This is the episode that truly gets into the Lady Whistledown drama this season, and we have to wonder why it has taken this long for Lady Whistledown to be a main part of the storyline for Penelope's season after 2 seasons of it being a large part of other couples seasons. We see the consequences for Cressida after her (false) claim of being Lady Whistledown, she is cut from society, and banished from Court by the Queen, as a result of her claim (this will be important as we get to the end of the season). We see that the consequences go beyond Cressida personally, but impacting her father as well as he is banned from his club as a result of Cressida being thought to be Lady Whistledown, leading to him cutting her dowry. Near the end of the episode at the Mondrich Ball Cressida releases a short Lady Whistledown stating she will be back with a new full length issue.
Image Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix
Whilst Cressida is suffering the consequences of being Lady Whistledown we see several scenes of Penelope attempting to write a Lady Whistledown column, however, despite a lot of scribbling and crossing out we do not see the fruits of this suggesting she may be struggling with how to deal with Cressida's confession. Eloise goes to see Penelope and urges Penelope to let Cressida take credit and give up Lady Whistledown, when Penelope responds that she has worked too hard too long for Cressida Cowper to take credit as it would break her heart, Eloise asks 'what about Colin's heart?'. Eloise reminds Penelope that she is about to be a Bridgerton and she cannot be both Lady Whistledown and a Bridgerton, telling her it is just gossip and to let it go. Penelope's words that she has worked too long and too hard for what she has are echoed by Madame Delacroix later in the episode when her reaction to Penelope saying she will give up Lady Whistledown is that it is her life's work. This narrative from Penelope, and then Madame Delacroix, that is trying to suggest Penelope has been Lady Whistledown over a long period of time is misplaced when we remember that this is just the third year with Lady Whistledown.
It is the end of the episode that the Lady Whistledown storyline ramps up for the drama as Penelope rushes to the printer to publish a new Lady Whistledown to try and get ahead of Cressida's issue, which Eloise believes will target the Bridgertons. When Penelope finishes her discussion with the printer she turns to leave and Colin steps out of the shadow to confront her, setting up a dramatic showdown for the next episode (though it is doubtful if the show will live up to this).
Even though the majority of the drama of this episode is from the Lady Whistledown story we do have Lady Danbury and Marcus Anderson contributing to the drama in the episode as Lady Danbury does all she can to keep her brother away from Violet. It all begins at the church service where Lady Danbury tries to deflect her brother's attention from Violet with one of the widows, this continues at the Mondrich ball where we see her again pushing some of the widows towards Marcus. When Violet leaves the room distressed after talking with Francesca we see Marcus go to follow her, with Lady Danbury in pursuit, and they have a minor showdown. It is here we find out that Lady Danbury blames Marcus for her having to marry Lord Danbury when it comes out she tried to run away the night before the wedding and Marcus was the one to tell their father.
The Bridgertons, as usual, provided some of the best scenes, even if there were not not enough of them. The one scene with the family in the drawing room showed us a small glimpse of the charm of previous Bridgerton seasons that has on the whole been missing this season.
Image Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix
One of the more heartbreaking storylines in this episode is seeing Violet's hesitation after John and Francesca announce they are to marry. At the announcement we see Eloise be one of the first to congratulate them, and be the most happy about their news - contrasting with her reaction to Colin and Penelope's announcement. Flipping this we see Violet initially happy for Francesca, but increasingly less excited as she contemplates the Queen's reaction to the news, this led to a couple of moments where we see Francesca as a complete outsider with her family in comparison to Penelope who is welcomed with joy by her mother. It is obvious that Francesca is upset and saddened that her mother does not welcome John with the same happiness she is welcoming Penelope into the family. At one point Violet suggests to Francesca that they should wait until the end of the season to announce her engagement when everyone can 'slink' off to their country homes, showing that she is not keen for this to be public to the Ton.
Even though the storyline moved forward in this episode, it felt like there was too much happening with all of the characters, and the over abundance of dialogue and different things happening lost my attention at times.
Highs
- The family scene when Francesca announce they are to be married.
- The last night in Will's club as we see John bonding with Colin and Benedict as future brothers in law
- Francesca and John's dynamic
- Seeing Portia's love for her daughters expressed in her own way. Her idea of love is to ensure her daughters are secure and looked after
Lows
- No Kate and Anthony
- The storytelling in general, it hasn't been great this season and this is where it starts to fall apart. At 19 Penelope is not a spinster (as she claims in the first episode), but also Lady Whistledown is not her life's work - she has been doing it for only 2 years. The writers trying to make it sound like something that has been built up over a decade is poor writing.
- The scene with Penelope and Eloise where Eloise takes the blame for what Penelope wrote about her, even with the half hearted attempt by Penelope to say it was her fault, it was clear that the writers wanted to have Eloise take the fall for Penelope's betrayal of her so that Penelope could be easily absolved of guilt.
