Bridgerton fans are losing their minds after it was recently announced that the next series will follow the love story of Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin (Luke Newton) or, as the hardcore shippers like to call them, ‘Polin’.
After the oldest Bridgerton brother Anthony had an emotional and extremely popular storyline in season 2, fans have been speculating about who will be at the centre of the next one, and how they can possibly step it up again.
When the announcement was posted on Monday, the excitement was everywhere on Twitter. If your favourite TV trope is friends-to-lovers then you are definitely in luck.
However, after last season’s dramatic ending, leaving Penelope and Elouise’s friendship on the rocks, some fans of the show have mixed reactions about Lady Whistledown herself being at the centre of the season.
The decision for the next series to be about Colin also skips ahead the original order of the books, which some fans believe will mess up the timeline.
Fans of Benedict are arguing that this season should have been his and Netflix shouldn’t have strayed from the books.
Some keen-eyed viewers also picked up that there were a lot of Polin hints in season 2. When the family played Pall Mall in the midst of the Kanthony romance, Colin knocked his ball through a hoop labelled ‘III’.
The cast have also hinted at the storyline many times with Simone Ashley, who played Kate Sharma, saying she’s “super excited for the world to see Nicola and Luke rock it.”
The Bridgerton showrunner, Chris Van Dusen, expained to Vanity, why they are controversially skipping ahead to tell Penelope and Colin’s story.
He said: “I really feel like it’s Colin and Penelope’s time. Because we’ve been watching both of these actors on our screens since Season 1, we’ve already invested in them a little bit. We know who they are as people.
“I feel like, especially in the last season, there are these moments of tension between them where it’s like, Colin walks up to the line of almost realizing that Penelope has feelings for him but doesn’t quite get there. Instead of treading water on that dynamic, we wanted to push it into their season. It really felt like the perfect moment to tee it up.”
Fans have to remember that, before Anthony’s enemies-to-lovers storyline, he wasn’t favoured among fans and the series completely turned that around. The same can happen for Penelope and Colin and we might just be surprised.
