The day is here! We’re back to Ton, inaugurating season 3! Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” is a choral and effective episode, which puts on the table the conflicts that we will see this season while beginning a new chapter in Polin’s story. Ready?
Here we go!
Change as Survival in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows”
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Although some time has passed since all the events that happened at Featherington’s ball, Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” deals with the consequences of them all. The return of the Ton means reuniting with ghosts from the past and wounds that haven’t yet been healed.
For Penelope Featherington it means being more aware than ever of her new situation. Now that her sisters are happily married—or, well, just married—Penelope’s future isn’t very bright. This will be her third time in the marriage market and no one has hope that she will get married, so what she expects is to take care of her mother for the rest of her days.
And this is Penelope’s worst nightmare. Imagining the rest of her days full of criticism, hurtful comments, and humiliation makes her decide to turn her life and her future completely in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows.”
Penelope is nothing if she isn’t brave so she decides that she will handle her future. Until that moment, she had dreamed, hopefully, of a love match with Colin Bridgerton, but if her cruel taunts did anything last season, it was to take Colin off the pedestal Penelope had put him on and leave her childhood dreams behind.
Penelope resigns that she is not destined for a love marriage, and decides to be practical. Marriage is the only chance she has to get away from her mother, form a family of her own that she truly feels part of and, at the same time, gain enough independence to remain Lady Whistledown.
The Insecurity of Being on the Tightrope
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So Penelope makes a radical change to her appearance in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows.” New hairstyle, new jewelry, and new dresses that make her look beautiful. The problem is that Penelope doesn’t feel that way, and she doesn’t know how to pretend that she does. Penelope doesn’t know how to behave in front of potential suitors because she has never been in that situation and she doesn’t feel secure or confident being herself.
That’s the real problem, her lack of confidence and the way that even though her entire exterior has completely changed, on the inside she still looks the way she’s always been made to feel: too wide in the hips, too uninteresting, and not worthy of anyone looking at her twice. So in that moment, when she’s trying to flirt, Penelope feels like an impostor, like she’s playing a role that no one prepared her for.
However, when Penelope has given up and decided to return to the shadows, Lord Debling appears. And what attracts him to Penelope is precisely that she doesn’t pretend with him like the rest of the women who seek to trap him. Penelope is just being herself and doesn’t try to win him over.
But, as always, as soon as something goes well for Penelope, someone takes it away from her, and that’s what happens in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows.” Cressida is the cruel witch we all know her to be and she takes it upon herself to ruin Penelope’s prime moment by scratching her dress and taking her place with Debling, just for the pleasure of being evil and hurting Penelope… and it works. Penelope, humiliated, runs because she needs to get out of there.
Penelope feels frustrated, angry, humiliated, and ashamed. She feels stupid for thinking that she had any chance of attracting the attention of a suitor and getting married, she is angry with herself for having had hope. And that’s how Colin Bridgerton finds her.
The Return of the Prodigal Son in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows”
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But this is not the first time Polin meets in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows.” The first time Penelope observes him, hidden, in the shadows… and she doesn’t like what she sees at all. Colin Bridgerton returns from his travels with palpable security and confidence, and he doesn’t hesitate to use them to dazzle every lady he meets.
And yeah, part of Penelope is jealous but it’s something much more than that, she is disappointed. After making fun of her, and breaking her heart, Colin is there, flirting with any woman, as if it were nothing. Not only was Colin deliberately cruel to her, but he didn’t even care enough to realize what he did. And this somehow makes Penelope’s heartbreak again.
So when Colin deliberately looks for her, he can’t believe that he really wants to see her. She no longer believes in his sweet words. It’s seen how Penelope puts an emotional and physical distance between them and the cold and dry way in which she speaks to him. As soon as she can and is polite to do so, Penelope moves away from him and Colin knows something is up.
In Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” is the first time that Penelope talks to him like that but, above all, she looks at him like that, with a look so hard and cold that it gives him chills. It’s the first time he feels her so far away. Colin can’t guess for his life what the hell is going on, but he knows it’s serious and he needs to fix it, now.
The next time he sees her, he is stunned. She appears as an emerald, shining like a diamond. And he has to gulp down his drink because his mouth goes dry. She is beautiful and it’s the first time Colin Bridgerton sees Penelope Featherington. And he can’t stop seeing her anymore.
“Good Night, Mr. Bridgerton”
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Colin follows Penelope as soon as he sees her running out of the ball. He needs to talk to her, he needs to fix whatever it is that’s broken between them. She erects the wall and the distance between them again, calling Colin by his last name is proof of this. But Colin isn’t about to let Penelope run away.
And on this occasion, Penelope is not cold towards him, but furious. Penelope takes his words as a mockery. She just got humiliated at that ball, she made a fool of herself in front of everyone and there’s Colin, pretending to be a gentleman while he makes fun of her, again.
Colin still doesn’t understand what’s happening. And he opens up to her a little, he misses her… and he smiles at her with that smile that always disarmed Penelope and now makes her even madder. How can he say that he misses her in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” after making fun of her with his friends?
Penelope can’t help but burst out. She throws Colin’s words about her in his face with a livid voice that ends up choking with pain. She never asked him to court her, she never asked him for anything, she always suffered in silence her unrequited love.
Colin tries to talk, explain himself, and wants to talk to her alone, away from prying eyes, away from the corseted society, he wants it to be just them so he can speak sincerely. And Colin doesn’t realize what he’s asking, because they can’t be alone if they don’t want to get into trouble, but Colin is so used to breaking social norms when it comes to Penelope that he doesn’t give it the importance he should. They have always been like this. But not anymore.
The Most Painful Nightmares in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows”
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Colin’s mockery hurt Penelope too deeply, so much so that in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” the first thing she thinks is that Colin is ashamed of her. Colin, for his life, can’t understand why Penelope would ever think he would be ashamed of her, but really, what else could Penelope think after he made fun of her?
Colin still doesn’t understand the severity of what happened and how deep Penelope’s wound is. To hear Colin say that is to have her worst nightmare in front of her, to see how one of the people she loves most takes all of her fears, all of her insecurities, and what she thinks worst of herself and mocks that. It’s too cruel and she never thought Colin would be that cruel.
Penelope is used to everyone around her being cruel to her, from Cressida to her own family, so she knows cruelty all too well. But if something like that wasn’t expected from anyone, it was Colin…but he did it. And that changed everything.
So, a livid Penelope writes in her column about Colin in a not-very-flattering way for the first time. Although we have to admit that she says nothing that is not true. Who is the real Colin? The one where he behaves like a gentleman or the arrogant man who makes fun of his friends? He doesn’t even know it himself, although he pretends he does. That’s the truth and the truth hurts.
As for Colin, he doesn’t know how to go back to Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows,” or how to fix all of this. But an apology seems the least appropriate… so he soon goes to Penelope’s house to try to apologize to her and, surprisingly, it works.
Forgiveness is a Thing That Doesn’t Cost That Much to Earn Back
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Although Penelope is reluctant at first, due to Colin’s beautiful words that show how sorry he is and how much he values her – seriously, we want to get those words tattooed -, she ends up confiding in him what she is feeling about her resounding failure in her attempt to re-enter the marriage market and, of course, Penelope regrets what she wrote in her column, although it’s too late to change that. Penelope lets him in…too soon for our liking.
At the end of season 2, the show gave Colin’s cruel taunts the importance they deserved. It wasn’t just the words, but who said them. Those words changed everything. They made Penelope take Colin off the pedestal and stop dreaming of anything else with him. Those words made Penelope see someone she trusted, who only a moment ago had told her and made her feel how special she was to him, laughing behind her back like everyone else does.
So we hoped that in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” Penelope wouldn’t settle for a small apology from Colin and a few nice words. Yes, his words melted us, but they weren’t enough for us, nor does it make sense that Penelope vents to him before even forgiving him.
In our opinion, Penelope should not have forgiven Colin so quickly and he should have worked for her forgiveness until he deserved it. It was very noticeable that forgiveness was only a necessary procedure – and that they wanted to get rid of it quickly – to be able to launch the plot about Polin and that is how they treated it, as a procedure, as opposed to the importance they gave it at the end of season 2.
They needed Penelope to forgive Colin so the real plot could begin. And, in a way, we understand it because they didn’t want the story to stay stagnant and they needed to give it a good rhythm, but precisely this conflict needed more time to develop or, at least, not to feel so rushed.
But well, the point is that Penelope ends up forgiving Colin in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” and he, to try to be what they were, offers to give her some classes. Colin has all the confidence that Penelope lacks and he can do this for her, he can help her achieve her happiness. Penelope accepts, although with some doubts because these classes mean being too close to Colin again… and, although Penelope swears that she will set limits, deep down, she knows that it’s too dangerous for her.
The Taste of Betrayal in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows”
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Colin is not the only complicated relationship that Penelope has to face upon her return to the Ton in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows.” Her fight with Eloise, far from cooling down, is still more alive than ever. They both do their best to ignore each other and, although Penelope tries to talk to Eloise, she flatly refuses.
But not only that, Eloise became friends with Cressida of all people. Cressida is not only someone cruel who is responsible for making fun of everyone in the Ton, but she has a special hatred for Penelope, as we saw again at the end of the episode. So this union of Eloise with Cressida feels like a kind of childish, immature punishment from Eloise — seriously, she needs to grow up — toward Penelope.
Playing devil’s advocate here, it’s true that Eloise takes a stand against Cressida’s cruelty and stands up to her but, what the hell does Eloise expect? Cressida was always like that and seeing Eloise continue to stand by her after demonstrating, once again, her cruelty and humiliating Penelope, I think it says it all.
Penelope feels it as a betrayal from Eloise and so do we. Besides a disappointment. Eloise disappointed us big time. So if before we were Team Penelope in this conflict, now we are much more so.
The Shine of a New Bridgerton Diamond
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For her part, Francesca officially introduces herself to the Ton in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows,” but nothing goes as expected. She doesn’t fit in, she doesn’t know how to behave with eligible suitors, she doesn’t have Daphne’s grace… and she’s afraid of disappointing her family because Francesca knows they expect a lot from her.
However, Francesca’s true passions don’t fit with Ton’s frivolity. Furthermore, while her mother hopes that she will find a love marriage or that it may lead to one, Francesca doesn’t expect that, nor does she seek it. Francesca is pragmatic, marriage is the next step she has to take in her life because that is the society in which she lives. She doesn’t expect a real match, just to have a nice life.
But to achieve that, she needs to feel like she fits in. So, in some ways, in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows,” Francesca and Penelope find themselves on the same side of history.
They are both of a similar age but, while Penelope remained in the shadows, Francesca was expected to have the shine of a diamond, like all the Bridgertons, but it turns out that this is not the case. Francesca’s clumsiness equals that of Penelope, so they meet in the shadows for one of the best scenes of the episode.
The Shadows Aren’t So Bad in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows”
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Sometimes we forget that Penelope has been an honorary Bridgerton for as long as she can remember, so she’s known Francesca for many years, which is why we love that the episode gave a nod to this forgotten relationship as much as we loved the conversation they had.
Francesca doesn’t belong in the shadows and, if she stays there too long, she will not be able to come out, Penelope knows this from experience, but Penelope always thought that she does belong in the shadows and Francesca, in this discussion, is the only one who has made her feel that maybe she’s wrong.
While Francesca dazzled the Ton quite a bit in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows,” she didn’t do it with the Queen. She decided to wait to name the diamond of the season, in a kind of challenge to Lady Whistledown…and we’re sure she has a plan against our favorite author.
Lost Opportunities
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The only ones happy in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows” were the newlyweds Kate and Anthony Bridgerton! We love seeing them so in love but their smiles are what we like the most…and we like that they are making sure that the Bridgerton dynasty has continuity too (wink, wink). There is a palpable difference in Anthony and Kate’s smile, and how they look at each other…we love Kanthony!
That being said, it’s clear that they’re trying to make up for the mess of season 2 with these scenes, and while we appreciate the attempt, it doesn’t fix anything. Their season has already passed and it was a real nonsense. That will never change. And fans have the right to remain angry about it.
Also, we don’t like that Kanthony has disappeared from the show. We think it would have been interesting to see Kate acting as Viscountess, introducing Francesca and making sure she took the place of the leader of the family. We get that Violet is very good at it, but the series missed an opportunity to explore this side of Kate that we’ve never seen before.
At the same time, Kanthony’s new departure also means that we won’t see Anthony advising Colin on his relationship with Penelope, or his reaction to finding out that something is going on between them, or… anything. It seems like a waste of both the characters and the actors. We hope to see them again soon and have quality scenes but this seems like a big missed opportunity.
Other Stuff in Bridgerton 3×01 “Out of the Shadows”
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- Other missed opportunities? Benedict. He barely appears in the episode and we hope to see him much more.
- As for the Modrichs, a new life awaits them, and while it seems grand and bright, we guess beneath all that shine there are too many shadows.
- The intro is beautiful!!!! Through the wood, it recreates not only important moments from previous seasons but also key moments in Polin’s story and there are some clues about what is about to happen in the show.
Bridgerton season 3 part 1 is available to stream on Netflix.