Bridgerton season three part two was released on Netflix this week and fans of the Regency drama were delighted to sink their teeth into Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton’s love story.
However, there is one key character missing from Bridgerton season three who played a rather vital role in the book.
The leading lady of this season is Nicola Coughlan’s Penelope, who is the youngest of three sisters in the series.
Her eldest sisters, Prudence and Phillipa appear in the show with their main narrative in this latest season focusing on their pregnancies and lives with their new husbands.
In true Cinderella fashion, the two older sisters are cruel and unkind to Penelope and it appears as if she is set to live her life as a spinster with just her mother for company if she is unable to marry.
However, in the book, Penelope has an ally who sticks by her side and even helps her when it comes to romancing Colin Bridgerton – another sister!
Who is the key missing character from Bridgerton season 3?
In the book, Penelope isn’t the youngest Featherington sister as the trio had a fourth sister named Felicity.
Felicity is best friends and close in age to Hyacinth Bridgerton, the youngest of the eight Bridgerton siblings.
What is the impact of Felicity’s exclusion?
In Julia Quinn’s novel, Felicity is a key reason that Penelope spends so much time at the Bridgerton house as they both take tea with their respective friends, Eloise and Hyacinth, at their home every week.
Felicity encourages Penelope and supports her happiness and relationship with Colin.
As the most attractive Featherington daughter, Lady Portia Featherington believes only Felicity would be able to snag a Bridgerton in marriage, and mistakenly believes Colin might be interested in the youngest sister.
Portia tries to match Colin and Felicity which becomes a major plot point in the book.
When Colin does ask Portia for Penelope’s hand in marriage, there is a huge kerfuffle and misunderstanding that ends in him yelling: ‘No, for God’s sake I don’t want to marry Felicity!’ as Portia repeatedly fails to understand that he wants to marry Pen!
It seems that Shonda Rhimes, the prestige show creator who is also responsible for other TV masterpieces such as Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy, decided to axe Felicity from the get-go as her character has been missing since season one.
This is likely to strengthen and place more importance on Penelope’s friendship with Eloise – as her only friend – and perhaps also to encourage sympathy for Penelope as she is stuck surrounded by family members who put her down.
In any case, Felicity’s character may have had a bigger role as a friend to Penelope in the fourth book, but as Shonda changed so much of the plot to Romancing Mr Bridgerton her character was perhaps superfluous.
Would it have been nice for Penelope to have one family member who was kind to her? Perhaps.
But do we trust Shonda to make the book even better in her series? We do.
Bridgerton season 3 part 2 is now available to watch on Netflix.
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