‘Bridgerton’ Season 3 Episode 4 Recap: Friends With Benefits

Hooking up with Colin in the backseat of a carriage and getting a proposal from him all in the same night? Penelope, girl, all your wildest dreams are coming true at once!

After several Bridgerton episodes featuring Colin (Luke Newton) being tortured by his impure thoughts of Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and coming to the realization that screwing around with Regency hookers is no longer where his head is at, he finally shoots his shot in the most dashing leading man way possible by climbing into her carriage, confessing his love, and giving her a real night to remember… but let me back up.

Penelope begins the episode still being courted by Lord Debling, rich vegetarian who travels. He brings a plant to her home because it’s been established that while he is an outdoor person, she is an indoor person, and he wants to bring the outdoors inside to her so it can become root bound. When Portia Featherington tells Lord Debling that Penelope’s favorite hobby is sitting by their front window looking out at the view, this is a piece of information that will come back around once Debling learns that the “view” is of Colin Bridgerton’s home and Debling will realize that Pen likes to watch him come and go.

But before Debling comes to the realization that Pen hearts Colin, he and Penelope seem on their way to a certain proposal. A world traveler, he sees Pen as the ideal wife, a woman with her own passions and established life who will not be sad to see him go for months or years at a time while he researches the natural world. “A practical match,” he calls it. No love needed! Penelope can see the upside of this, because the thing is, what she wants in life is to be her true self and keep writing Whistledown. But the other thing is, she would prefer that life be full of love, specifically, the love of Colin. I guess a loveless marriage with a naturalist is an okay second.

Colin himself is experiencing an existential crisis though. He’s grown sick of talking about his sexual conquests with his bros, he’s even grown sick of threesomes with prostitutes (never a good sign when a sex worker asks her john with alarm, “Are you quite well?”). It doesn’t help that on the night of the latest ball, his own mother tells him, “Oh, you do not look well,” when she sees how lovesick he’s become. When your mom and your hookers both can intuit your pain, you need to address it, friend.

But now, it’s a bit of a race against the clock, because Lord Debling has already gone and asked Portia for her daughter’s hand in marriage. (And Portia Featherington is not one to turn any financial opportunity down.) Violet tells him, her sensitive boy, that the rumor is that Penelope is going to be proposed to at the ball. This information makes Colin experience a Montage of Clarity: you know, a brief flash of memories featuring all the moments he and Penelope have shared that prove there’s more there than just friendship, and it makes him get off his chair and haul ass to the ball.

There, he cuts in on Penelope and Debling on the dance floor where he tells her she cannot marry Debling. Penelope defends Debling because look, Colin, she’s never had any man court her, and this might be the only chance she has to get out of her house.

Cressida steps in to dance with Debling (she’s more than happy to be in a loveless marriage with a rich vegetarian if it gets her parents off her back so she’s still trying to shoot her shot) and informs him that the Featheringtons and Bridgertons live across from one another, and that’s where Debling’s realization from earlier kicks in – Penelope sits at her window seat to watch Colin. He confronts Penelope to call her out on the fact that she’s pining for Colin, and she explains, “Colin Bridgerton would never, ever have feelings for me, it is laughable to think as much,” but that phrasing doesn’t exactly deny that she herself has feelings for Colin. I don’t know why Debling, a man who professes to not want to marry for love but for convenience, is so annoyed that Penelope would rather be with Colin. After all, he’d rather be with nature. But it’s too much for him to take, and he retracts the proposal he dangled in front of her.

As Penelope dashes out of yet another ball in tears, Colin chases after her and insists he ride in her carriage. She begs him to leave her alone, but he finally reveals that he’s unable to stop thinking about her, the torture he feels at not being with her. And. then, at long last, they share a real kiss, passionate and breathy and then it leads to his hands all over her. The carriage stops at the most inopportune moment in front of the Bridgerton home. Penelope refuses to get out – how could she, unchaperoned and alone with Colin? – but Colin defiantly stands there and asks, “For God’s sake, Penelope Featherington, are you going to marry me or not?” and my guess is yes, but the episode ends before Penelope can answer.

Bonus Bridgertons:

• We haven’t spent too much time this season discussing the Queen’s sparkler this season, Francesca Bridgerton, but it’s time to dedicate some inches to her story. The Queen is relying on Francesca to prove to the world that Charlotte still knows how to pick ’em.

• Earlier this season, Francesca seemed easy and agreeable to just about any potential groom; she’s been more interested in simply settling down as a wife than the particulars of whose wife she might become. When the Queen set her up with Lord Samadani though, he was decidedly not her type. One man she has taken to though, is John Stirling, the Earl of Kilmartin: though they have barely spoken to one another, he calls on her at home and they share an intimate moment quietly sitting on her couch, not speaking. The rest of the Bridgertons think this is a very weird move, but for Francesca, it’s flirting. Later, he rearranged a piece of music for Francesca and that, friends, is the way to her heart! Lord Samadani, we hardly knew ye.

• Another story that’s been brewing this season is Will and Alice Mondrich’s strange relationship to their newfound fortune. Alice was the one who was originally uncomfortable just kinda falling into money, but it’s Will who is struggling with his new position in society, See society men don’t work, and Will is a worker. Membership at the club he owns has dropped because he refuses to relinquish it, and the norms of 1815 preclude fancy men to drink at bars owned by other fancy men. He faces the decision of giving up the club, or giving up his new title, neither prospect ideal.

• A Featherington heir or two seem to be in the oven! Between Philippa’s morning sickness and Prudence’s sore breasts, it’s a real race to produce the first baby.
• Other exciting romances on the horizon: Lady Danbury’s brother, Marcus (why does she dislike him so? A question to be answered in part two, perhaps) and Violet Bridgerton! Benedict and Lady Tilley “I do not wish to be called on” Arnold are hot and heavy and their time together (from an audience/voyeur standpoint) is all too brief.

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.