<em>Bridgerton</em> Faces the Limits of Romantic Fantasy

This story contains spoilers for the entirety of Bridgerton Season 3.

The resident bully of Bridgerton, Cressida Cowper, has changed—really. After several humbling seasons on the marriage market, the character played by Jessica Madsen has stopped trying to insult-sling her way to the top of the eligible-bachelorette pile. Instead, in the show’s third season, she makes a bold claim that could cast her out of Regency London’s high society altogether. “You would like to know who Lady Whistledown is? You shall know,” she announces before a room of guests at a party. “I am she.”

This declaration is, of course, a lie. Lady Whistledown, the pseudonymous author of the popular gossip pages that enthrall the ton and serve as the show’s framing device, is really the pen name of Penelope Featherington (played by Nicola Coughlan), another young woman who’d long been overlooked by potential suitors. Yet Cressida appears giddy with excitement at her deception. She’s found a way to become too scandalous to be marriage material, freeing herself from her betrothal to a man more than thrice her age, a match that her parents made for her. Calling herself Lady Whistledown could also allow her to cash in on a reward that Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) has promised to whoever can unmask the writer. It’s a selfish scheme—and a genuinely surprising twist for the series. Cressida’s statement has nothing to do with romance, sex, or the Bridgerton family.

Finally, I thought. Actually high stakes.

Bridgerton has been one of Netflix’s biggest successes because it’s designed to satisfy, each season unspooling a trope-filled love story for a Bridgerton sibling that leads to an inevitably happy ending. A fake relationship for Daphne Bridgerton turned into a real one in Season 1, while Anthony Bridgerton’s enemy became his lover in Season 2. For the first four episodes released in May, Season 3 was no different: The friendship between Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) and Penelope blossomed into something more. But the second half of Season 3, released today, adds refreshing layers to the show. It examines, through secondary characters such as Cressida, the possibility that its fairy-tale-like couplings are just that: fairy tales. It interrogates whether a “love match” is of paramount value. And, given Penelope and Colin’s quick engagement, it focuses on how any partnership invites judgment and criticism once made public. The result is a wittier, more biting show.

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That this shift is happening during the season featuring Penelope is no surprise. As the real Lady Whistledown, the character spent years scrutinizing the ton’s social order, publishing tart-tongued gossip, and occasionally writing about herself to hide her identity. But being involved with a Bridgerton put her in the spotlight, which meant Season 3 had to draw tension not only from Penelope and Colin’s will-they-won’t-they attraction, but also from Penelope putting herself in her own crosshairs. In Episode 5, she lingers outside the room in which her family has gathered, waiting anxiously to hear how they respond to the news of her engagement printed in Lady Whistledown’s latest issue. By the season finale, she’s come clean about her alter ego, to both Queen Charlotte and Colin’s approval, but she expresses trepidation over how much the former’s acceptance of her column will keep the rest of the ton’s opinions in check. What others think of a match, the show posits, matters as deeply to a couple’s success as the pair’s own commitment to their relationship.

Perhaps that’s why posing as Lady Whistledown had been such an attractive prospect for Cressida, beyond the monetary reward, and such a nuisance to Queen Charlotte before the scheme fell apart. A figure such as Lady Whistledown holds power, both for the gossip she spreads and for the judgment she passes. Approving a new relationship may not sound like a role that carries much weight, but Bridgerton spends ample time illustrating how hard Penelope works, and how much she struggles with the idea of letting the position go. In a standout scene from this season, she argues with Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie), once her best friend and confidante, as Eloise urges her to stop writing and let Cressida take the fall. But Penelope loves being Whistledown. “It would break my heart,” she says, to abandon her project. Even when the Queen’s hunt for her identity disrupts her wedding to Colin, Penelope refuses to give up her writing. “I felt like I was losing a part of myself,” she says in Episode 7, of trying to stop. Is it possible for her to love her husband-to-be and her job equally? What if a true “love match” is between a lady and her work?

[Read: The golden age of dating doesn’t exist]

Those are tricky questions for a Bridgerton heroine to navigate. The primary concerns of a woman of the ton usually involve how to remain in good social standing and land a husband, but Penelope’s dilemma pushes other female characters into uncharted territory. Cressida renegotiates her self-worth by pretending to be Lady Whistledown, while Eloise softens her edges around Penelope. Their fractured friendship—a relationship much more complex and unpredictable than Penelope’s romance with Colin—heals little by little as they work together to first protect Colin from knowing the truth, then Penelope from being ruined by her revelation. Even Penelope’s mother, Lady Featherington (Polly Walker), appears conflicted about romantic love. In Part 1 of Season 3, she advises her daughter to abandon the idea, calling it “make-believe.” By Episode 5, however, she’s worried about Colin’s interest in Penelope. “Has he told you that he loves you?” she earnestly asks Penelope. Ever the protective mother, she wants Penelope to both welcome a partner’s love and brace herself for its lack, as if she herself is unsure of its real value.

In comparison, though, the show languished whenever it turned to characters who didn’t have much to do with Penelope/Lady Whistledown. As adorable as Francesca Bridgerton and her romance with the equally soft-spoken Lord Kilmartin may be, their relationship was formulaic to the point of being dull. The Mondrich family’s advancement to the upper echelon of wealth injected some class commentary into Bridgerton, but their story also sapped the season of momentum. And the dalliance between Benedict Bridgerton and his new paramours came off as an excuse for the show to include more sex scenes. These subplots enhanced the drama’s world building, but they also left Season 3 feeling uneven. Splitting the season into two parts didn’t help.

Still, like Cressida Cowper, Bridgerton wandered outside its comfort zone and, for the most part, benefited from doing so. By following Penelope, a heroine who’s not a Bridgerton by blood, and digressing from focusing on swoon-worthy matchmaking, the show scrutinized the ton’s priorities and, by extension, its own appeal. It suggested that the drama of being in a romantic relationship is nothing compared with the theater of gossip it inspires. Why else would Lady Whistledown have been so widely read, and the Queen so quick to allow Penelope to keep writing? “What is life without a little gossip?” the royal asks in the finale. Maybe romance is just something to talk about.