Bridgerton Season 3 Review

Believe it or not, despite the many plotlines that weaved together an outlandish tapestry to create a highly controversial season, Bridgerton Season 3 was filled with emotional and meaningful sacrifices by its main characters for an increase in social status and peerage standing.

Penelope Featherington

Starting with Lady Whistledown herself, Penelope Featherington had to give up a lot to maintain her authentic identity – including her name. With her reputation as Penelope Featherington on the line due to Lady Cressida Cowper’s blackmail to expose her identity as Lady Whistledown, Penelope had to make a lot of hard choices.

Penelope chose to embrace her likeness to her mother in taking a gamble and essentially pulling a scam on the Queen, the Queen’s solicitor, and the rest of the Mayfair ‘Ton in order to save her good name and keep the Featherington peerage title in the family.

After marrying Colin and officially becoming a Bridgerton, Penelope completely sacrifices her wallflower status and old life along with her reputation to become a columnist under her own name, with the somewhat wishy-washy support of her new husband Colin and her sister-in-law, Eloise.

Eloise Bridgerton

Eloise honestly never has much to do, as those around her coddle and bend reality to Eloise’s will so that she can never see the truth of the feminism bubble she resides in.

And for the most part…that has worked for her. Especially when befriending other noble girls who often feel trapped or stifled at home, and lack the Bridgerton support system Eloise is afforded while befriending other people such as Cressida or Penelope.

Without having Penelope the wallflower to lean on and hug the sides of banquet halls with, Eloise decided to make new friends within society this season, and realized she had nothing at all in common to converse about with average ladies of standing.

While the other girls acknowledged that Eloise was an eloquent speaker with interesting ideas and thoughts, they would much rather fawn over eligible bachelors and share unique sewing techniques amongst themselves.

Because Eloise has been kept in her pristine faux feminist bubble and supported by her loving family who has projected no real expectations onto her, Eloise herself got a chance to realize how out of step she was with the rest of the society women of her age.

This created an identity crisis within Eloise; she rejected a renewed friendship with Penelope due to her own feelings of questioned internal embarrassment over her own past actions, rather than distilled anger over the Season 2 Lady Whistledown identity reveal which seemed like the surface-level reasoning.

Eloise’s growth this season comes to a climax when she realizes her friend Penelope wrote what she did as Lady Whistledown in order to protect Eloise’s reputation – not ruin it.

Due to this, Eloise Bridgerton this season sacrificed her ego, alongside any preconceived notions she had about life in high society as a noble woman and her role within the household.

So, Eloise resigns to take a holiday in Scotland for a year, to do some soul searching and try to figure out who she really is without her strong feminist morals, and if they even still matter after the marriage of her friend Penelope to her brother Colin, and the exile from society of her other new friend, Cressida.

Benedict Bridgerton

Benedict Bridgerton is an odd one. Born as the second son, he is considered the heir Viscount Anthony’s “spare” and has been given a role of waiting in life. Now that Anthony has married Kate and has a baby (the new Bridgerton estate heir if male), Benedict is kind of just expected to “hold down the fort” essentially until the Viscount and his Lady wife return from India, and until the Dowager Viscountess mother Violet Bridgerton moves out of the main estate home.

Because the Bridgerton family is apparently so wealthy that even the third son Colin has thrice the wealth of an earl, Benedict is not expected to do much. And thus…he has fulfilled the role of being present in the moment but neither here nor there, if you catch my meaning.

In Season 2, Benedict was in his rake era, sleeping with the local modiste and even having intimate relations with a man. The excitement of it all eventually cools, and tensions simmer away as Benedict realizes the gravity of his callous actions and returns to the Swing Set of Confusion and Sorrow with his spinster-in-training sister, Eloise.

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with not realizing your path in life or pursuing a love match on the Marriage Mart -especially when you are as wealthy as the Bridgerton family in Regency Era England – but it is in poor taste when you refuse to change after internally acknowledging repeated bad decisions.

So in Season 3, we see Benedict again get involved with a woman he has no business seeing (the widowed, film noir-esque femme fatale figure in Lady Tilley Arnold) and engages in taboo and reputation ruining relations with another man. And yet again, he and Eloise sit at nighttime on the Swing Set of Confusion and Sorrow beneath the starry sky – but this time only Eloise resigns herself to change with a journey to Scotland – leaving Benedict alone in his thoughts and floundering.

Benedict sacrifices his sanity and morals for a fraction of mental clarity, and instead of changing – chooses to remain stationary in his internal dilemma for validation as the second Bridgerton son.

Francesca Bridgerton

Possibly the most Boring Bridgerton since her eldest sister Daphne, Francesca just has nothing going on except a good piano riff and relishing the echoes of silence betwixt a conversation – and she would have it no other way.

I mean, Francesca did not even take offence to having her engagement to the Scottish Earl Lord John Stirling called “mediocre” by Queen Charlotte. Because on a superficial surface level and even more deeply entrenched – Francesca knows she is somewhat basic when compared to her boisterous and ever spotlight-seeking siblings.

And that is 100% okay! Francesca doesn’t need to have a dramatic (or passionate) love like 3/8ths of her siblings have so far, or like that of her parents, Violet and Edmund.

Francesca Bridgerton sacrifices the pomp and pageantry of a lavish wedding with her highland Earl in favor of enjoying her elevated status in the peace of the Scottish countryside.

The Dowager Baroness Portia Featherington

Lady Featherington had never been a mama to fight for her young when the prospect of her own survival was involved. She passed this instinct onto her daughters, although thankfully with all of the aforementioned marrying seemingly kind men, the next generation of children may fare better in life.

Lady Featherington sacrificed her pride in believing only a man could solve her problems when her daughter Penelope: settled the succession issue with the solicitor, generated enough income for the household to keep it afloat, secretly footed a ball for her two older sisters who had never been kind to her to host, and issued a male child to claim the Featherington title and keep the peerage title and estate in the family.

Penelope was able to break her mother Portia’s preconceived notions about what is possible and can be achieved by a woman in Regency Era English society by the triumphs listed above, and likewise with Penelope receiving the recognition (and soft blessing of the Queen) to pursue writing as a columnist now under her own name, Penelope Bridgerton.

Lady Cressida Cowper

You know, I actually feel for Cressida Cowper. Sure, she has been the high society “mean girl” for the past two seasons, but toward the end we’ve learned that Cressida is simply a product of her own upbringing.

With a home situation similar to Penelope, Cressida’s demeanor in society was similar to Penelope’s mother’s vivid impressions onto her girls – to view the other women as competition for male attention and their own status.

The only difference between Penelope and Cressida is that Penelope had a true friendship in Eloise, and Eloise’s outlook in life reflected the loving familial background and homelife she was raised in. So after being exposed to this, Penelope always had a shimmer of hope that things could work out in life.

Juxtaposed to this, we have “Cressida the mean girl” who has not a single true friend in her life. And after having her parents send away “the Bridgerton girl”, Cressida is then mocked by her family for being alone while facing exile from society.

In a desperation Penelope all too recognized as it reflected her own tumultuous season, Lady Whistledown realized Cressida’s recent actions at trying to claim the Whistledown column as (in addition to her loud, attention-seeking wardrobe) desperation at a loss of options. As Cressida had also lost out on the option and advantageous marriage to Lord Debling due to a ‘competition’ with Penelope for his affections.

In the end, Cressida ended up sacrificing her station in society, her good name, her youth (frilly and soft pink dresses in exchange for plain black fabrics presumably by the mean auntie from Wales) simply because she realized she was never half as clever as Penelope.

Which is a shame, in of itself.

Had Cressida developed any other skills aside from simply “looking pretty” and “being present” like Penelope had done with her writing, or even had at least one true friend like Penelope had in Eloise, Cressida’s situation might not have grown so bleak and hopeless.

The Dowager Viscountess Violet Bridgerton

The Dowager Lady Bridgerton had to let go of her preconceived notions of a fabled true love you have to fight for – something she passed down and instilled into all of her children’s collective consciousness. So far, only Francesca has been shown to reject this notion.

Through her daughter Francesca’s sudden and seemingly out of place relationship with Lord Sterling, in addition to her newfound friendship with Lord Marcus Anderson, Lady Bridgerton is learning that not every romantic affair or even prospect that you encounter has to be fireworks and whistles and bells.

It can be quiet, slow to burn and yet, still meaningful to the human heart.

Colin Bridgerton

I don’t know if I will spend much time talking about the rake that is known as Colin Bridgerton, as I have already written about him at length in my last article.

The good and sweet Bridgerton Boy, Colin seems to have sacrificed his former self in order to have threesomes before the sun even rises, and to frequent brothels and speak ill of prospective marriage proposals at parties.

Again, I am not going to keep pointing out that Colin Bridgerton was a rake in Season 3 but…Colin Bridgerton was an absolute rake in Season 3.

Colin’s preconceived identity as how he sees himself within his illustrious yet famous family, like Benedict, was sacrificed this season in favor of adapting a shallower, rake alter ego. His love of writing is perverted into keeping a “conquest journal” of all his exploits on the continent, and his inability to keep it in his pants leads to pre-marital relations with Penelope that result in a rushed engagement and a subsequent seemingly unhappy marriage.

Gripping with his new jealousy of Penelope’s literary abilities (which Cressida rightfully points out) seems to be the replacement of another old positive personality trait that Colin has sacrificed to become “Chad Colin” – the Lady-killer of the ‘Ton.

Lady Agatha Danbury

Honestly, I wish we could see more backstory from Lady Agatha Danbury. I am sure that she has a very interesting backstory…but that appears to have been glazed over in favor of a quick resolution to her internal opposition of a budding relationship between her brother Marcus, and her friend, Violet.

Oh well, there’s always next season I guess, right?  ☺

Queen Charlotte

The good yet eternally bored Queen Charlotte was given excitement and merriment this new season after at first being dulled by her lady subjects simply not giving it their all.

After a most opportune moment of discovering that yet another Bridgerton daughter had taken some shine from the other debutantes, Queen Charlotte was then again yet disappointed by Lady Francesca’s option for a more…mediocre marriage prospect in the Scottish Earl, Lord Sterling.

With gentle reminders of the importance of mental stimulation from her royal subjects Lady Danbury and adjoining staff like Mr. Brimsley, the good Queen was reminded of the importance of favorable society gossip and its place in moderation – nobily sacrificing her blood-hunt for Lady Whistledown and besting the Featherington girl at her own game.

For our majesty is uniquely benevolent indeed, given the precarious situation she found herself enveloped within.

Lord Will Mondrich

As the newly minted nobility in town, Will’s son through his wife Alice’s side of the family had recently inherited a peerage title as the new Lord of Kent.

Despite having a loving wife and pleasant family life, Lord Mondrich appears depressed and slightly despondent after being pressured by the surrounding aristocracy to “give up” his hard-earned bar and former life as a boxer fighting for money in exchange for quaint and pleasant society parties.

Will has to sacrifice his ordinary former life and identity that provided his family with a living in exchange for a lavish lifestyle he did not earn, but now has suddenly been permitted to enjoy.

But, which character do you believe made the most personal sacrifices in Bridgerton Season 3?

Who had the most character development, in your opinion?

Let me know your thoughts and leave them in the comment section below! You can read more thoughts on Bridgerton Season 3 here! And until next time ~

“This world is a shadow of the real one”.

❂ Stories From the New World

Tiktok Instagram Twitter Pinterest YouTube