Entertainment
Bridgerton Season 3: Bridgerton vs. The Books
Netflix’s hit series Bridgerton returns for its third season, and fans are eager to see how it compares to the Julia Quinn novels. This season shifts its attention to the often-overlooked characters, Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington, played by Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan. Inspired by Julia Quinn’s Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the latest instalment promises a mix of beloved book moments and fresh, original plotlines.
It also explores new storylines and characters not present in the book. Here are some of the most notable differences:
The Motives Behind Colin’s Proposal
In both the book and series, Colin proposes to Penelope after their racy carriage ride. But the circumstances surrounding the betrothals differ. In the novel, Colin is pressured after being physically intimate with Penelope. “I can assure you that I do not behave as I did with a woman of your background without rendering a marriage proposal,” he tells her. But the series has Colin declaring that he proposed purely out of love for Penelope, and that his feelings for her “are not a thunderbolt from the sky,” as he tells his brothers, directly quoting the novel. Book Colin comes to terms with his true emotions when he realizes that he still wants to marry Penelope even though she plans to continue publishing Whistledown.
The House of Featherington
The Netflix series has omitted Felicity Featherington, Penelope’s younger sister, meaning there is no awkward post-engagement confusion from Portia (Polly Walker) about which of her daughters Colin wants to marry. But otherwise, the Featherington family gets an expanded arc in the series. In addition to the comedic race to produce an heir, Portia opens up to Penelope about the reasons for her often unsavory parenting tactics. “I chose a match for security and he could not even provide that,” Portia tells Penelope of the late Lord Featherington. “But he gave me you girls, and my greatest wish has always been for you three to do better than I did. And you have.”
Mending generational trauma in the lead-up to Colin and Penelope’s wedding was important to Brownell. “Penelope is the way she is, in many ways, because of Portia and because of her family,” she tells VF. “Sure, some of that is negative, but I am a real Portia Featherington apologist. She loves her children just as much as Violet loves her children. She just hasn’t had the same amount of luck. She had a worse financial situation, she had a worse marriage. Most likely, she didn’t have the love of a parent the way that Violet had with her father. So if Violet were in a similar position to Portia Featherington, she might’ve sold a fake gem mine too. All Portia’s trying to do at the end of the day is protect her girls. And so it was important to me to see that redemption, and to see Penelope embracing her true self [and] embracing her Featherington-ness at the same time.”
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
On the show, Colin and Penelope’s first sexual encounter happens in front of a mirror. This is inspired by an oft-referenced line in the book, where he alludes to one day wanting to “do it in front of a mirror.”
“Because of the way the fans have attached to that really sexy line in the book about the mirror, we decided to use mirrors across the season,” Brownell tells VF. “In Penelope’s arc, it’s one of the first times she’s allowing herself to really be seen in a vulnerable way. The mirror also functions in the postcoital moment as a reminder that she hasn’t shown everything to Colin yet. So as she’s contemplating whether to tell him about Whistledown, I think the mirror shines a light for her.”
The novel has Colin and Penelope sleep together for the first time in a mirror-less bedroom. It’s a bit later into their courtship: post–engagement ball, but scandalously still prior to their wedding day. It is during the consummation of their relationship that Penelope first tells Colin, “I’ve loved you for years,” a confession she doesn’t make onscreen until later.
That Lady Whistledown Reveal
By the time Colin and Penelope share their carriage ride in the book, he has already learned that she is Lady Whistledown. In the series, Colin discovers Penelope’s secret under similar circumstances—following her carriage to a seedy part of town, where he witnesses some of her shadier dealings—but the reveal happens post-engagement. “After Colin took so long to figure out his feelings for Penelope, we wanted to live in the love bubble between Colin and Pen a little bit longer before the Whistledown secret came out,” Brownell says of the switch. “And it also amps up the tension for him to find out when he does, because Pen has now held it from him much longer than she should have.”
The show also tweaks how Penelope’s Whistledown identity is revealed to the rest of the Ton. In both the book and show, upon learning her secret, Cressida blackmails Penelope about Whistledown, adding pressure to the eventual confession. The book has Colin take matters into his own hands, devising a plan to unmask Penelope at his sister Daphne’s ball without alerting his wife beforehand. But the show places the power back in the hands of Penelope, who shares her own secret—first via letters to the queen and her mother-in-law, then at the Featherington sisters’ butterfly ball. The Ton reacts rather respectfully to Penelope-as-Whistledown in both the book and series—at least for now. As Quinn writes, “Tomorrow they might remember to be angry with her, to feel irritated at having been fooled for so many years, but tonight…Tonight all they could do was admire and cheer.”
Meeting Michaela Stirling
The season’s most gasp-worthy book-to-series change comes when Francesca meets her husband John’s cousin Michaela Stirling (Masali Baduza)—a notable change from the book character of Michael Stirling. In the books, Francesca falls for Michael after John’s death. On the show, Francesca is visibly flustered upon locking eyes with Michaela—a visible departure from her sweet, but rather subdued reaction to John.
“The first time I read When He Was Wicked, which is Francesca’s book, I really related to it as a queer woman,” Brownell tells Vanity Fair. “Her story is in some ways about feeling different, and in Julia Quinn’s book, it really has more to do with her being introverted. But for many of us in the queer community, that sense of feeling different from a young age is part of our stories. So I felt like there was already thematic richness in her book to mine for her story. In telling a queer Bridgerton story, I didn’t want to just drop a queer character in to check a box. I want to tell a story about the queer experience and let there be a richness to her story. And it feels like we’re able to do that with Francesca.”
When asked about potential backlash to making multiple Bridgerton siblings queer, Brownell said: “I understand that people are very attached to the way the books are. The books will always be there, and those stories are unchanged. So while book fans will always have their Michael, it felt like queer fans didn’t have anyone in either the books or in the series who was really featured to relate to. I would encourage people to channel some empathy for people who have not gotten to see themselves represented inside this world, which is so inclusive in other ways. That is a really, really important message to send to people: that they deserve to be included and represented as well.”