The Ending of ‘Bridgerton’ Season 3 Gives Us an Interesting Path Forward

Bridgerton season 3 part 2 has finally dropped on Netflix and fans eagerly watched as Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) fell in love! But the ending of this season really gives us an idea about where the future of the show can take us.

Season 3 part 2 had Colin and Penelope being intimate with each other prior to their wedding. Right before they are actually to be wed, Colin finds out Penelope’s secret. As she is going to deliver the latest issue of Lady Whistledown, he follows her, thinking she is in trouble, and the two are forced to confront Penelope’s truth and Colin’s hatred for Whistledown.

Through the end of the season, Colin is clearly struggling with the idea of his wife as the writer who, at times, hurt his family. But what we see in the finale is a man who realizes that the woman he loves is not only Penelope Featherington but she is Lady Whistledown.

Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) is determined to find out the truth about Whistledown, but before she can figure it out on her own, Penelope writes a letter to her. The Featheringtons are about to lose their title, Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen) is threatening to tell everyone Penelope’s secret, and it takes everything working against her for Penelope to finally tell all of society who she really is.

In the final moments of the season, we see Colin accepting Penelope for all of her parts (including the Lady Whistledown side of her) and the two finally coming together for the first time, despite being married for days. They are so separated by her secret that Penelope is willing to let Colin annul their marriage, but he isn’t going to give up on their love.

He calls her brave, and the two are finally happy together. But there is a bit of a time jump!

A new chapter for Lady Whistledown

Penelope retires the moniker of Lady Whistledown and begins writing her column under her own name. But we also see the three Featherington sisters all living happily with three new babies! Colin and Penelope have a son together, and the money that was going to get the Featherington family in trouble now isn’t an issue because they could claim that it came from Penelope’s work as Lady Whistledown instead of being money that Jack Featherington stole.

So, the season ends with a pretty bow on it. Colin forgives Penelope because he reads her letters to him and realizes she always had Lady Whistledown as part of her, all of society knows the truth, and the Featheringtons don’t lose their title.

But Francesca (Hannah Dodd) also goes to Scotland with her new husband, Lord Kilmartin (Victor Alli), and she meets his cousin, Michaela Stirling, before leaving for their new home with Eloise in tow. What all this means is that Penelope can write as herself in the future, she has her own family with Colin, and Eloise is off with Francesca to start to see the world—with Michaela Stirling, which has important implications for the future.