This spring season is about Polin. Penelope Featherington (played by Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (played by Luke Newton) are the stars of Bridgerton Season 3, and we couldn’t be more excited. Polin’s love story is extremely important in the entire Bridgerton series since Penelope is Lady Whistledown. So, the big question is, when will Colin discover Penelope’s secret identity? Spoiler Warning: Spoilers for Bridgerton Season 3 follow.
The book and the series have pretty different timelines. One of the biggest parts of the book is when Colin finds out Penelope is Lady Whistledown. At the beginning of the book, Lady Danbury challenges the ton to discover Lady Whistledown’s identity and offers a prize to the person who successfully does so. This gets everyone excited except Penelope, of course. To make matters worse, Penelope’s enemy, Cressida, takes credit for being the anonymous writer.
At the beginning of the book, Lady Danbury challenges the ton to discover Lady Whistledown’s identity and offers a prize to the person who successfully does so. This gets everyone excited except Penelope, of course.
To make matters worse, Penelope’s enemy, Cressida, takes credit for being the anonymous writer. At the end of Season 1, viewers learned that Penelope is Lady Whistledown, but it wasn’t until Romancing Mister Bridgerton that the reader of the series discovers this secret. Not even Eloise knows at this point. In fact, in the book, Colin is convinced that Eloise is Lady Whistledown.
In the show, Colin follows Penelope to where she gets the column printed and overhears that she is Lady Whistledown. Furious, he says he will never forgive her.
Similar to the book, Cressida also claims to be Lady Whistledown in the show, but in an attempt to not be sent away to live with her aunt.
In the last episode of Season 3, Queen Charlotte announces to the ton at a ball that Penelope is Lady Whistledown. This, of course, comes as a shock to most (other than Lady Danbury, who, like always, is one step ahead of everyone else). With the secret finally revealed, both Penelope and Colin Bridgerton go on to be published writers. Penelope stops writing the column in the book, but everyone’s favorite gossip writer appears to continue to produce the society papers in future seasons.
In the book, Colin follows Penelope after he catches her suspiciously, leaving her house alone unchaperoned. He follows her to a church, where he sees her leave something in an envelope. After snooping in the shadows, Colin surprises Penelope and interrogates her. While she is nervous, he is furious that she not only risks her safety being so far from home alone but also has a huge secret. Colin takes the envelope from the pew and reads what’s inside. The envelope contained what Penelope planned to be the last society papers written by Lady Whistledown.
This interaction leads them to get into Colin’s carriage to go home, where they have a huge argument. Like the rest of the ton, Colin was trying to figure out who Lady Whistledown was. He felt foolish thinking that Eloise was Lady Whistledown when it was actually Penelope this whole time.
He also knew how bad it would be for her reputation and safety if people knew it was her. However, Penelope couldn’t just let Cressida, her bully, say she was the brains behind her work. Plus, Penelope was proud of what she had achieved as Lady Whistledown.
She knew people would continue to look for the real Lady Whistledown if she came forward and said Cressida was lying, but she’d rather take the risk than let Cressida receive the credit. “I don’t need for people to know it was me. I just need for them to know it wasn’t her,” Penelope says in the book.
Penelope and Colin’s fight continues until they make up, with *that* carriage scene (IYKYK).
The carriage scene is the midway mark of Polin’s love story. It’s the climax and catalyst that pushes the rest of the story forward. In the carriage, Penelope and Colin finally learn that their love isn’t unrequited and that both of them have feelings for each other. It’s their first big sexual experience together, and after the makeout session in the carriage, they officially go from friends to lovers.
So, Colin does find out Penelope is Lady Whistledown but this discovery played out much differently in Part 2 than it did in the book.