Bridgerton is setting up another mystery, Dearest Gentle Reader. Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) was revealed — to viewers, at least — as the writer behind the Lady Whistledown gossip column early on in the Netflix series. (Warning: The below contains spoilers for Bridgerton Season 4, Part 2.)
Though she tries to keep it going once her identity is exposed, Penelope retires her pen in Season 4… only for a “very different author” to quickly take her place.
“So going forward, we got really excited about the idea that we could create a genuine mystery with a new Whistledown, which we never got to do with Penelope’s Whistledown because it was from the books [by Julia Quinn],” showrunner Jess Brownell told TV Insider. “It felt like even in Season 1, when it was a secret, people could Google it and know that that’s probably where we were headed.”
In Episode 6, “The Passing Winter,” Penelope tells Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) that there’s been a change since she went public. “The power I hold over the Ton is too great,” she says, “I’m no longer a wallflower, an outsider. I am a Bridgerton. I’m privileged to visit the queen. Whistledown takes up a space which makes it impossible to deliver good, true, fair gossip.”
The Queen doesn’t allow Penelope to fully step down until the finale. “It felt like story-wise, we did get some interesting material out of her trying to balance being public this season, but it felt like that was as much story as there was to get out of it, as much really interesting story,” Brownell said. “And so I think we were ready for her to move on to her next chapter and be a novelist and obviously be with Colin.”
Penelope retires at the end of her book, Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, when she marries Colin (Luke Newton). “I think we weren’t ready for her to give it up in her season,” Brownell said. “It felt like she had really worked to own who she is. And while it made sense for her to come out to the Ton and to the Queen, it felt like she needed to hold on to that identity a little bit longer. But to be fair, once she’s publicly out, the stakes of her hiding a secret identity are not as high.”
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In Season 4’s finale, “Dance in the Country,” Penelope and Colin are shocked when a new Whistledown pamphlet arrives, with the new writer teasing that they’re about to have “so much fun” with society. It’s apparent from the first voiceover that this new author isn’t quite like Penelope.
“Tom Verica, our producing director, did a session with Julie Andrews, who obviously is the voice of Whistledown, to try to move the voice of Whistledown in that final voiceover to a slightly different place,” Brownell said. “I think Julie presents a slightly snarkier version of her voice.”
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“And I do think that this Whistledown is going to have a different moral code,” she continued. “A different way of writing. She is trying to emulate Whistledown so there are some key things like ‘Dearest Gentle Reader’ that are going to stay part of the column, but you’ll see next season that she’s doing things slightly differently.”
Brownell said the Bridgerton team is looking forward to planting clues — though if you look closely at Season 4, you might find a few. “I think some very, very subtle clues [are there],” she confirmed. “But I’m curious to see what people pick up on.”
It is someone viewers have met before, the showrunner confirmed. “I know who Whistledown is,” Brownell teased. “And yeah, it’s someone in the world. It’s someone or someones in the world.”
Drop your Lady Whistledown theories in the comments below!
Bridgerton, Season 4, Part 2, Streaming Now, Netflix
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