Bridgerton Season 3 Focuses on Colin and Penelope’s Romance

Instead of following the book order and continuing with Benedict’s love story, Season 3 of Bridgerton will focus on Colin and Penelope’s love story. Additionally, actress Hannah Dodd replaces Ruby Stokes as Francesca Bridgerton due to scheduling conflicts.

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Netflix’s Bridgerton series is diverging from the original series order. Instead of going with Benedict’s love story in An Offer From A Gentleman, Season 3 of Bridgerton will instead focus on Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington.

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The first two seasons of Bridgerton were accurate to those in the book series, at least in terms of whose story it was. While there were some changes in plot, characters’ races and the Netflix series revealed the identity of Lady Whistledown three books in advance, the first two seasons at least followed the first two books in the series. Season 1 focused on Daphne and Simon’s love story (The Duke and I) and Season 2 focused on Anthony and Kate’s romance (The Viscount Who Loved Me).

The third book of the Bridgerton book series is about Benedict Bridgerton, the second-oldest Bridgerton child, but the third season of the show will instead focus on Colin and Penelope’s story, Romancing Mister Bridgerton. At the end of the second season, Colin and Penelope’s romance hit a definite low, seeing as Colin stated to his male friends that he would never see Penelope as a love interest; unbeknownst to him, she overheard him and this broke her heart. Penelope’s interest in Colin has been well-known since the start of the series, to the point that she revealed Marina Thompson’s pregnancy to the world to prevent her and Colin from running away together.

Given that the show illuminated viewers to the identity of Lady Whistledown at the culmination of the first season and that Eloise identifies Penelope as Lady Whistledown in the finale of the second, it makes sense that the series would choose to focus on Colin and Penelope in the third season. Both have played major roles in the first and second seasons, despite the season’s primary romance not being about either of them and the audience is eager to see how their love story will be resolved. While this is a deviation from book accuracy, it is nonetheless a welcome one.

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In addition to the reveal that the third season of the show will skip ahead, it was also revealed that Ruby Stokes, who plays Francesca in Seasons 1-2 of Bridgerton, will be replaced by newcomer Hannah Dodd in the third. Stokes was notably absent for the majority of both the first two seasons, due to scheduling conflicts and now that she has landed the lead role in another Netflix show, actress Ruby Stokes will be leaving the Ton for good.

Francesca’s story doesn’t come till Book Six, When He Was Wicked. While Netflix has renewed the Bridgerton show for a third and fourth season, as well as ordering a limited prequel series featuring Queen Charlotte, it is not guaranteed that the show will progress long enough to reach Francesca’s story. With that being said, the Bridgerton series is extremely popular; it is an Emmy-award nominated show and holds the record for the most watched and second most watched English-language television series on Netflix (Season 2 holds 1st place and Season 1 holds 2nd).

Chances are extremely high that Netflix will order more seasons and after the success of Shonda Rhimes’ other shows, such as Grey’s Anatomy, which will hit 400 episodes in the culmination of the 18th season with a upcoming Season 19 for the next year, who could blame Netflix for ordering more seasons of Bridgerton?

For more news about the Ton, check out our other articles here and stay tuned for Lady Whistledown to gossip more about the award-winning period drama series!

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