the likelihood that its fairy-tale-like couplings are simply that: fairy tales. It interrogates whether or not a “love match” is of paramount worth. And, given Penelope and Colin’s fast engagement, it focuses on how any partnership invitations judgment and criticism as soon as made public. The result’s a wittier, extra biting present.
That this shift is occurring throughout the season that includes Penelope is not any shock. As the actual Girl Whistledown, the character spent years scrutinizing the ton’s social order, publishing tart-tongued gossip, and sometimes writing about herself to cover her identification. However being concerned with a Bridgerton put her within the highlight, which meant Season 3 had to attract stress not solely from Penelope and Colin’s will-they-won’t-they attraction, but in addition from Penelope placing herself in her personal crosshairs. In Episode 5, she lingers exterior the room through which her household has gathered, ready anxiously to listen to how they reply to the information of her engagement printed in Girl Whistledown’s newest challenge. By the season finale, she’s come clear about her alter ego, to each Queen Charlotte and Colin’s approval, however she expresses trepidation over how a lot the previous’s acceptance of her column will hold the remainder of the ton’s opinions in verify. What others consider a match, the present posits, issues as deeply to a few’s success because the pair’s personal dedication to their relationship.
Maybe that’s why posing as Girl Whistledown had been such a pretty prospect for Cressida, past the financial reward, and such a nuisance to Queen Charlotte earlier than the scheme fell aside. A determine equivalent to Girl Whistledown holds energy, each for the gossip she spreads and for the judgment she passes. Approving a brand new relationship might not sound like a job that carries a lot weight, however Bridgerton spends ample time illustrating how exhausting Penelope works, and the way a lot she struggles with the thought of letting the place go. In a standout scene from this season, she argues with Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie), as soon as her greatest buddy and confidante, as Eloise urges her to cease writing and let Cressida take the autumn. However Penelope loves being Whistledown. “It might break my coronary heart,” she says, to desert her mission. Even when the Queen’s hunt for her identification disrupts her marriage ceremony to Colin, Penelope refuses to surrender her writing. “I felt like I used to be dropping part of myself,” she says in Episode 7, of making an attempt to cease. Is it potential for her to like her husband-to-be and her job equally? What if a real “love match” is between a woman and her work?
These are difficult questions for a Bridgerton heroine to navigate. The first issues of a girl of the ton normally contain tips on how to stay in good social standing and land a husband, however Penelope’s dilemma pushes different feminine characters into uncharted territory. Cressida renegotiates her self-worth by pretending to be Girl Whistledown, whereas Eloise softens her edges round Penelope. Their fractured friendship—a relationship way more complicated and unpredictable than Penelope’s romance with Colin—heals little by little as they work collectively to first defend Colin from realizing the reality, then Penelope from being ruined by her revelation. Even Penelope’s mom, Girl Featherington (Polly Walker), seems conflicted about romantic love. In Half 1 of Season 3, she advises her daughter to desert the thought, calling it “make-believe.” By Episode 5, nevertheless, she’s fearful about Colin’s curiosity in Penelope. “Has he informed you that he loves you?” she earnestly asks Penelope. Ever the protecting mom, she desires Penelope to each welcome a accomplice’s love and brace herself for its lack, as if she herself is not sure of its actual worth.
Compared, although, the present languished at any time when it turned to characters who didn’t have a lot to do with Penelope/Girl Whistledown. As lovable as Francesca Bridgerton and her romance with the equally soft-spoken Lord Kilmartin could also be, their relationship was formulaic to the purpose of being uninteresting. The Mondrich household’s development to the higher echelon of wealth injected some class commentary into Bridgerton, however their story additionally sapped the season of momentum. And the dalliance between Benedict Bridgerton and his new paramours got here off as an excuse for the present to incorporate extra intercourse scenes. These subplots enhanced the drama’s world constructing, however in addition they left Season 3 feeling uneven. Splitting the season into two elements didn’t assist.
Nonetheless, like Cressida Cowper, Bridgerton wandered exterior its consolation zone and, for probably the most half, benefited from doing so. By following Penelope, a heroine who’s not a Bridgerton by blood, and digressing from specializing in swoon-worthy matchmaking, the present scrutinized the ton’s priorities and, by extension, its personal enchantment. It instructed that the drama of being in a romantic relationship is nothing in contrast with the theater of gossip it conjures up. Why else would Girl Whistledown have been so extensively learn, and the Queen so fast to permit Penelope to maintain writing? “What’s life with out a little gossip?” the royal asks within the finale. Possibly romance is simply one thing to speak about.
