‘Bridgerton’ Season 3 will focus on Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton’s love story. Here’s everything we know about what Netflix has in store for fans.
TV & Movies
The first full trailer teases Polin’s friends-to-lovers journey.
After the sheer excitement of Bridgerton Season 2 and the spinoff Queen Charlotte, fans are eager to see the next installment of the Netflix series. Fortunately, this isn’t one of those “will Netflix renew my favorite TV show or give it the ax” situations because more Bridgerton is almost upon us.
Given how Season 1 captivated viewers (the show casually became Netflix’s biggest hit ever and scooped up an Emmy win), it makes sense that fans were clamoring for Seasons 3 and 4 well before they even saw Season 2. Though Netflix (er, Lady Whistledown) has only announced the scantest of details about these future seasons, we already have a pretty good idea of what they will look like based on the Bridgerton books.
Season 1 followed Daphne on her search for a suitor (based on the first book, The Duke and I), and Season 2 covered Anthony’s “quest to find a Viscountess” (based on the next book, The Viscount Who Loved Me). Bridgerton fans assumed the third season would follow Benedict Bridgerton, the protagonist of the third novel, An Offer from a Gentleman.
But in May 2022, viewers learned that Benedict’s love triangle would have to wait, as Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington (aka the infamous Lady Whistledown herself), announced that Season 3 will explore Colin and Penelope’s romance (from Julia Quinn’s fourth installment, Romancing Mister Bridgerton). Coughlan posted, “Like Lady Whistledown I’ve been keeping quite a big secret for quite a long time … but I can finally tell you that [Bridgerton] Season 3 is Colin and Penelope’s Story.”
Although some fans were not best pleased with the show’s deviation from the original book order, Bridgerton author Quinn revealed in a May 2023 interview with Insider that she is totally fine with the change, and shed light on why she thinks showrunners decided to switch up the show’s romance order.
“I think they had just felt they had laid down so much groundwork because we already know Penelope,” Quinn commented. “We haven’t met Benedict’s love interest. I suppose people are gonna say, ‘They could have introduced her.’ But the fact of the matter is, we haven’t. And what I try to tell people is, look, once a character has their season, we don’t see them as much, right? So, if you love Benedict, you want him to wait as long as possible.”
Below, find out everything else we know about Bridgerton Season 3 and how the series might approach Colin and Penelope’s love story.
Following months of speculation, Netflix announced in December 2023 that the show’s third installment will debut in two four-episode parts. Part 1 will premiere on May 16, 2024, followed by Part 2 on June 13, 2024. The Season 3 schedule marks a major first for the series, as Bridgerton previously released its full seasons all at once.
Fans got a first look at Bridgerton Season 3 in a December 2023 teaser. “Gentle reader, you thought I was silenced. But you thought wrong,” a voiceover says in the clip, briefly showcasing what fans can expect from the new series, including Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope’s friends-to-lovers journey.
