#Bridgerton Season 3

[didanagy]

BRIDGERTON (2020-)

3.05

[dara-90]

[lunibees]

.　 +

⠀˚⣴⠟⠉⠉⠛⢦⡀⢀⣴⠛⠉⠈⠙⠻⣄

⣼⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠙⠋⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠹⣦

⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⣿

⠿⣆⠀ POLIN ⠀⣰⡆

⠀ ⠀⢻⣦⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⢀⡼⠃

⠀⠀⠀ ⠻⢦⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⡴⠛

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠉⠛⠶⣄⠶⠋ ⠀⠀⠀+. *

[a-canker-in-a-hedge]

🎶This is my Colin manifesto🎶

(Please read the above in your best Chris Fleming impression)

Basically I think the problem I have, or rather the struggle I am having, with Colin's arc in s3 of Bridgerton is that I don't think the show realizes the thing it's saying. Bc I think the thing that Colin's arc is about isn't finding a purpose or a meaning or a passion, it's specifically about figuring out what it means to be a man.

(And keep in mind that this is based entirely on the show, I have read the books and i do not consider book!Colin worth contemplating. Luke Newton is bringing the juice tho. I have become a convert. Anyway)

For like the entirety of the first two seasons, Colin is constantly bumping up against the ways that his brothers define masculinity. And that tracks, he doesn't have a father figure, he's the third of three brothers and both of them have fit into really different modes of masculinity. And furthermore, those modes of masculinity really revolve around how they treat women.

Anthony, I love him but like. His main struggle is his paternalism. Anthony is deeply, deeply controlling, and his arc and romance with Kate are both about him learning to relinquish control and more specifically, to trust the women in his life to govern themselves. And we can see that behavior reflected in Colin, but mostly in how he fails to enact it. Looking at Colin's confrontation with Cressida, that's textbook Anthony. And it wouldn't have worked for Anthony because it was, to be clear, a stupid and paternalistic plan, and also because similar plans have not worked for Anthony in the past. But it especially doesn't work for Colin because in Colin, it's an imitation. It's what Anthony would have done, but critically is doesn't work. So that's not how to be a man.

Benedict is subtler, but it's really clear how strongly he defines himself against Anthony. Where Anthony is obsessed with responsibility, Benedict rejects it. Anthony cares about what Society thinks, Benedict explicitly and repeatedly throws in with la vie boheme, starving artists, performance spaces (rip Benedict Bridgerton I think you would have felt really seen by RENT and I don't know if that's a good thing). And we can talk about the Libertine as both a figure of masculinity and also an expression of upper-class privilege and how that relates both to Benedict's art and also his queerness, but the key thing here is that for Benedict, or rather in Benedict, we see masculinity in the rejection of convention and the sense of being above it all, and frankly in his disdain for the women of the ton. He thinks that most of them are stupid. Not all of them, but it's really clear that, like Eloise, Benedict suffers from not-like-other-girls brain. Unless a woman can be one of the guys, he writes her off. I'm really interested to see this explored (again, I cannot stress this enough, wayyyyyy more compelling than the book characterization), bc since he hasn't had his season, this flaw isn't resolved the way that Anthony's is.

So we have 2 ways of being a man presented to Colin, and they both manifest in how his brothers treat the women around them. A woman is either something to be protected, who cannot make decisions for herself, or she is something to be impressed as part of a social game but who fundamentally lacks interiority (with very few exceptions who count as one of the boys). And then we have the third facet of Colin's two frat boy buddies this season (I cannot for the life of me remember their names, I keep calling them the blowjob brothers in my head I'm so sorry), and they're just straight up misogynistic. Like they are just cruel to women. So that's option 3. Condescension, disdain, or outright cruelty.

So alright! That's fertile fucking ground, hell yeah! The point of this is not that these themes aren't in the show, it's that I think the show fails to follow through on them. Bc like. The thing that Colin needs to do isn't find a sense of self. The thing he needs to do is find a way to be a man in society that doesn't rely on treating women shitty. And that's what makes his relationship with Pen both so interesting and what makes its resolution (imo) disappointing. Bc Colin sees Penelope as a person, but by extrapolate logic, he doesn't see her as a woman (hi s1 Colinnnnnn! Baby boy!) The romance in them and the juice of their particular brand of friends to lovers emerges when he sees her as both. Like you can't tell me that's not sexy as hell, *especially* for the fat girl romance. To write a story about a man who falls in love with his fat girl friend because he opens himself up to perceiving her as both a person worthy of respecting and a woman he desires??? That's sexy as hell!!! That's fucking Romance babey, that's the fantasy. She can be both!! And in doing that, it also breaks the binary that Colin's model of masculinity has built him. It gives him a chance to find a way of being a man that doesn't rely on the subjugation of women to be its defining structure. Like that's the juice in there, and they come so close with that argument later in the season with Colin and Pen's fight in the street, and they just miss the mark.

Bc imo, it's way more interesting if we understand the thing that Colin's mad about as not the betrayal of finding out that Pen is Whistledown, or the jealousy that he feels about her writing, but as a reaction to the breaking of his fantasy of her. Pen, in becoming a woman to be desired, loses her interiority in his perception of her. She becomes an object to be protected and coveted and impressed, and when she breaks that illusion by being more complex, by having done bad things and hurt people and been selfish and ambitious and independent, she hurts his concept of his own manhood, because he has begun to define his manhood against his understanding of her as an object rather than a subject. That's devastating, far more so than the gossip that Eloise and Marina have both textually moved on from (I'm so sorry Marina, the show basically forgot you existed and I hope you know that I love you and Pen did you so dirty even tho I love her and also I hate your shit husband, this is a sir Phillip hater zone okay bye), because he might claim that he's angry on their behalf but what is so clear to me is that he's actually angry that he wasn't their protector. He wasn't man enough to save them. Hey, what's that? Oh, it's paternalism again.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Basically, the struggle that Colin is having isn't about finding his passion, it's about feeling emasculated, because the models of behavior he's been taught don't work for his relationship with Pen. She's too complicated, she's too human (all women are too human for those models, but Pen is Colin's case study in this). She doesn't need him, but she wants him anyway. That's discomforting for him, because it makes him the object of desire, and in patriarchy-brain, that's a thing that a woman is. Men do, women are. Men desire, women are desired. That model sucks, and it's limiting. It limits Colin's ability to understand women as full people. It limits his ability to love Pen, and it limits his ability to love himself. The thing he needs isn't a purpose, it's a new model of masculinity that understands his wife as a complete autonomous being with her own agency, who is choosing to love him anyway, and whom he can choose to love in turn.

And I think this is all in the show. I just think the show doesn't quite know it, or doesn't know what to do with it, or maybe doesn't have the balls to engage in actual feminist critique and not just girl power violations of consent (hi season 1...). And that's why I'm so compelled by show!Colin, and that's why, as I return to season 3 for a mentol-illness inspired rewatch, I find it's conclusion disappointing.

[mot-hesbian]

It's even more annoying bc Pen didn't want or need him to grovel???

She was upset bc she heard one of her besties make a comment like that about her immediately after having a massive falling out with her other bestie (a falling out she acknowledges was on her, Eloise haters go choke) but literally all she needed was a simple apology from him????

Why can't they understand Penelope is not some stone cold girl boss? She's a 19 year old dorky romantic who just wants the people she loves most in her life. She didn't talk to Colin because she needed space cuz that comment hurt, but him apologizing and making it clear he does respect her and care about her was so she needed. Because Colin is amazing and she loves him even if, in her mind, her could never reciprocate those feelings. And he isn't a villain for not noticing her feelings or for not reciprocating or not realizing his own feelings sooner.

She immediately goes to apologize to/make amends with Eloise during their first interaction, she knows this was on her for making an impulsive choice without consulting El. She doesn't hold a grudge against El because El didn't do anything wrong (she handled it like the 18-year-old-girl-trying-to-figure-her-life-out that she is would handle feeling betrayed by her closest friend.)

And I hate anyone who judges Colin's behavior after the LW reveal too harshly. Like, the man has always been extremely sensitive, he's a very emotionally vulnerable person and that's a good thing. Accepting that part of himself and raising the people he cares for most don't think less of him for it is a HUGE part of his character arc that season. I love that Penelope doesn't push him or use her feelings against him (like I've seen a bunch of people do in fics) because she knows he'd probably ignore his feelings to take care of hers and she doesn't want that.

She accepts the entrapment comment, despite it hurting, because she knows the situation with Marina was traumatic for him and their current situation has likely drug up old feelings of betrayal. She creates a safe space for him to express those feelings because she loves all of him, especially his sensitive and vulnerable side.

Not to mention that Penelope actually takes accountability for all the things she has done in season 3. She never expects forgiveness and accepts when people need more time to forgive her or aren't sure they can. She questions Colin during the entrapment scene because she wants to know how to handle their situation going forward and to make sure he knows she does actually care about him. She explains her actions, she doesn't justify them (except maybe that scene with Portia and even then it's probably a natural response to go on the defensive in a situation like that with the woman who emotionally abused her her entire life) and I think that's great.

Pen solo fans suck she she would genuinely hate them for how they talk about her two favorite people. Colin and Eloise are literally the loves of her life.

TLDR: If you constantly hate on Eloise and Colin and claim to be a Penelope fan then you probably don't understand Penelope half as well as you think you do. Nor do you seem to understand the nuance and complexities of their characters. Eloise didn't need to apologize and Colin didn't need to grovel or suffer. And Penelope Anne Featherington would agree with me.

me, whenever I hear 'colin should've grovelled/suffered more!':

[softestaries]

Violet Bridgerton is truly gods strongest soldier. Every season she tells one of her children they're in love and every season they scoff in her face before causing seven different scandals to reach the same conclusion.

[beguilingcorpse]

actually hilarious that colin bridgerton returned to london absolutely determined to be in his slut era. he said if there is one thing i am it is a whore. and then one (1) kiss with penelope later he was like neverMIND i am a MARRIED MAN i am MONOGAMOUS life is about LIFELONG PARTNERSHIP ACTUALLY

[acanoeandlifejackets]

Colin: men are simple creatures, just bat your eyes and wave your fan.

Penelope: *bats her eyes and waves her fan*

Colin (sweating): Fuck she’s good.

[allyouneedisteaandlove]

name a sneakier mom than violet "oh you're too tired to come to the ball? what a shame, you're going to miss sweet Penelope getting engaged. well, anyway dear, feel better" bridgerton. i'll wait.

[love-byers]

imagine mourning the idea that your crush could ever like you back and then one night at a ball he crashes the marriage proposal you're about to receive, chases down your carriage, climbs in and gets on his knees talking about "PLEASEI I NEED HYOU SO BAD I CANNOT STOP TJIMKING OF YOU IT PLAGUES MY DREAMS I ONKY THINK OF YOU PLEASE PLEASE PELSSE PLEASE" then makes out with you, finger bangs you, and asks you to marry him

all within like half an hour . colin bridgerton needs to be in jail

[mytimetooutshine]

Married Anthony is lowkey the funniest character in Bridgerton. His rage is still slowly burning under the surface but his wife waltzes in and goes “don’t worry dear it’ll be fine” and he’s just like “yeah you’re soooo right and soooo hot.” As he should

[didanagy]

BRIDGERTON (2020-)

CRESSIDA COWPER

3.06

[dara-90]

I know that’s right!!👏👏👏

[lunibees]

We bring you what happened last week Enjoy it Nice day 💖

Les traemos lo que pasó la semana pasada Disfrutalo

Lindo día 💖

[sirena-de-lunas]

penelope is a better woman than me, i would’ve lied and said i got engaged just to see if colin would cry

[darlinglittlemeg]

Idk if this has been done yet-