In Bridgerton season three, mirrors are kind of a thing. They adorn posters, pop up in promotional teasers, and are mentioned in nearly every interview I’ve conducted with the third season’s cast and creative team. What began as a throwaway line in Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the Julia Quinn novel on which this season is based, has now become a symbol for the unfolding love story between Nicola Coughlan’s Penelope Featherington and Luke Newton’s Colin Bridgerton. And a mirror’s mere presence in the fifth episode of season three, part two, signals that steamy times are ahead for the newly engaged couple.

“Because of the way the fans have attached to that really sexy line in the book about the mirror, we decided to use mirrors across the season,” showrunner Jess Brownell tells Vanity Fair. “They became a really powerful motif for us in terms of a mirror representing the self who is standing in front of the mirror, who is the person you are on the inside, and then the self you see in the mirror, who’s the person you reflect to the world. So setting the first big intimacy scene around a mirror helps us lean into that theme.”

For those unfamiliar with the novel, reflective surfaces are mentioned in passing during foreplay when Colin tells Penelope, “I want to do it in front of a mirror.” Penelope then asks Colin when he’d like to. He “seemed to consider for a moment,” writes Quinn, “then shook his head,” promising in “a rather resolute tone” to save it for “later.” Alas, that moment never arrives in the book—a wrong righted in Bridgerton season three, part two.

Onscreen, Colin and Penelope consummate their romance while touring the site of their future home. An emotional Penelope thanks Colin for defending her honor in front of her mother (Polly Walker) during the prior scene. “I will always stand up for you, because I love you,” Colin says for the first time. “Everything I said to your mother is true—and you should see it as well,” he continues, before turning her toward a mirror located in the room.

As Colin lavishes Penelope with compliments, calling her “the cleverest, bravest woman I’ve ever known,” he begins to note some of her best physical features, including the parts he has not seen, but has “been dreaming about.” They begin to kiss, and after receiving Penelope’s consent, Colin removes her clothing, then later undresses himself as they move to a sofa nearby.

Before they began filming the scene, Newton tells Vanity Fair he gave Coughlan fair warning about his eventual level of nudity. Male intimacy wear is “unusual to look at—it’s just a sort of cup, bag-shaped thing that you wear,” he says. “I was wearing a dressing gown, and we were just about to do the first take when Colin undresses. And I said to Nic, ‘I need to show you this before we roll, because you are going to lose it on camera if you don’t.’ So we had a little giggle. It was nice to be able to be lighthearted about it. We shot over three days. By day three, we were literally throwing the robes off and strutting around the studio.”

The first day of filming mainly centered on Coughlan’s Penelope in a state of undress. “I remember my focus was supporting Nic and making sure that she felt comfortable on set and in that environment,” Newton previously told VF. “It’s closed sets, so there’s not loads of crew there, but there is a crowd of people around us while we’re going to expose ourselves. I just wanted her to feel supported and safe. We swapped the next day, and then it was my turn, and I completely got that from her.”

Newton notes that he and Coughlan “had previous [intimate] scenes” before their characters’ first full-blown intercourse. “There was the carriage scene, the kiss scene, and the dream sequence,” he says. “But that was the first time that we were fully exposed. And there’s the weird parallels in that they both are as characters in that moment as well. They really open up and become honest with each other for the first time. They needed to have that. It takes the story to the next level.”

Coughlan has previously spoken about baring her “perfect breasts” in Bridgerton season three, part two. “Luke and I decided entirely what we wanted to show on camera,” she said in a pre-release interview. “We had a lot of say in the mirror scene in particular, how that was shot and that we wanted that to be front-facing into the mirror and undress in front of it. It was like an amazing moment, and also I was like, when I’m 80, I’m gonna look back and be like, ‘My boobs look great! They’re all my own and they’re sitting up there. No regrets.’”

An orchestral version of Ariana Grande’s “POV” plays as things heat up between Colin and Penelope. At one point, Penelope asks Colin to “tell her what to do” sexually. “Is there more?” she asks him after a bit of foreplay. “She doesn’t know about sex fully, but she’s aware of her body and where she wants him to touch her,” Coughlan previously told Vanity Fair, adding, “It’s lovely because it’s so easy to see virgins on TV portrayed in a way that they’re like, terrified and have no agency, but that’s not the case.”

It makes sense that a bookworm turned gossip columnist would speak up in the bedroom, says Bridgerton’s showrunner. “Penelope is an inquisitive young woman,” Brownell tells VF. “She is someone who is curious enough about the world to have figured out how to publish a scandal sheet all on her own. So it made a lot of sense that she would be someone who was extra active, asking a lot of questions. And I love Luke Newton’s portrayal in that scene. Colin is really taking care of Pen in that moment, and showing her a lot of love and devotion in a way that we’ve all been waiting for.”

Throughout their coupling, Colin asks for Penelope’s consent and talks her through what to expect. Given the lack of power that women in the Regency era possess, Brownell says, “the choice of a husband, and hopefully the agency that one takes in a private, intimate space with that husband is even more key.” Says Newton, “Colin is naturally a very sensitive and empathetic person, particularly when it comes to those moments. He’s very protective over Pen, so we see that care coming out. And it’s beautiful to watch back and see that it’s still sexy. It’s not tearing their clothes off. It’s really sexy, but it’s full of tenderness and care.”

As with their now infamous carriage hookup, Colin and Penelope share a laugh after getting intimate. The moment felt true to their characters’ longtime friendship, but also reflects a memorable behind-the-scenes gaffe between Newton and Coughlan. In the lead-up to Bridgerton season three, the costars teased that a piece of furniture was broken while filming one of their sex scenes. Now that all of the episodes have been released, Newton confirms to Vanity Fair that the set damage happened while filming Colin and Penelope’s mirror scene.

As he explains, he and Coughlan were reclining on a chaise lounge. “It’s the mirror scene, and our director at the time took a step back and said, ‘Right. Let’s just mix it up, this take, and let’s really sort of go for this one. Let’s up the energy basically, and up the stakes.’ Then I think we were maybe 20 seconds in, and one of the legs just completely snapped off.”

“We both burst into laughter,” he says. “Nicola shrieked and said something in her natural [Irish] accent. I was really hoping that the laugh makes it in, which it does. We do laugh together at the end, which is really beautiful, and just feels really appropriate and sweet to their relationship. I think Nic’s got a picture, which I’m sure will end up on social media at some point, of this leg that snapped off. It was then propped up by apple boxes and stuff to try and keep the chaise lounge secure. Little moments like that make the days just so much more enjoyable.”

After Penelope requests another round, the couple bask in the afterglow—and utter Coughlan’s favorite lines from the novel. “Do I look a mess?” Penelope asks, to which Colin replies, “Yes. But you are my mess.”

But before long, Penelope catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror—and internally confronts the secret still hanging over them. “The mirror also functions in the postcoital moment as a reminder that she hasn’t shown everything to Colin yet,” says Brownell. “So as she’s contemplating whether or not to tell him about Whistledown, I think the mirror shines a light for her.”

If that isn’t enough lore for one love scene, Bridgerton’s showrunner offers one more juicy tidbit: This is when Colin and Penelope’s baby boy was conceived. “The timeline is a little bit unclear,” Brownell says when asked how much time has passed between the climax of the season and the season three epilogue, in which Colin and Penelope have welcomed a child at roughly the same time as her two sisters. “We do live in perpetual spring in the first three seasons of Bridgerton, so what is time? But in our minds, they probably got pregnant in the mirror scene. So when you get to season four and you see them, it won’t be so crazy that they already have their baby.”