‘Bridgerton’ Season 3 Episode 1 Recap: The Diamond Of The Season

Gentle Readers, welcome back to another season of Bridgerton, the show full of Regency-era gentility and propriety and also orchestral pop music and so much sex. When we last saw the family Bridgerton and those in their orbit, Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) and Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) finally realized their love for one another; Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) was telling his friends how he would never, ever court someone like Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan); Eloise Bridgerton had not only found out the Pen was Lady Whistledown, but was livid that she was written about in the gossip rag; and Lady Featherington gave her cousin Jack, a swindler if ever there was one, the boot back to America, but not before stealing the money that he stole from many of their friends. There are many more loose ends than that to tie up, but those are the ones that Bridgerton season three addresses right out of the gate in the first episode of the season (“Out Of The Shadows”).

The show begins with the members of the ton returning to London for the beginning of debutante season. After a healthy bit of time away from one another, most of our main characters haven’t seen each other in months, which means that resentments and conflicts have been simmering on the society’s dramatic hearth.

Penelope meanders her way through London watching as all the society maids and matrons read the latest from Lady Whistledown, and it’s difficult to discern who is more tickled, the young ladies who see their names in print listed as candidates to be Queen Charlotte’s diamond of the season, or Penelope, who gets her kicks knowing that everyone is still obsessed with her writing. As she explains in her newsletter, despite the many viable contenders to be the Queen’s number one pick this draft season, the fact that Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd) is among them is going to make the competition pretty stiff. But Francesca, like Eloise before her, is a reluctant debutante, showing no enthusiasm for the whole ritual of it all and she’d just rather be left alone with her piano.

Also uninterested in the ritual of it all is Queen Charlotte herself, because after choosing Edwina Sharma as her diamond last season and watching how that turned out (i.e. a disaster with no wedding), the Queen really doesn’t want to make a wrong move again.

Thing is, Francesca’s nice and all, but it’s Colin Bridgerton, newly returned from his travels across the European continent, who is the family member with all the prospects. Whatever was in the water in Spain, France, and Italy has surely beefed him up and turned him into a heartthrob about the society girls, and he’s eating up the attention. “Under what foreign sun did you apparently get so… sturdy?” his brother Benedict (Luke Thompson) snickers upon his return home. We should all be carrying thesauruses and reading Oscar Wilde to stay as sharp as this.

At the Featherington home, Lady Portia Featherington (Polly Walker) and her three daughters are financially comfortable once again, after she basically stole a bunch of money from her cousin Jack and sent him packing. But since that’s an unsavory way to make one’s fortune, the story Lady Featherington has concocted is that her dead Aunt Petunia had a secret fortune that she bequeathed to the family. Portia also forged a document that states that the firstborn heir that one of her daughters produces will inherit the estate, so she encourages her now-married daughters Prudence and Philippa to get it on and make her a grandbaby to keep the family money…in the family. It’s a lie, but one that Portia repeats enough that she gets called on it by a lawyer working for the Crown. Walter Dundas, who says his job is to keep track of high society families’ lines of succession, comes knocking at her door one day to explain that unless a male heir arrived in short order, the Featherington estate will have to transfer out of the family.

But this isn’t the only stop Dundas makes while he’s in town; he also informs Will and Alice Mondrich that their son Nicholas inherited an estate from Alice’s aunt, Lady Kent, who recently died. As Nicholas is the family’s oldest male heir, he is set to receive a title, Baron of Kent, and an estate to go along with it. The news is a shock to the Mondriches who

Things with Penelope and Eloise have been tense-slash-non-existent, and this obviously breaks both of their hearts. What hurts even more is when Penelope has to watch Eloise sidle up to Cressida Cowper, who has taken on the role as Eloise’s new best friend. It is 100% how Janis Ian felt watching Cady become an actual Plastic in Mean Girls, and it’s confusing for Penelope to process because this is a woman who has made life so difficult for so many people in the past.

Between her mother’s calls for one of her daughters to produce an heir, and her relationships with the Bridgertons at a standstill, Penelope makes a rash decision to change her whole look and seek out a husband. She needs a change in her life, and landing a husband who can get her away from her home and provide a new life would be just the thing. Enlisting the help her the modiste, Madam Delacroix, she has a new dress made (no citrus colors), and gives herself a serious makeover that stops everyone in their tracks when she arrives for Lady Danbury’s ball.

Surrounded by suitors though and with everyone’s attention on her, Penelope flails. She’s not as naturally witty in person as she is on paper, and she’s unable to charm anyone, her glow-up gone to waste. And then, cruel Cressida steps on Pen’s custom-made gown, tearing it, and saying, “Perhaps if you had not bought such cheap fabric, it would not have ripped.” To quote DJ from Hacks, “What a cunt!” Penelope storms out in tears, and though Eloise tries to apologize for Cressida, it’s Colin who chases her out to make sure she’s okay. Penelope angrily brushes him off though, telling him what she overheard him saying at the end of last season about he would never court her. Pen angrily leaves the ball, immediately going into Whistledown mode to write a scathing newsletter where she takes aim at Colin for being an attention-hungry fraud (and she also calls out the Queen as a coward for not yet choosing a diamond).

The problem is, after writing the newsletter, but before it got distributed, Colin came to her to apologize, explain himself, and even offer help to Penelope to find her a husband. He plans to give her charm lessons gleaned from his time spent abroad. Their friendship is intact once again, but it’s too late: Lady Whistledown’s letter has already gone to print. When Colin reads the cruel things about him in it, he vows to learn her real identity and bring her down. The Queen, too, is not one to let accusations go unanswered, and she vows to make Whistledown eat her words.

Bonus Bridgertons:

• Kate and Anthony, having just returned from their honeymoon, are preparing to be the Viscount and Viscountess of the family now, which means that they can now take over the family home and evict dear old moms, Violet. This is not something that sits well with Kate though, who is happy to let her MIL stay in charge. Kate’s kinda happy not being the head of the house, instead just getting head in the house.
• You’re not imagining things, the actress playing Francesca Bridgerton is new. Hannah Dodd replaced Ruby Stokes whose schedule on her other series, Lockwood & Co. conflicted with the Bridgerton filming schedule.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.