'Bridgerton' Season 3 Officially Skipping Ahead To A Later Romance

Since the end of Season 2, there have been rumors that Bridgerton would start pulling away in earnest from the book's source material in the next two installments. This was probably inevitable, considering how much the show changed up from the second book in Julia Quinn's series of Bridgerton novels, shifting Anthony and Kate's romance into a psuedo-love triangle to make it feel less like the first season's tale of Simon and Daphne. But it seemed the rumors were correct; actor Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington, a.k.a. Lady Whistledown, revealed that the series would foreground the romance in book four instead of continuing in order with book three.

Speaking at Bridgerton's FYSEE panel ahead of the Emmy nominations cut off, Coughlan admitted, “Like Lady Whistledown, I have been keeping a secret for quite some time. I can confirm to you all that Season 3 is Colin and Penelope’s love story." Considering the sheer number of rumors, she said, "I have kept that secret since two weeks into Season 2. This is the first time I am saying it here.” So whoever it was that leaked the news Colin and Penelope were next up instead of Benedict, it was not the actor who plays the show's favorite scribe.

Many fans know by now that the third book in Quinn's series, An Offer From A Gentleman, is Benedict Bridgerton's (Luke Thompson) love story. (Though book one starts in the middle of the family with Daphne, from the second book onward, the stories go in age and alphabetical order until the last two installments.) It is essentially Quinn's retelling of Cinderella, except Prince Charming is Bridgerton's second son. On the one hand, that makes its story quite different from the last two seasons, but on the other, it also makes it a super simple narrative to try to stretch out over eight episodes.