We said goodbye to Regè-Jean Page and (mostly) Phoebe Dynevor a long time ago, but to be a candid, gentle reader, the loss of characters on Bridgerton still stings. The popular series has stymied this a bit with other cast members who have wrapped their seasons by bringing them back for an episode or two and, in Season 4, Colin and Penelope actually remained around quite a bit, which I’d found to be a welcome change. Turns out, it was short-lived.
In fact, Nicola Coughlan recently confirmed she will be back in Bridgerton Season 5, but she’s going to pop in much like Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley have over the seasons. She said during the Dish podcast she’s cut back quite a bit in the upcoming season. She seemed genuinely delighted over the prospect. I am not:
Season 5 has started filming already, so I won’t be in it very much. But like I’m always happy to come back. I think it’s such a genuinely lovely job to come back to.But like I have it so good now. I come in for a few days, I’m like, ‘Yay, how is everyone? I’ll see you in two months. Bye!’ Like, they’re working super, super hard.
So, yes, there will be less from Nicola Coughlan once Bridgerton returns to the Netflix schedule.
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But, Hear Me Out...
Listen, this has tended to be the case for basically every star of a season of Bridgerton since the very beginning, with the exception of Penelope and Colin, who were around still quite a bit in Season 4. This came, obviously, after Coughlan’s character was outed as Lady Whistledown, and she tried to figure out her place in society as Benedict was finding love. That storyline is now ending, and I guess the necessity to have Penelope around more often is, too.
Still, I’m not going to sugarcoat this, I hate this for two big reasons:
- Eloise and Penelope are fast friends, and I would have wanted Penelope around a bit more as she trended toward romance. (Though Season 5 will be Francesca’s story.) More on this later.
- While we get POV from characters outside of the Bridgertons, Penelope’s was the only non-Bridgerton character who I felt came off as deeply and richly layered on the series. She wasn’t just a Bridgerton wife, she was Lady Whistledown. Sure, we get POV from Charlotte, Lady Agatha and more, but Penelope to me was the real core of the series, and the one from which all the storytelling ebbed and flowed. It stinks she won’t be around as much.
However, begrudgingly, I suppose the show has been working toward this for a while, and now is a good time for Nicola Coughlan to step back. She’s no longer Lady Whistledown, and a key plot point in Season 4 had to do with a certain someone taking up the quill. So, that bit was managed quite neatly in a way that helped wrap Penelope’s story up.
Secondly, I think we have to talk about Eloise’s story here coming down the pipeline (eventually) here. If Eloise’s story follows the events of the book To Sir Phillip, With Love, it will feature her venturing away from London and to a country estate — unchaperoned mind you! – where she falls in love with a landowner who seemingly only wants to marry to give his kids a mother. It’s a little more complicated than this, but I think what’s germane to this Penelope step back is this: If the series actually ventures further away from London for most of its season, Penelope would be around less, anyway.
I actually think that may have been why Netflix wanted to go with Francesca’s post-John storyline first. In the books, Francesca's storyline played out more in Scotland, but in the show she's mostly been in London, closer to the family. By the time we get to Eloise, whose story should be more contained, it would make sense we'd potentially spend more time away from the city and with the cast less. I’m obviously hedging, here, as Bridgerton has made a lot of changes from the books, but it would make sense. And again, it would feed into the narrative that Nicola Coughlan could pop in like Bailey and Simone and be less central to the narrative.
I can still hate it, but two things can be true at once.
