The trailer for Bridgerton season 3 has dropped, and it’s focusing on the love story I’ve been looking forward to the most.
In the trailer, Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) decides that the time has come to put her search for a husband into overdrive. She’s given up on her hopes that the oblivious Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) will return the feelings she has for him, so she accepts his help to find someone else to marry. She also takes matters into her own hands, abandoning the garish dresses that her mother has chosen for her in the past, and giving herself a glow-up with a stunning emerald green number. Looks like the Ton has two queens now!
You’ll recall that in season 2, Penelope goes through some serious heartbreak. She overhears Colin saying that he would never court her—a moment that doesn’t just dash her hopes at being with him, but humiliates her. Plus, she ends up destroying her friendship with Eloise (Claudia Jessie) after tarnishing Eloise’s reputation with a scandalous story she writes as her alter ego, Lady Whistledown. In the trailer, we see Eloise befriending someone else, and pointedly ignoring her former BFF.
Penelope has been one of the most interesting and complicated characters in Bridgerton from day one—even though it took awhile for the show to reveal her secret identity. On the surface, she’s a sympathetic underdog, seemingly doomed to be a wallflower as the women around her all find husbands. She doesn’t fit the mold of a conventionally beautiful woman (although, let’s be clear, she’s gorgeous), so she uses her mind and her devastating wit to survive the toxicity of her family and the often cutthroat world of the Ton.
Penelope’s story—her friendship with Eloise, her side hustle, her relationship with her family, her unrequited love for Colin—has been one of the most satisfying slow burns in the show, and I can’t wait to see it pay off this season. And we don’t have long to go, dearest gentle reader! Bridgerton season 3 drops on Netflix on May 16.
