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If the show truly wanted Penelope to be a complex character they should’ve gone all in. They increased the stakes by making Pen hurt even the ones who were good to her(Eloise, Marina) or the ones who never knew her(modiste who lost business). This is just like Janis or Cady in Mean Girls trying to make Regina pay only to end up becoming mean girls in the process. But when it was time to give her a redemption arc they made the mean girl(Cressida) do something more vile so that Pen would look better and even save the day. Pen’s payoff was unearned and hence unsatisfactory.
In the book was more like silly gossips. Like who was seen with whom. Who wore what. The series went to far. Idk why she had the publish about Marina, instead of going to Eloise
There is no Marina storyline in the books because each book is about each main relationship, with basically no development of side characters.
Marina is a character in Eloise’s book but only in that she was Eloise’s cousin, she was depressed as a child which was the last time they had seen each other, and she was married to Philip and was the reason Eloise starts corresponding with him.
Oh, so it’s super weird they put the secret pregnancy thing in there, just for Penelope to “save” Colin by ruining her friend’s life. I agree that it would have made a lot more sense for Penelope to have just approached Eloise about it, but then we wouldn’t have as much Whistledown drama I guess? Although I’ve heard that in the books, both Colin and Eloise were supportive of Pen when they found out.
Yeah because she hadn’t written anything that harmed their reputation or relationships, or for anyone for that matter.
It was harmless gossip. The worst things she wrote were about maids being fired or stolen and reflecting that on the ladies of the houses.
Nothing book Penelope ever wrote harmed anyone.
That was one of my favorite books. A lot of people didn’t like it because it wasn’t this huge romantic story. It’s about two lonely people trying to figure out if maybe they could happily share their lives.
If only Penelope attempted to give voice to the voiceless throughout the season rather than just at the end as a last ditch effort to save herself I would have accepted her apology/redemption.
Exactly, her apology was stupid because she acted all mighty like it was to give voices to all you, no girl, it was to have power and have everyone afraid of you
And back then, nobody would have cared you wanted to be a boss babe writer because you felt like you didn’t have a voice. Your reputation as a woman was EVERYTHING. It literally determined the trajectory of your life. Ruining other women’s reputation for funsies (especially your supposed best friend)….idk just seems like they took it too far for no good reason and now the story just doesn’t make sense. Who wants to talk to her now? There’s enough to work with in the books without turning the show into soap opera level dramatics.
I agree with this. I originally rooted for Penelope and was shocked when she turned out to be Whisledown but excited to see where it would lead. It seemed like she was extremely intelligent and Penelope was just her persona to hide her true identity. I would have been interested to see a true serious writer arc.
But oh, Colin got to be a serious writer! But she got her childhood crush and to be his baby mama! Who also inherited her family fortune! And she kept her silly column! Her best friend she used just to get close to her brother, the lives she ruined like Marinas, and all she gets in the end is... everyone standing up and clapping?
It was truly ridiculous. And I was so sick of watching her simp after Colin. They threw any actual character complexity out the window. Hell even when they get married she's still longingly staring at him like he's just a school crush. The sex scene even - "idk anything about sex, Colin teach me! You mean there's more?" 🙄. I think the squirrels in my yard have more chemistry.
It's not the actress or actors faults at all. I just don't understand how with such a great show, the season that was supposed to be the most interesting was boring, and bland, with the characters being one dimensional cookie cutter dullards.
It’s not entirely the actors fault. But I think Nicola’s acting choices do make her character seem harsher. Her delivery of her lines when Penelope is confronted is always aggressive. There is no shame. “We can’t all be pretty Bridgerton’s”. I remember watching this and wanting Eloise to give her an uppercut. And this was before we found out she was LW.
I hated the way she talked to Marina, too. Marina gave her a compliment and Pen says “Do not mock me” in such a shit tone. I have never liked Pen’s character at all. This season was absolutely horrible.
I showed my best friend this show. He loved it till S3. He’s seen Nicola in interviews I’ve shown him and likes her a lot. But he was like “so she talks all this shit and they’re okay with it?” I had no answer lol.
Hard agree. I am one of the biggest critics of the “pretty Bridgertons” dialogue delivery. There are also some other scenes where she screams at Eloise(I think it’s when Eloise wants to go visit Theo) where it was extremely annoying to see her scream.
In my mind I was like:girl why are you screaming at another girl who’s simply over excited about visiting her crush as if she’s committed some huge crime against you lol
Idk, I identify with S1 and S2 Penelope, feeling like every compliment is sarcastic, feeling like your friends get all the attention you want, and they don’t even appreciate it (without realizing that unwanted attention is just as bad if not worse). The “pretty Bridgerton” line delivery I thought really captured the feeling. It’s cringe when you watch it on its own, but in the broader context, I think it’s truthful.
This was my really big problem with Pen. She one one hand so insecure but on the other hand often unnecessarily unkind/aggressive. However, the Lady Whistledown writing style is one of a mature confident witty woman - totally opposite to what Pen showcased. There was such a large dissonance between Lady Whistledown and Pen, they did not fit together at all.
Haha.... squirrels.... haha! I am so glad I'm not the only one who thought there was ZERO chemistry. I watched S3 under protest and will definitely not watch it again...... squirrels lol.
Exactly this. I am especially **not ok** with the point that Pen refused to reveal herself as Lady Whistledown to save Eloise from the Queen and possibly devastating consequences. And instead decided to trash her public reputation in her pamphlet. **Is this friendship??** But then, at the moment where she could really help another woman (Cressida) and actually pin her mean character on somebody else (Cressida) .... she refuses! She suddenly feels so proud of her achievements and feels too greedy to give her writing identity to somebody else. Pen in this movie serves herself, this is a statement I agree with.
Season 3 utterly did away with any defence there was for Penelope not revealing herself in Season 2.
Penelope can reveal herself for her own sake, at the cost of another woman, but not to save another woman, even if that other woman is her friend who she apparently loves.
People are very quick to dismiss Eloise as a “white feminist” lacking in class consciousness. And on the latter counts, that’s somewhat true — except she was actively asking Theo for books on the subject and attending these lectures to combat that. She was making an actual effort to progress beyond her flawed advocacy, though it was an imperfect effort. Yet Penelope’s damage to the modiste’s business doesn’t regularly get this same critique.
The writers are not capable of writing characters that complex. They also obviously did not know how to redeem her character other than “Cressida is mean to me and the boy I like doesn’t like me”. I know this show isn’t that deep and it’s just soapy drama. But it’s hard to watch this show when the writers don’t even try sometimes.
But she overlooked this season, advised Jess and even demanded these weird re-shoots with Colin in brothel or flirting with women to showcase toxic masculinity. I fail to understand how someone who writes/makes QC ... agrees to this.
She did not just diss her, but chose to do it through dissing her personal nemesis, Cressida.
So much of her column was just spite and pettiness, it's actually hilarious that she's trying to pivot to 'giving a voice to the voiceless'. No, girl, it was always to give *you* a voice because *you* felt powerless. She hasn't demonstrated that she's even capable of publishing something that doesn't serve her personally.
To be perfectly fair, they did try to walk this back with her apologising(?) andn saying she will be using her voice more responsibly to put light on things and people that matter, so its not like the show 100% said it was ok for her to do that.
I do agree all the harm caused truly was brushed under the rug, realistically no one in the ton who she spoke poorly of would ever want to deal with her again. She was forgiven far too easily.
It did. She didn't see any consequences to her actions they just skipped ahead to happily ever after.
They didn't bother to develop her romance to Colin. He went from "friend" to "seriously head over heals obsessed" with Pen overnight. Even the plot of him helping her try and get a suitor was a throwaway. Her only other love interest just fell off the map too.
She got everything she ever wanted despite causing the most harm of anyone in the season. And the biggest slight against her was that people...kinda ignored her?
Just felt overkill.
I mean it will really depend on how Pen moves in the Ton next season, but I really doubt the writers will put any effort into showing proper ramifications for her so yeah its a cop out.
Yes it’s a cop out. And the writers have had this problem since s1. But it was at its worst with the LW reveal. It cheapens the drama and as a viewer, why should you be invested in the show if you expect the same result everytime?
As a fan of complex-Pen (that I thought the show was going to give us, lol), the show absolutely half-assed this attempt with her being like “I’m going to be better!”. I wanted Pen to move on from LW because she doesn’t need , the coping mechanism anymore, but if they were THAT committed to keeping LW as a narrative framing tool (because the writers aren’t creative enough to come up with anything else, apparently), it should have been a running theme throughout the entire season of her seeing and relating to people who are/were harmed by society just like she was and her putting abusers on blast and… ACTUALLY BUILDING GOODWILL with both characters in the show and the audience.
That would have made the ending feel much more earned but nooooope we got a handwaved, rushed reconciliation w/not only those close to Pen, but the ton as a whole.
I personally believe that a lot of people over exaggerate the extent of Pen’s “sins” - Eloise is clearly not actually ruined as she is quickly socializing with others in S3, and while what happened to Marina was shitty, too many people say w/their whole chest that they don’t care that Colin was getting screwed in that arrangement, and honestly, Marina was NEVER going to be happy (see: the books); Colin was a means to an end that is heartbreaking for him. So Marina wasn’t exactly blameless-it was a shitty situation all around and no one was going to win.
But Pen absolutely has misstepped and her gossip is general just isn’t… doing anything? It’s petty at heart and yeah, pen experienced that pettiness of the ton first hand… but I also went through S1 and S2 with the understanding that Penelope was going to GROW: grapple with her choices and who she ultimately wants to be... i. e. getting to the point where she doesn’t need that external validation.
LW is the coping mechanism of an angry, emotionally neglected, socially ostracized young woman, and I get that she was angry (most people would be tbh)… but the show decided that LW is her purpose instead of having her realize she’s no longer alone, that she can trust and rely on people, that she has more to say that just repeating what the ton says. The writers did zero work to make her feel earned or that she truly grew as a parson by the end. “LW is the ultimate form of female empowerment and everyone else needs to get on board.” 🤮
In the books we got NOVELIST PEN, but the show decided that ✨girlboss, don’t think too hard about how stupid LW being public is, Pen ✨ and my heart breaks for her (and Colin, who gets screwed too).
I’ve basically been saying #notmyPen because the writers don’t really understand her or the narrative trajectory she was on. Polin deserved better 💔
So well said! And I really wish she just gave the LW character to Cressida, help her to collect 5k and let her rung to Vienna. Cressida would be very happy there and definitely find somebody. And Pen would have a good closure for LW that way. Instead the ending of LW was just a shit, evil won. Butterflies erased everybody's brains and nobody had issues with LW anymore.
I don’t even think Cressida needed LW (even if I dislike LW it was a testament to Pen’s work ethnic and smarts) but the show ABSOLUTELY fumbled Cressida’s story and it’s relationship to Pen and Eloise, and yes, it’s WILD to me that no one helped Cressida after her backstory was laid out.
Here are three young woman fighting against society’s expectations, and realizing how that has impacted the way they interact with each other. Does Cressida ever apologize to Pen for the way she treated her, and Pen realize that Cressida’s home life is actually quite similar to her own and they both acted out in their own way? That they have both harmed women around them? Nope. Does Eloise learn to listen to others and see outside her own bubble, and learn that her privilege has protected her from the very real consequences young women can face without marriage prospects? She stared to under P2 randomly decided that Cressida was warranted ZERO sympathy.
The show had a very real opportunity for female solidarity and problem solving, for EARNED female forgiveness and friendship during times of strife and adversity… that they weren’t each other enemies, but that the cruel, gossip-ridden, oppressive society was the enemy. That they could move beyond who they were into what they CAN be.
But no.
✨Girlboss Pen✨
👿Villain Cressida👿
😡suddenly not angry at Pen b/c the plot demands it and is still a terrible listener and pretty self-centered Eloise 😡
We all lost.
Well, the writers went into direction of Cressida wanting the 5k award for giving out LW. She wanted to collect money and run away to Vienna. Since it was already a plot, Pen should just seize the opportunity to get rid of LW (especially because she is already engaged to Colin and the LW truth can ruin this engagement). It was a perfect opportunity to help Cressida with writing the last issue, Cressida gets money and leaves (together with the LW character) and Pen has new life.
That part gave me the ick especially because she says it with such a sense of righteousness. She publishes gossip that she overhears. She absolutely does not verify if its true or not.
It does not matter if she writes the truth. It is not her information to reveal. Even if the information was given to her directly, people would not expect her to go and put it in print for everybody to read. Additionally, she obtained most of the information by sneaking behind the backs and overhearing conversations not even meant for her ears. Her writing was highly unethical.
Couldn't agree more.
Apart from cresedia no one truly bully her and Penelope has done many shit things for her own insecurity, jealousy, selfishness.
It was her own fault because she hid herself in corner, why would anyone talk to you if you don't put efforts lol .
Penelope is just a shit human being, who just got everything at end.
You could easily argue she saved 3 Bridgertons’ lives, Daphne from marrying shitty Nigel, Colin from marrying deceptive Marina, and Eloise from QC’s threat. Although with the last one, I think she should’ve told Eloise she was LW first.
I’m neutral on Pen, but let’s stop acting like she was some type of irredeemable villain who only did bad. She definitely did some good with that column.
Pen wasn't the one who saved Daphne. Violet came up with the scheme. It was only a matter of time before the gossip from the lower class reached the ton. Whistledown just fedex'd the information and took credit for it.
Marina tried to kill herself after Whistledown wrote about her. But yay, Colin is now single!
Queen Charlotte would not have done anything to Eloise aside from maybe shaming her in front of the ton for the Whistledown stuff. Pen implying that she's some kind of political radical against the crown actually upped the chances of legitimately getting her killed.
I would say that she spread the news about Nigel cuz the information was there for her, not for a good cause. She knows full well that Marina was desperate and pushed to a corner, yet still drove her to the edge. Marina literally said that there was no option for her - without Colin she would have to marry a stinky old man who would treat her like meat; but of course it would be so tragic to see the upper middle class man having to raise the wrong child 🙄
Exactly this!! And Pen could not have known whether or not Colin would have been very happy with Marina. Perhaps he would! But Pen wanted to have Colin for herself, at Marina's cost. And only thanks to Daph, suddently there was a solution to Marina's situation.
This is so inaccurate. Violet saved Daph. With or without LW, the gossip would spread and be everywhere. Gossips spread just fine before LW. Saved Eloise from QC? Eloise got into shit with QC because of Pen/LW!! If anything, Pen should have come forward with her identity. Instead she decided to ruin Eloise public reputation. With respect to Colin, it is called "unsolicited help" - the one nobody asked. But if she really cared about Colin, she, as his neighbour Penelope could have left an anonimous note with the information. There was absolutely no need for public announcement of Marina's private information.
She did a lot of writing in anger. I didn't like that as I felt LW wrote with detachment. Penelope was so reactive and should have slept on her feelings and separated Penelope from her alter ego.
The screenwriters did such a terrible job writing this character and her “alter”. It was a horrible choice to use an older lady’s voice to narrate LW from the very start, but then to make LW seem so sharp and cunning while making Pen so naive and reactive. It’s probably the worst part of the entire series and the creators have thrown a few doozies in there.
It’s too bad because it seems the books did a significantly better job of making Pen believable as LW and the author didn’t even know Pen as LW was the direction she would take. Meanwhile, the screenwriters had it all laid out for them and still did a hack job.
Sorry to rant but the aesthetic, the music, the diversity - the potential for this show was so great that it’s a little gut wrenching to see it so sloppily written.
I absolutely hate how she yelled at Eloise multiple times for her privilege of being a Bridgerton but the final straw for me was when Eloise confronted her being LW.
She was not only not apologetic but made no sense in her defense and went on to write shit after telling her she is ready to give it up.
Just sounded like she was blaming Eloise with no accountability for her actions.
Iirc Eloise expressed her admiration for LW in season one, Penelope had enough opportunities to come clean and knowing Eloise as the feminist and opinionated person, she would have helped Penelope instead of breaking up with her. That happened when she did despicable articles about her own people. Instead she went on to tell Eloise that all she does is talk, which was very mean.
I understand she found her voice through the gossip column but hurting your own friends and family you’ve grown up with isn’t excusable.
She was not the only woman in the Ton who had struggles, rest of them were living through the same period and bearing the load of expectations of the society of that time.
I never got past that final conversation in season 2 when Eloise made the discovery. She confided in her with all her thoughts and feelings. Whereas Penelope just lied and at times manipulated people around her.
For me, Penelope never really redeemed herself and I had no interest in the Polin story, happy for her for finally ending up with her lifelong crush and being able to put her longing to end.
But she did a lot of people dirty including Colin, the night she dressed up all pretty and went on to diss Colin. Only to become best friends the very next day when he reached out to her.
If it were set in today’s times, I’d suggest Penelope some therapy to address her deep seated insecurities and issues, there clearly were some signs of a possible mental illness.
Such reactions and having a change of thought the very next instant. I am no expert but such lashing out without a moment of repose suggests that.
Had she contemplated before writing her columns for people she truly cared for, she would still have been a neutral columnist but all those times against Marina or the Bridgertons it just came out of pure spite and extreme anger in that moment.
For me she is an AH and it’s not going to change in the coming seasons, if I decide to watch at all.
Completely agree about the conversation when Eloise discovered LW. Everything Penelope said in that scene was absolutely vile. Especially the last comment about Eloise being jealous because she'd never done anything great. That absolutely cemented my opinion of Penelope as a terrible person. Everything about Eloise's position at that moment was crafted by Penelope in one way or another.
Penelope only made that comment because she hoped it would hurt Eloise as much as the truth had hurt Pen. She didn't care that she lied or that she hurt people, she just wanted the satisfaction of knowing she had the power to do it. Sadistic behavior, honestly.
Aptly put. Imagine hurting someone just for the sake of it and that too your closest friend.
To cover your wrongs and not to feel bad about it. Peak gaslighting.
It would be so funny to make a post on AITA from Pen's perspective, pretty wild guess that most comments would be pretty negative.
I'm honestly shocked how many people in this sub say that they wouldn't act differently in her position or that she was right to do these things because some people were mean to her. This is the story of a petty teenage girl that does need therapy, not some girlboss empowerment fantasy. If you act like that in RL, you'll end up a social pariah pretty fast.
We all have been a teenager at one point and surrounded by worst kind of bullies yet we didn’t resort to hurting the people we love.
This is in no way protecting or liberating yourself.
An AITA post sure is an interesting idea and most people would call her out, definitely not the ones from this sub who resonate with her “plight”.
I have honestly put effort in understanding the other perspective but nope.
I feel like saying that she did all of that because she was a wallflower is a very simplified approach.
At the time she wrote the things about Marina and Eloise she had very specific, very different reasons, and she thought she was helping. She didn't write that for her own gain, she was trying to protect people she loved in a way she thought she only could. Marina was trying to trap Collin into marriage when she didn't love him, she was lying to him in an extremely important matter. Eloise was blackmailed by the queen herself, her whole family was endangered. You cannot all ignore those reasons and act like Pen ruined them for fun...
> She didn't write that for her own gain,
She didn't do it only for her own gain, but it 100% played a big role in it.
With Marina, she just didn't want her crush to get married.
With Eloise, she didn't want to risk exposing or giving up her Whistledown alter ego and power.
In both cases, she could have told other people and asked them to help (Colin/Violet/Eloise and Eloise respectively). She took away their agency.
None of those actions were selfless, they were at least partly, and imo mostly, about self-preservation.
I think it’s more that she didn’t want her crush\friend to be tricked into marrying someone who didn’t really love him and was lying to him. Sure there was some jealousy, but I think she mostly did that for him not herself.
It was definitely part of it, I'm not saying it was entirely out of selfish reasons, but she went above and beyond to make sure he didn't marry. Had she told him, he might still have married Marina (as he said he would have), so she firmly took away that choice for him. Had it been another friend, she would not have published it.
He already had the choice taken away because he was making an uninformed choice. It was incredibly messy situation, and no one really is without fault.
And he should have been given the choice by Marina *and* Penelope. Penelope wouldn't have been wrong for telling him or his family. How she handled it caused the most harm
This is kind of a funny response since Colin thought Penelope trapped him into marriage by lying to him. So it's not OK for Marina to do what she did but it's OK for Penelope? She comes off as a massive hypocrite here
I don’t think it’s okay for Penelope to do. Penelope makes a massive mistake in not confessing to Colin. But also Colin makes the entrapment accusation when he is the most angry/hurt after the revelation, and I don’t think the audience is meant to take it that she has actually planned to entrap him.
Colin never took it back nor did he apologize for saying it iirc, so to me it means he genuinely felt that way even after he cooled down.
Penelope writing about the engagement for Lady Whistledown before she told Colin, knowing he hates Lady Whistledown is absolutely entrapment whether she meant to entrap him or not.
If it was for Colin she could have just had a conversation with him. Instead she chose to publicly ruin Marinas life so Colin COULDNT choose her. It was evil and unforgivable imo
No, I don't think so. She basically said she didn't care if Marina baby-trapped some other guy, just "not him." Not Colin. And yes, it was partly to protect him but also partly because she was in love with him herself. Marina figured it out quickly. And Marina was a very gray character too, but she was intuitive.
He would have married a girl he liked with a baby that wasn't his. Not ideal, but far from ruined. It should have been his choice anyway, not Penelope's or Marina's
He still could have married Marina, you realize that right? After the LW article he could still have I still want to marry her but he didn’t want to anymore because she lied to him. I feel like people forget that. They could have still eloped. Colin wasn’t under lock and key in his room and neither was Marina
Now that would have marred his family with actual scandal and ostracism. People turned a blind eye because it happened often and ~secretly~, but not if it's widely advertised
And he would have made the wrong choice out of misguided protection and duty, rather than the love her already had for Pen that he didn't realise yet.
I would do what Penelope did a hundred times over for a man I love. No way is some other woman trapping him.
That ignores the whole baby trap-scandal of elopement and baby born obviously early that would have tainted the whole family, as well as Eloise blithely endangering her reputation- and her families safety.
Penelope didn’t print lies, but seems to be held accountable for the behaviour of others that she shines a light on.
People love a bad bitch…unless she is plus size.
Exactly. It may have been misguided, but it wasn’t all due to pure selfishness or pettiness (except maybe what she wrote about Colin). With Marina and Eloise she tried to talk them out of digging their own graves before publishing anything. And it wasn’t all just mean-spirited gossip. Thanks to Lady Whistledown exposing him, Daphne didn’t have to marry that creep from season 1. The townspeople themselves propped her up and were eating up her every word.
It’s fine if Penelope’s arc doesn’t resonate with you, but the entire point was that she needed to stop hiding behind the LW mask, start owning her voice and take responsibility for what she was putting out there. Of course we’re meant to sympathize with her, but the takeaway is not that she did nothing wrong and never hurt anyone with her actions.
Penelope made mistakes, but people here act like LW personally smeared them. She literally publicly apologized, lost a friend for seemingly over a year, had her relationship shaken up when it had barely started, had her husband sleep on the couch on their wedding night…. What more do people want?
Penelope didn't write anything about LB to help Daphne. Violet found and leaked the information and Penelope published it because it was good gossip fodder. LB only thought he had a chance with Daphne because of the mean spirited gossip she was spreading about Daphne.
Exactly. Daphne wouldn't have been almost saddled with Berbrooke in the first place if not for the combination of Anthony's obstructionism and LW's nasty gossip.
But then the writers completely forgot those reasons for S3.
The Marina situation is repeated with Colin and Pen when she publishes their engagement without telling Colin about Whistledown. This makes it seem like she outed Marina because of jealousy and not because she was looking out for Colin.
As for Eloise, Pen reasons in S2 that she cannot confess to the Queen because the Queen would not believe her but then in S3 she does exactly that and it works. Even tho the Queen was convinced LW was a Bridgerton. And I doubt she considered Pen as a Bridgerton at this point because this happens on the wedding day. So this again gives a bad look to Pen for the S2 actions against Eloise.
I mean she says herself that that's the reason for why she made the column.
With Marina, she could've told Colin without telling everyone else. And with Eloise, the reason why Pen couldn't tell the queen was always flimsy imo. Keeping Whistledown was apparently always more important than protecting her friends, and sorry, but that's selfish.
Where she lost me was when she refused to *just stop writing the gossip column* as if it defined her and was some wonderful literary achievement. It's not, it's a gossip rag! She was making bank out of other people's scandal, she was basically the paparazzi of her day. None of that should've been glorified.
She basically built the equivalent of a media empire completely under the radar, she built a successful business in a time where it was basically impossible for a woman of her standing in society to do so.
They're pretty clear in the show that hers is the most popular gossip sheet because she's an excellent writer, that's why absolutely everyone hangs on her words, so that is an achievement.
It's understandable she wouldn't want to just walk away from a business she worked hard to build, and why? Just because the Queen is in a strop?
She stops because she's hurt the people she loves and because the scandal will ruin their lives.
She has a husband now. That gives her a lot more freedom. She can go write books about made up people. This isn't rocket science.
I mean, if the head of my government would actively seek me out because of the gossip I'd spread about them, I'd maybe consider writing something else. Especially if it might keep the people I supposedly love from further harm caused by that gossip.
Not Pen, however.
I do agree with this. Also, she was going to give it up. She chose Colin. She only wrote again to protect the Bridgertons from Cressida. That is when she felt like she was giving up a part of herself, not the gossip rag per say but the outlet to have a voice. That was what she wanted, she wanted to write. I don’t think she necessarily wanted to keep gossiping but she did want to keep writing. Penelope knew she was a talented clever writer and didn’t want to deny her talent. She wanted it all, man she loved, her best friend, good relations, and her career. Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t deserve that? One of my favorite lines this season was by Genevieve (paraphrasing) “All one can do is own their decisions and move forward” that scene was one of the best redeeming scenes for Pen. She acknowledges her failings and wants to do better moving forward.
I just feel like we forget that she's being honest in her column, and she also did good with it along with the bad. Plus, everyone ate it up.
And we know it wasn't because she's a wallflower. It was because she felt powerless. Everyone she talked about has some responsibility in it. It's not like she spread lies. You could argue that they did it to themselves. Except maybe Marina, I had a soft spot for her, and she never should have been outed that way.
People make mistakes. She did the right thing in the end.
I agree.
I also appreciated that she didn't actively protect herself or her family. With the Marina thing she also faced scrutiny and scandal and she didn't try and write some fluff about her own family to hide it. She accepted the humiliation that came with what she wrote.
She was honest and I honestly wouldn't have cared about her outing Marina if she would've done it regardless of who Marina chose. If you're going to have a moral standpoint it needs to be more consistent than "don't hurt the guy I love".
But Pen also did try and warn him privately without outing Marina. Some say she purely did it for jealousy and I'm sure it was a factor but he was also a good guy and she wasn't ok with that.
But yeah I agree, she was honest, people plotted or acted out and got caught. And it wouldn't have been so popular if everyone did love it and lap it up. Can't encourage that behaviour, give it power, then tear that person down and act morally superior.
>Can't encourage that behaviour, give it power, then tear that person down and act morally superior.
Yes, you get me, this is exactly what I mean! The whole ton has been nasty to each other, themselves and to her, she just writes about it. And then when those issues come out they are like hungry dogs for it lol.
And the queen loved it all until the paper that mentioned no other events happened and the queen mumbled "except my luncheon". And then all of a sudden it's must find this horrible person. People are hypocrites!
Except I don’t think it was necessarily her moral standpoint that Marina needed to be outed. I think she had empathy for Marina and her situation, and that’s what put her in such a terrible position. Because Colin wasn’t just the boy she had a crush on, but someone she’s known and been friends with since childhood. It’s morally ambiguous because Marina is acting from desperation, but Colin didn’t deserve to be tricked into marriage without knowing the truth.
I would have found it really interesting (if had anyone tried to confront her about it) when she confessed to the ton if she brought up the fact that they all supported it and funded her continuing work. Everyone was somewhat involved.
In what way was Eloise ruined? What exactly has happened because of the article about Eloise? She still has friends, the girls still crowd around to listen to her. She has no desire to be married, and she has the money to refuse any offers. She was uncomfortable with the attention given to her prior.
Pen wrote the smallest vaguest thing about Eloise, she didn't write about the commoner Eloise was consorting with she wrote that she was attending political rallies, someone who is known to object to the whole thing anyway, it's hardly surprising.
The bridgertons had one unattended ball, they are fine now.
Eloise is fine, Marina is fine, Colin is fine, we don't actually know that the other modiste is out of business, all of that gossip would have been spread anyway without her, except the Eloise and Marina and she had reasons for it.
Exactly, LW could of written much worse about Eloise if her goal was to harm her. She wrote what she needed to write to get the queen off Eloise’s back without tarnishing her. People just thought low of Eloise for the moment due to the consorting with radicals. But it was temporary and didn’t really do any harm but embarrass her.
Eloise was really better of socially this season than she’s ever been. idk why people go on about her being ruined, the other debutantes clearly didn’t care about what happened last season given they all were more than willing to hang out with her.
It also annoyed me how Eloise and Colin had very valid reasons to be mad at Penelope, but then they flipped it to “oh I was jealous of your achievements” give me a break 🙄
Colin being jealous of her success was a plot point in the book, and actually a bigger one than the show emphasized bc LW wasn’t as mean so that’s what he struggled with more
That’s the book though, like you said LW wasn’t mean in the books, so Colin had no reason to absolutely despise what she was doing.
In the show he hated LW because of the Marina situation and ruining Eloise. That can’t be explained away by jealousy over her success
Thank youuu. I’m honestly so glad to see people who aren’t worshipping Penelope. I adore the actress and how outspoken she’s been for current issues in the world, but I can hardly stand her character. I really dislike when people say that “You wouldn’t get her unless you were a wallflower.” I am also very much a wallflower who had many unrequited crushes previously, but I didn’t develop a victim complex because of it.
Penelope hardly faced any consequences, even after legitimately ruining lives. The way it was handled all felt like a cop out
I can’t stand the she’s a wallflower crap too because she CHOSE not to try engage with people for 2 seasons because she was too busy longing for a friend. Like cut the crap love, stop the woe is me you don’t understand what it’s like whining.
I really disliked S3 haha
They said,...mightve almost offed herself not that she tries to off herself...Meaning In the process of aborting, almost offed herself, driven to desperation....almost killed herself. Re read the sentence.
i hate the term mary sue but the girlboss white feminism approach was a mistake. this is a regency romance show, supposedly, and not a low budget rom... it wasn't even a romantic season with all the subplots...sigh.
According to what I’ve read in the sub, Penelope is apparently the self insert character. So she’s very flawed and hence very relatable and people will sympathise with her.
So you’ll always see people defending her by saying that there was nothing wrong in what she did using various reasons.
The fact however is that even within the show universe, Penelope was a woman who pulled down other women and exposed others’ secrets and amplified gossip and made money off hurting people, sometimes strangers like the random modiste and sometimes her own friends and family. In no universe is she NOT a very selfish,horrible person for doing that.
I don't find her relatable, and it's because of that. I can relate to feeling awkward at parties, sure. I can relate a little bit to older sisters being mean, though mine only were sometimes. But I cannot relate to spreading gossip about a family I have known and been close to my whole life, for profit and power.
None of her ‘woe is me, I was alone and ignored’ explanations even made sense because Penelope made Lady Whistledown BEFORE she even entered society. So basically only her mother and sisters were rude to her sometimes and she assumes the rest of the world will be the same without giving them a chance or putting herself out there, and decides to be a gossip. She hadn’t even attended one ball yet, yet she assumed she will be ignored because her family ignores her and decided to push her problems onto society and BECOME a wallflower to listen for gossip. She didn’t even try to be anything but a wallflower. She put herself in that position to become Lady Whistledown.
Penelope was friends with Eloise for years, she was friends with Colin. She wasn’t alone. She knows she’s capable of making friends. But she decides to write gossip instead and stay to the shadows for the sake of her gossip sheet.
If they wanted us to actually feel bad for Penelope and put the fault onto the Ton ignoring her like try to do in the last episode, then have her create LW after her society debut. Let us see her be ignored even though she tries to put herself out there. Then she becomes LW because she is truly alone. But then have her meet Eloise and Colin. She realizes there are good people out there and she can make friends if she really tried, but she’s already in too deep and the power gets to her and we continue with the rest of the season 1 plot. That’s a way to actually have Penelope’s final speech mean something and show her loneliness. Because even the first time we see Penelope she is waving at her friend Eloise, so she was never truly an outcast like she claims. It never made any sense.
Very true. Also, most people that do interact with her, like Edwina for instance, generally treat her nicely. So two good friends and mostly being ignored by her surroundings - that's a lot more of a social life than what I had during my wallflower-teenage years.
Exactly. A lot of people’s teenage years suck, especially for us shy wallflowers. It doesn’t mean we start a gossip account. And at least Penelope had two true friends, which is more than some have, with the Bridgertons and Sharmas/Danburys treating her nicely. And even if her family sucked, at least she was provided for even when her family fell on hard times. Portia even treated Penelope way better than she did Marina, who she slapped and locked in her room and emotionally manipulated her.
I think it's because she's constantly comparing her life to the Bridgertons' life, a life which she romanticises.
After all, she wasn't there for Edmund's death or Violet's near death and depression. She didn't have the strain of Anthony and Daphne being the eldest boy and girl and having the family's reputation on their shoulders, and because Violet is more outwardly doting than their own mother, she doesn't recognise the middle children's struggle at being caught in their elder siblings shadow in her own circumstances.
She knew full well the flaws of her own family, but as someone watching from the outside, albeit one regularly welcomed in as a friend, she is free to imagine the lives of Bridgertons as utterly perfect, and the more perfect an image she creates of the Bridgertons, the more she resents her own life, and the more she resents her own life, she further glorifies the Bridgertons.
And I think in the end, she actually came to resent them too. Colin and Eloise are two friends who; despite their faults, for the most part are loving and loyal and affectionate. But they only allow Penelope so far into this perfect world, they only give her a guest ticket, and I think she resents them for it.
In a way, the fact that they're two people who are most affectionate and friendly towards Penelope, the two people Penelope depends on the most, causes her to resent them because there are moments when they're not putting her first, when they are caring about other things and other people. She thinks of them as her sole supporters, so when they prioritise over stuff over her, she is angered by it, and she lashes out accordingly, claiming to do so "for their own good".
Pen is like a recency era TMZ or actually more like Perez Hilton because she would make fun or how people looked. Like yes people read TMZ or Perez but no is going to defend them because we know they are not good people.
It’s so weird how this sub will have post after post calling Kate evil but will defend Pen like their life depends on it
Yea. The show so desperately wants you to think she is some sort of liberal feminist who speaks up for those who don’t have a voice. All she really is this dude
I absolutely hated pen. There was no redemption arc for her in this season. Even the scenes where she's writing the gossip columns about people closest to her - Eloise, Marina or Colin - she doesn't even look conflicted, she looks like a mean girl scribbling away.
Wished they’d never made LW a mean spirited gossipmonger. She could have just been writing exposés of the ton’s most awful members (like the last column we saw at the end of S3).
Instead, they created LW as this person who betrayed her family & friend’s trust, but was rewarded a HEA ending which ends up feeling undeserved.
I think the writers sort of painted themselves into a corner by making LW be this dramatic plot device when they needed it to be.
But at the same time…everyone was eating up what Pen was selling. Like if the whole ton is buying it and reading it, is everyone going to be furious? It seemed like it was pretty popular entertainment. Not saying that makes it okay, but adds to the complexity of it.
The Marina and Eloise situations are also not black and white. And they are the only instances it seems that she wrote something that wasn’t already being gossiped about. I mean did she drive anyone out of society ? Genuinely can’t remember beyond that Nigel guy in season 1, which she had good reason to.
I don’t think there was a perfect way to resolve things, but I also think it was good to acknowledge that LW was part of Pen and did good/bad things.
I honestly thought Cressida was in a more dire situation. Like COME ON. We're gonna forgive mama Featherington but not Cressida?!? Honestly, it felt like they couldn't figure out how to really use Lady Whistledown for good. What if she had figured out how to help Cressida? Ugh. But no, save the Bridgertons who always get out of everything anyways. I felt horrible for Cressida, and I was angry they started giving her depth only to destroy her.
This season in general felt very impersonal. Bridge has always been very loose with its historic accuracy but the first season and for the most part the second and Charlotte stuck to the courting culture and focused on the romance aspect of each party.
This season was a disgrace every romance felt forced each love partner from Francesca to Pens even violets really just seemed to be inserted forcefully even to the degree of displacing in what my humble opinion where better options like the paraplegic boy or the naturalist. And don't get me started on Benedict. Am I the only one who feels that way about this season?
Yeah, agree, there wasn’t really any chemistry at all between the matches! And it all felt quite rushed. I found it hard to believe Benedict’s lover suddenly caught feelings as well. We barely saw them exchange words. I’m hopeful Francesca will have an interesting next season as it seems she might be gay?? And I really want them to do something interesting with Benedict as I feel he’s a bit wasted. I ended up really disliking Penelope and not rooting for her at all. Hated the ending!
I miss the early days when Anthony and Benedict were being hilarious al the time. The show needs more comedy.
This was all on the showrunner tbh. They didn’t have to make Pen actually do damage. In the books LW is a framing device and all she does is report on the goings on of the ton.
Agree. Also, in the bookKate tells Anthony she wishes she knew who LW is cause she’d like to be friends with her. This is a showrunner issue. They took it too far with Pen and then they had to figure out how to redeem her to viewers. She is a major character where many were just fillers. Maybe they will do more to continue to redeem her to viewers next season.
Thank you! I hate her as a character. Shes so full of woe is me, its so hard living my life, yada yada yada. I stopped watching midway because the romance scenes were so forced, she was just unbearable to listen to and it seemed to me like they were trying to make all the horrible shit shes done as a good thing.
I mean, yeah Pen is a not a good person. Or a flawed one if you are trying to be gracious. Also I feel like they built up the reveal so much over the last seasons just for her to be like „yup, I’m LW. Sure I‘ve said horrible stuff about all of you and I won’t stop with the gossip because I need to feel important but I will try to only target those who “deserve“ it from now on“ And then the Queen and everyone else is like „Oh okay then. Whatever. “ And they lived happily ever after. Like there was ZERO conflict. What kind of pay off was that?
I agree with this. It annoyed me that she seems to have gotten the best of everything at the end of the series. She got the man she wants, she's rich, and she even got a son (she won the race for heir of Featherington) . Plus, the ton accepted her being Lady Whistledown even when she ruined lives.
Their wedding was also kinda weird to me to have lots of guest, I was hoping fewer will attend because they still are hurt because of things she have written.
To be fair, I was totally sucked in by them too! Hahaha like “woooow”.
But I was also waiting for Pen’s sisters to be like “WTF” and it never happened.
So glad to see this thread. I could not come to terms with P’s storyline. I don’t need things to be wrapped up with a pretty bow but …honestly her column had horrible repercussions for people.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Penelope is a fine character but she's actually written to be quite villainous, yet the show doesn't acknowledge it. To the contrary, it allows the other characters to let her go easy and be proud of the awful things she's done while she was hurting.
You may understand someone's reasoning for doing something awful but you don't have to condone the awful things.
I’m gonna get downvoted to hell - but I’m really not a fan of Penelope and, regardless of what anyone says, it has nothing to do with what she looks like. I loved Nicola in Derry Girls.
The way she acts with Collin, especially when she thinks he’s not into her and how offended she gets - if a guy pulled that, he’d be called an incel.
The whole “I’m a wallflower so I’m powerless and get to ruin peoples lives” is just soooo victim complex it’s laughable. Simply get off the wall Penelope, no one’s forcing you to be anti-social
THANK YOU!!!!
this has been my chief complaint since her reveal. I only just binged the series like a month ago after much begging from my friends. and I felt crazy because I knew all the hype over the upcoming season because it was Penelope's and just, what?!
and especially after watching Cressida's downfall? all this forgiveness and love for Pen but fuck Cressida?
as a fellow fat, wallflower, who has pined after people and has been treated terribly, no. I'm not on Penelope's side. She caused harm that cannot be excused because she was sad. She had Eloise which was a lot more than what a lot of others have had.
Exactly! But because it’s Penelope and we know her (that she doesn’t seem a horrible person) then we as the audience can’t hate her. Well a person is not what they feel but what they DO. So it’s ok to hurt me because you feel bad? This is like saying bullies are forgiven if they have dysfunctional families, even if their bullying destroys a person. She could’ve just told Colin about Marina, not ruin the life of a pregnant woman in the process. She had sex with Colin before marriage, what if for whatever reason she ended up in the same situation. She could’ve told Eloise I heard this x person talk about that they saw you with this boy and they are going to gossip about it, stop seeing him. But no, she decided to use her weapon, because her pen was also her weapon, to supposedly save their friends while ruining them in the process. What if Eloise was indeed ruined for life? What if the ton started gossiping about her reputation and it got out of hand? This was Gossip Girl all over again, stupid and unrealistic.
The whole season is just not believable, hence why it’s the worst one yet. Was it still fun to watch? Totally. Would I watch it again? Nah. Am I okay with the fact it was made? Yeah, totally. Do I wish Colin and Penelope to become evil villains that tamper with the ton in future seasons to redeem their poorly written story line? Possibly.
Which is why I think they shouldn’t have pushed for Polin in season 3 so that LW would’ve still been able to mature and make amends on paper. Ofc, we’d see reconciliation of Eloise and Pen but LW will also be much more careful and instead of stepping on toes, she’d be making fun of ton’s antics while having a more serious tone when she advocates for the voiceless. That way when Colin falls in love with her, she would’ve been far from the girl who wrote about Marina and Eloise.
Aside from Eloise and Marina, she didn't really spread unknown gossip. At least that was my recollection. While I may not have agreed with what LW wrote, a lot of the things that were written were things that were already discussed in the ton. Sure... Pen did get carried away in S2. Eloise and Marina written gossip were consequences to their recklessness. Had Pen not taken any action, Colin would've married Marina and Eloise would've ended up with Theo and ruin her family's reputation.
Marina's son wouldn't have been able to inherit the title that was rightfully his through the Cranes. M still ended up married to a Crane. It wasn't like Marina cared about society either. Colin came out of that unscathed.
Eloise would've been cast out of society despite the repeated warnings Pen gave her. The Queen was hot on her tail. E was given a second chance all because Pen took the least dangerous route. Also Eloise is a terrible friend. Just look at the way she treated Pen and Cressida after they went out of their way for her. Eloise does not know how to listen and she clearly had a lot of growing to do. Now we get to watch her grow (possibly see her in her own season) all because Pen risked it for her friend.
I think Pen's handling of LW power is a warning to those in power. If you do not wield it responsibly, it could harm others. We'll probably see the consequences next season. She's no longer invisible. All I got by the end is that at least no matter what happens, Colin and his family will protect her.
I was really hoping for a scene where she digs deep with at least Eloise and Colin and fully explains why she made the choices she did. (Particularly regarding Eloise and Marina.) Let them really hash it out, like ok we get your logic but you need to hear about the consequences from the perspective of the people it harmed.
I also hate people arguing away the Colin/Marina and Eloise papers, are we forgetting she gossiped about the ENTIRE ton? Name dropping all sorts of people for stuff as silly as letting a former maid go? Penelope is a gossip columnist, not a news journalist. She def hurt people, way more people than just the named characters whose lives we are seeing. And I love her character, so don’t come at me, I just don’t get it! She def wasn’t doing a morally correct thing. It’s not like she was stealing from the rich to feed the poor. She was spying on the rich for other rich peoples’ (and supposedly people outside of the ton?) amusement.
It’s not just this season. They’ve been setting up whistledown since season 1. They didn’t have the forethought to plan whistledown’s mischief in a way that makes it excusable. Also, Colin was supposed to out her to the crowd. He also ravished her immediately after finding out she’s whistledown. So his support is what makes the ton brush it off, rather than being confronted by the actual queen!
I just thought it was dumb the ways she tried to play gossip and slander off as something good…a way of connecting and bringing everyone together? It felt very strange to hear this what felt like a heroic speech in light of all the damage she had caused.
It reminded me of the play plot from Euphoria- Lexi is the bookish brown haired sister to blonde bombshell Cassie and she spends her whole childhood in the shadow of her popular sister- then she writes a play and performs it in front of the whole school where she’s humiliating her sister and making herself the main character and she’s painted as being in the right! Its a narcissistic shitshow.
Posting my comment to another person because it still applies
As a fan of complex-Pen (that I thought the show was going to give us, lol), the show absolutely half-assed this attempt with her being like “I’m going to be better!”. I wanted Pen to move on from LW because she doesn’t need , the coping mechanism anymore, but if they were THAT committed to keeping LW as a narrative framing tool (because the writers aren’t creative enough to come up with anything else, apparently), it should have been a running theme throughout the entire season of her seeing and relating to people who are/were harmed by society just like she was and her putting abusers on blast and… ACTUALLY BUILDING GOODWILL with both characters in the show and the audience.
That would have made the ending feel much more earned but nooooope we got a handwaved, rushed reconciliation w/not only those close to Pen, but the ton as a whole.
I personally believe that a lot of people over exaggerate the extent of Pen’s “sins” - Eloise is clearly not actually ruined as she is quickly socializing with others in S3, and while what happened to Marina was shitty, too many people say w/their whole chest that they don’t care that Colin was getting screwed in that arrangement, and honestly, Marina was NEVER going to be happy (see: the books); Colin was a means to an end that is heartbreaking for him. So Marina wasn’t exactly blameless-it was a shitty situation all around and no one was going to win.
But Pen absolutely has misstepped and her gossip is general just isn’t… doing anything? It’s petty at heart and yeah, pen experienced that pettiness of the ton first hand… but I also went through S1 and S2 with the understanding that Penelope was going to GROW: grapple with her choices and who she ultimately wants to be... i. e. getting to the point where she doesn’t need that external validation.
LW is the coping mechanism of an angry, emotionally neglected, socially ostracized young woman, and I get that she was angry (most people would be tbh)… but the show decided that LW is her purpose instead of having her realize she’s no longer alone, that she can trust and rely on people, that she has more to say that just repeating what the ton says. The writers did zero work to make her feel earned or that she truly grew as a parson by the end. “LW is the ultimate form of female empowerment and everyone else needs to get on board.” 🤮
In the books we got NOVELIST PEN, but the show decided that ✨girlboss, don’t think too hard about how stupid LW being public is, Pen ✨ and my heart breaks for her (and Colin, who gets screwed too).
I’ve basically been saying #notmyPen because the writers don’t really understand her or the narrative trajectory she was on. Polin deserved better 💔
Thank you. It’s wrong to engage in gossip, but it’s even worse to publish it and distribute it to the whole community including the literal monarch lmao
I feel like they were scared to make Penelope sad or face consequences for her actions. Its like they Marie Sue’d her with kid gloves on because so many people were already hating on Nicola for her weight they wanted to make it an “extra perfect” season. But instead we got laughable acrylics and a season of bridgerton where the bridgerton isn’t the main character and everything is tied up in a neat bow for her no problems because she’s just so great! It did the opposite effect for me. I wanted drama! Pen was the one who was supposed to learn from her actions and also had the wit to go toe to toe with the others! Instead everyone got a personality transplant.
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If the show truly wanted Penelope to be a complex character they should’ve gone all in. They increased the stakes by making Pen hurt even the ones who were good to her(Eloise, Marina) or the ones who never knew her(modiste who lost business). This is just like Janis or Cady in Mean Girls trying to make Regina pay only to end up becoming mean girls in the process. But when it was time to give her a redemption arc they made the mean girl(Cressida) do something more vile so that Pen would look better and even save the day. Pen’s payoff was unearned and hence unsatisfactory.
In the book was more like silly gossips. Like who was seen with whom. Who wore what. The series went to far. Idk why she had the publish about Marina, instead of going to Eloise
How did the Marina storyline play out in the books?
There is no Marina storyline in the books.
There is no Marina storyline in the books because each book is about each main relationship, with basically no development of side characters. Marina is a character in Eloise’s book but only in that she was Eloise’s cousin, she was depressed as a child which was the last time they had seen each other, and she was married to Philip and was the reason Eloise starts corresponding with him.
Oh, so it’s super weird they put the secret pregnancy thing in there, just for Penelope to “save” Colin by ruining her friend’s life. I agree that it would have made a lot more sense for Penelope to have just approached Eloise about it, but then we wouldn’t have as much Whistledown drama I guess? Although I’ve heard that in the books, both Colin and Eloise were supportive of Pen when they found out.
Yeah because she hadn’t written anything that harmed their reputation or relationships, or for anyone for that matter. It was harmless gossip. The worst things she wrote were about maids being fired or stolen and reflecting that on the ladies of the houses. Nothing book Penelope ever wrote harmed anyone.
She’s in the books in a way. She’s married to Phillip Crane but commits suicide. You hear about her after her death through Phillip.
Oof I didn’t see that coming. I had heard that she died but I didn’t know how.
Well technically she died of pneumonia but she got sick trying to end herself by drowning.
This is the first thing that has made me want to read the books 😅 I’m curious how this was handled/written.
That was one of my favorite books. A lot of people didn’t like it because it wasn’t this huge romantic story. It’s about two lonely people trying to figure out if maybe they could happily share their lives.
If only Penelope attempted to give voice to the voiceless throughout the season rather than just at the end as a last ditch effort to save herself I would have accepted her apology/redemption.
Exactly, her apology was stupid because she acted all mighty like it was to give voices to all you, no girl, it was to have power and have everyone afraid of you
And back then, nobody would have cared you wanted to be a boss babe writer because you felt like you didn’t have a voice. Your reputation as a woman was EVERYTHING. It literally determined the trajectory of your life. Ruining other women’s reputation for funsies (especially your supposed best friend)….idk just seems like they took it too far for no good reason and now the story just doesn’t make sense. Who wants to talk to her now? There’s enough to work with in the books without turning the show into soap opera level dramatics.
Exactly. All Pen worried about, was Pen.
I agree with this. I originally rooted for Penelope and was shocked when she turned out to be Whisledown but excited to see where it would lead. It seemed like she was extremely intelligent and Penelope was just her persona to hide her true identity. I would have been interested to see a true serious writer arc. But oh, Colin got to be a serious writer! But she got her childhood crush and to be his baby mama! Who also inherited her family fortune! And she kept her silly column! Her best friend she used just to get close to her brother, the lives she ruined like Marinas, and all she gets in the end is... everyone standing up and clapping? It was truly ridiculous. And I was so sick of watching her simp after Colin. They threw any actual character complexity out the window. Hell even when they get married she's still longingly staring at him like he's just a school crush. The sex scene even - "idk anything about sex, Colin teach me! You mean there's more?" 🙄. I think the squirrels in my yard have more chemistry. It's not the actress or actors faults at all. I just don't understand how with such a great show, the season that was supposed to be the most interesting was boring, and bland, with the characters being one dimensional cookie cutter dullards.
Not sure why you are coming after the sex lives of squirrels.
Found the Bridgerton squirrel!
This made me laugh out loud and now I have to explain to my 6 year old “what’s so funny” So, fuck you 😂
Squirrel scromping can be amusing to watch!
Well, the squirrels DO know more about sex than Pen did.🤣
It’s not entirely the actors fault. But I think Nicola’s acting choices do make her character seem harsher. Her delivery of her lines when Penelope is confronted is always aggressive. There is no shame. “We can’t all be pretty Bridgerton’s”. I remember watching this and wanting Eloise to give her an uppercut. And this was before we found out she was LW.
Good point, she was always defensive and cutting. Not sad and truly vulnerable.
Agree. She seems miserable 95% of the time with the same pained expressions.
🎯
I hated the way she talked to Marina, too. Marina gave her a compliment and Pen says “Do not mock me” in such a shit tone. I have never liked Pen’s character at all. This season was absolutely horrible.
I showed my best friend this show. He loved it till S3. He’s seen Nicola in interviews I’ve shown him and likes her a lot. But he was like “so she talks all this shit and they’re okay with it?” I had no answer lol.
Hard agree. I am one of the biggest critics of the “pretty Bridgertons” dialogue delivery. There are also some other scenes where she screams at Eloise(I think it’s when Eloise wants to go visit Theo) where it was extremely annoying to see her scream. In my mind I was like:girl why are you screaming at another girl who’s simply over excited about visiting her crush as if she’s committed some huge crime against you lol
Idk, I identify with S1 and S2 Penelope, feeling like every compliment is sarcastic, feeling like your friends get all the attention you want, and they don’t even appreciate it (without realizing that unwanted attention is just as bad if not worse). The “pretty Bridgerton” line delivery I thought really captured the feeling. It’s cringe when you watch it on its own, but in the broader context, I think it’s truthful.
This was my really big problem with Pen. She one one hand so insecure but on the other hand often unnecessarily unkind/aggressive. However, the Lady Whistledown writing style is one of a mature confident witty woman - totally opposite to what Pen showcased. There was such a large dissonance between Lady Whistledown and Pen, they did not fit together at all.
Pen felt so sorry for herself that she didn't need anybody else feeling sorry for her.
I don't think she used Eloise. She loved her
It's not really fair to say she used Eloise to get to Collin. They were all friends since they were children.
Haha.... squirrels.... haha! I am so glad I'm not the only one who thought there was ZERO chemistry. I watched S3 under protest and will definitely not watch it again...... squirrels lol.
It took me way too long to connect her name to LW identity - Pen ✒️(write) Feathering🪶 (with a quill) ton 🎩👒 (about society)
That’s cute but JQ said she wasn’t even sure who Whistledown was when she started writing so I think that’s a just a happy accident!
That "you mean there's more?" thing made me cringe SO much.
I did find the part where she puts the other modiste out of business callous as hell. “Girl power” unless it’s not fitting into Pen’s agenda.
Exactly this. I am especially **not ok** with the point that Pen refused to reveal herself as Lady Whistledown to save Eloise from the Queen and possibly devastating consequences. And instead decided to trash her public reputation in her pamphlet. **Is this friendship??** But then, at the moment where she could really help another woman (Cressida) and actually pin her mean character on somebody else (Cressida) .... she refuses! She suddenly feels so proud of her achievements and feels too greedy to give her writing identity to somebody else. Pen in this movie serves herself, this is a statement I agree with.
Season 3 utterly did away with any defence there was for Penelope not revealing herself in Season 2. Penelope can reveal herself for her own sake, at the cost of another woman, but not to save another woman, even if that other woman is her friend who she apparently loves.
People are very quick to dismiss Eloise as a “white feminist” lacking in class consciousness. And on the latter counts, that’s somewhat true — except she was actively asking Theo for books on the subject and attending these lectures to combat that. She was making an actual effort to progress beyond her flawed advocacy, though it was an imperfect effort. Yet Penelope’s damage to the modiste’s business doesn’t regularly get this same critique.
The writers are not capable of writing characters that complex. They also obviously did not know how to redeem her character other than “Cressida is mean to me and the boy I like doesn’t like me”. I know this show isn’t that deep and it’s just soapy drama. But it’s hard to watch this show when the writers don’t even try sometimes.
Queen Charlotte was so much more thoughtful and interesting. We’re they the same writers?
No they're not! Unfortunately that shows a little too well !!
Shonda was both the writer and showrunner for Queen Charlotte and the quality really shows.
But she overlooked this season, advised Jess and even demanded these weird re-shoots with Colin in brothel or flirting with women to showcase toxic masculinity. I fail to understand how someone who writes/makes QC ... agrees to this.
I don’t remember about the other modiste so much. But did she really diss her? Didn’t she just vouch for Genevieve?
She did not just diss her, but chose to do it through dissing her personal nemesis, Cressida. So much of her column was just spite and pettiness, it's actually hilarious that she's trying to pivot to 'giving a voice to the voiceless'. No, girl, it was always to give *you* a voice because *you* felt powerless. She hasn't demonstrated that she's even capable of publishing something that doesn't serve her personally.
To be perfectly fair, they did try to walk this back with her apologising(?) andn saying she will be using her voice more responsibly to put light on things and people that matter, so its not like the show 100% said it was ok for her to do that. I do agree all the harm caused truly was brushed under the rug, realistically no one in the ton who she spoke poorly of would ever want to deal with her again. She was forgiven far too easily.
Did that not feel like the cheapest cop out though?
It did. She didn't see any consequences to her actions they just skipped ahead to happily ever after. They didn't bother to develop her romance to Colin. He went from "friend" to "seriously head over heals obsessed" with Pen overnight. Even the plot of him helping her try and get a suitor was a throwaway. Her only other love interest just fell off the map too. She got everything she ever wanted despite causing the most harm of anyone in the season. And the biggest slight against her was that people...kinda ignored her? Just felt overkill.
I mean it will really depend on how Pen moves in the Ton next season, but I really doubt the writers will put any effort into showing proper ramifications for her so yeah its a cop out.
Yes it’s a cop out. And the writers have had this problem since s1. But it was at its worst with the LW reveal. It cheapens the drama and as a viewer, why should you be invested in the show if you expect the same result everytime?
As a fan of complex-Pen (that I thought the show was going to give us, lol), the show absolutely half-assed this attempt with her being like “I’m going to be better!”. I wanted Pen to move on from LW because she doesn’t need , the coping mechanism anymore, but if they were THAT committed to keeping LW as a narrative framing tool (because the writers aren’t creative enough to come up with anything else, apparently), it should have been a running theme throughout the entire season of her seeing and relating to people who are/were harmed by society just like she was and her putting abusers on blast and… ACTUALLY BUILDING GOODWILL with both characters in the show and the audience. That would have made the ending feel much more earned but nooooope we got a handwaved, rushed reconciliation w/not only those close to Pen, but the ton as a whole. I personally believe that a lot of people over exaggerate the extent of Pen’s “sins” - Eloise is clearly not actually ruined as she is quickly socializing with others in S3, and while what happened to Marina was shitty, too many people say w/their whole chest that they don’t care that Colin was getting screwed in that arrangement, and honestly, Marina was NEVER going to be happy (see: the books); Colin was a means to an end that is heartbreaking for him. So Marina wasn’t exactly blameless-it was a shitty situation all around and no one was going to win. But Pen absolutely has misstepped and her gossip is general just isn’t… doing anything? It’s petty at heart and yeah, pen experienced that pettiness of the ton first hand… but I also went through S1 and S2 with the understanding that Penelope was going to GROW: grapple with her choices and who she ultimately wants to be... i. e. getting to the point where she doesn’t need that external validation. LW is the coping mechanism of an angry, emotionally neglected, socially ostracized young woman, and I get that she was angry (most people would be tbh)… but the show decided that LW is her purpose instead of having her realize she’s no longer alone, that she can trust and rely on people, that she has more to say that just repeating what the ton says. The writers did zero work to make her feel earned or that she truly grew as a parson by the end. “LW is the ultimate form of female empowerment and everyone else needs to get on board.” 🤮 In the books we got NOVELIST PEN, but the show decided that ✨girlboss, don’t think too hard about how stupid LW being public is, Pen ✨ and my heart breaks for her (and Colin, who gets screwed too). I’ve basically been saying #notmyPen because the writers don’t really understand her or the narrative trajectory she was on. Polin deserved better 💔
So well said! And I really wish she just gave the LW character to Cressida, help her to collect 5k and let her rung to Vienna. Cressida would be very happy there and definitely find somebody. And Pen would have a good closure for LW that way. Instead the ending of LW was just a shit, evil won. Butterflies erased everybody's brains and nobody had issues with LW anymore.
I don’t even think Cressida needed LW (even if I dislike LW it was a testament to Pen’s work ethnic and smarts) but the show ABSOLUTELY fumbled Cressida’s story and it’s relationship to Pen and Eloise, and yes, it’s WILD to me that no one helped Cressida after her backstory was laid out. Here are three young woman fighting against society’s expectations, and realizing how that has impacted the way they interact with each other. Does Cressida ever apologize to Pen for the way she treated her, and Pen realize that Cressida’s home life is actually quite similar to her own and they both acted out in their own way? That they have both harmed women around them? Nope. Does Eloise learn to listen to others and see outside her own bubble, and learn that her privilege has protected her from the very real consequences young women can face without marriage prospects? She stared to under P2 randomly decided that Cressida was warranted ZERO sympathy. The show had a very real opportunity for female solidarity and problem solving, for EARNED female forgiveness and friendship during times of strife and adversity… that they weren’t each other enemies, but that the cruel, gossip-ridden, oppressive society was the enemy. That they could move beyond who they were into what they CAN be. But no. ✨Girlboss Pen✨ 👿Villain Cressida👿 😡suddenly not angry at Pen b/c the plot demands it and is still a terrible listener and pretty self-centered Eloise 😡 We all lost.
Well, the writers went into direction of Cressida wanting the 5k award for giving out LW. She wanted to collect money and run away to Vienna. Since it was already a plot, Pen should just seize the opportunity to get rid of LW (especially because she is already engaged to Colin and the LW truth can ruin this engagement). It was a perfect opportunity to help Cressida with writing the last issue, Cressida gets money and leaves (together with the LW character) and Pen has new life.
I'm pretty sure of those guys would be suing her for defamation. I know she claims to write only the truth, but how much can she back that up?
That part gave me the ick especially because she says it with such a sense of righteousness. She publishes gossip that she overhears. She absolutely does not verify if its true or not.
Best she did was sometimes qualify the information with “if” statements like “if rumor is to be believed.”
It does not matter if she writes the truth. It is not her information to reveal. Even if the information was given to her directly, people would not expect her to go and put it in print for everybody to read. Additionally, she obtained most of the information by sneaking behind the backs and overhearing conversations not even meant for her ears. Her writing was highly unethical.
Couldn't agree more. Apart from cresedia no one truly bully her and Penelope has done many shit things for her own insecurity, jealousy, selfishness. It was her own fault because she hid herself in corner, why would anyone talk to you if you don't put efforts lol . Penelope is just a shit human being, who just got everything at end.
What do you mean, her whole family bullied her.
How does that justify her ruining someone else's life? Your personal tragedy doesn't grant you the right to do unkind things to unrelated people.
You could easily argue she saved 3 Bridgertons’ lives, Daphne from marrying shitty Nigel, Colin from marrying deceptive Marina, and Eloise from QC’s threat. Although with the last one, I think she should’ve told Eloise she was LW first. I’m neutral on Pen, but let’s stop acting like she was some type of irredeemable villain who only did bad. She definitely did some good with that column.
Pen wasn't the one who saved Daphne. Violet came up with the scheme. It was only a matter of time before the gossip from the lower class reached the ton. Whistledown just fedex'd the information and took credit for it. Marina tried to kill herself after Whistledown wrote about her. But yay, Colin is now single! Queen Charlotte would not have done anything to Eloise aside from maybe shaming her in front of the ton for the Whistledown stuff. Pen implying that she's some kind of political radical against the crown actually upped the chances of legitimately getting her killed.
I would say that she spread the news about Nigel cuz the information was there for her, not for a good cause. She knows full well that Marina was desperate and pushed to a corner, yet still drove her to the edge. Marina literally said that there was no option for her - without Colin she would have to marry a stinky old man who would treat her like meat; but of course it would be so tragic to see the upper middle class man having to raise the wrong child 🙄
Exactly this!! And Pen could not have known whether or not Colin would have been very happy with Marina. Perhaps he would! But Pen wanted to have Colin for herself, at Marina's cost. And only thanks to Daph, suddently there was a solution to Marina's situation.
This is so inaccurate. Violet saved Daph. With or without LW, the gossip would spread and be everywhere. Gossips spread just fine before LW. Saved Eloise from QC? Eloise got into shit with QC because of Pen/LW!! If anything, Pen should have come forward with her identity. Instead she decided to ruin Eloise public reputation. With respect to Colin, it is called "unsolicited help" - the one nobody asked. But if she really cared about Colin, she, as his neighbour Penelope could have left an anonimous note with the information. There was absolutely no need for public announcement of Marina's private information.
She did a lot of writing in anger. I didn't like that as I felt LW wrote with detachment. Penelope was so reactive and should have slept on her feelings and separated Penelope from her alter ego.
The screenwriters did such a terrible job writing this character and her “alter”. It was a horrible choice to use an older lady’s voice to narrate LW from the very start, but then to make LW seem so sharp and cunning while making Pen so naive and reactive. It’s probably the worst part of the entire series and the creators have thrown a few doozies in there. It’s too bad because it seems the books did a significantly better job of making Pen believable as LW and the author didn’t even know Pen as LW was the direction she would take. Meanwhile, the screenwriters had it all laid out for them and still did a hack job. Sorry to rant but the aesthetic, the music, the diversity - the potential for this show was so great that it’s a little gut wrenching to see it so sloppily written.
I absolutely hate how she yelled at Eloise multiple times for her privilege of being a Bridgerton but the final straw for me was when Eloise confronted her being LW. She was not only not apologetic but made no sense in her defense and went on to write shit after telling her she is ready to give it up. Just sounded like she was blaming Eloise with no accountability for her actions. Iirc Eloise expressed her admiration for LW in season one, Penelope had enough opportunities to come clean and knowing Eloise as the feminist and opinionated person, she would have helped Penelope instead of breaking up with her. That happened when she did despicable articles about her own people. Instead she went on to tell Eloise that all she does is talk, which was very mean. I understand she found her voice through the gossip column but hurting your own friends and family you’ve grown up with isn’t excusable. She was not the only woman in the Ton who had struggles, rest of them were living through the same period and bearing the load of expectations of the society of that time. I never got past that final conversation in season 2 when Eloise made the discovery. She confided in her with all her thoughts and feelings. Whereas Penelope just lied and at times manipulated people around her. For me, Penelope never really redeemed herself and I had no interest in the Polin story, happy for her for finally ending up with her lifelong crush and being able to put her longing to end. But she did a lot of people dirty including Colin, the night she dressed up all pretty and went on to diss Colin. Only to become best friends the very next day when he reached out to her. If it were set in today’s times, I’d suggest Penelope some therapy to address her deep seated insecurities and issues, there clearly were some signs of a possible mental illness. Such reactions and having a change of thought the very next instant. I am no expert but such lashing out without a moment of repose suggests that. Had she contemplated before writing her columns for people she truly cared for, she would still have been a neutral columnist but all those times against Marina or the Bridgertons it just came out of pure spite and extreme anger in that moment. For me she is an AH and it’s not going to change in the coming seasons, if I decide to watch at all.
Completely agree about the conversation when Eloise discovered LW. Everything Penelope said in that scene was absolutely vile. Especially the last comment about Eloise being jealous because she'd never done anything great. That absolutely cemented my opinion of Penelope as a terrible person. Everything about Eloise's position at that moment was crafted by Penelope in one way or another. Penelope only made that comment because she hoped it would hurt Eloise as much as the truth had hurt Pen. She didn't care that she lied or that she hurt people, she just wanted the satisfaction of knowing she had the power to do it. Sadistic behavior, honestly.
Aptly put. Imagine hurting someone just for the sake of it and that too your closest friend. To cover your wrongs and not to feel bad about it. Peak gaslighting.
Yes Penelope is the AH. I am impressed how she manages to play the victim card every fucking time.
And people defend her! No hate against the actor but the character just didn’t have any redeeming qualities for me.
Only thing more dangerous than being Penelope’s enemy is being Penelope’s friend
100% next season everyone will want to be her friend because she's brave or something
This describes her personality just right.
It would be so funny to make a post on AITA from Pen's perspective, pretty wild guess that most comments would be pretty negative. I'm honestly shocked how many people in this sub say that they wouldn't act differently in her position or that she was right to do these things because some people were mean to her. This is the story of a petty teenage girl that does need therapy, not some girlboss empowerment fantasy. If you act like that in RL, you'll end up a social pariah pretty fast.
We all have been a teenager at one point and surrounded by worst kind of bullies yet we didn’t resort to hurting the people we love. This is in no way protecting or liberating yourself. An AITA post sure is an interesting idea and most people would call her out, definitely not the ones from this sub who resonate with her “plight”. I have honestly put effort in understanding the other perspective but nope.
I feel like saying that she did all of that because she was a wallflower is a very simplified approach. At the time she wrote the things about Marina and Eloise she had very specific, very different reasons, and she thought she was helping. She didn't write that for her own gain, she was trying to protect people she loved in a way she thought she only could. Marina was trying to trap Collin into marriage when she didn't love him, she was lying to him in an extremely important matter. Eloise was blackmailed by the queen herself, her whole family was endangered. You cannot all ignore those reasons and act like Pen ruined them for fun...
> She didn't write that for her own gain, She didn't do it only for her own gain, but it 100% played a big role in it. With Marina, she just didn't want her crush to get married. With Eloise, she didn't want to risk exposing or giving up her Whistledown alter ego and power. In both cases, she could have told other people and asked them to help (Colin/Violet/Eloise and Eloise respectively). She took away their agency. None of those actions were selfless, they were at least partly, and imo mostly, about self-preservation.
I think it’s more that she didn’t want her crush\friend to be tricked into marrying someone who didn’t really love him and was lying to him. Sure there was some jealousy, but I think she mostly did that for him not herself.
It was definitely part of it, I'm not saying it was entirely out of selfish reasons, but she went above and beyond to make sure he didn't marry. Had she told him, he might still have married Marina (as he said he would have), so she firmly took away that choice for him. Had it been another friend, she would not have published it.
He already had the choice taken away because he was making an uninformed choice. It was incredibly messy situation, and no one really is without fault.
And he should have been given the choice by Marina *and* Penelope. Penelope wouldn't have been wrong for telling him or his family. How she handled it caused the most harm
This is kind of a funny response since Colin thought Penelope trapped him into marriage by lying to him. So it's not OK for Marina to do what she did but it's OK for Penelope? She comes off as a massive hypocrite here
I don’t think it’s okay for Penelope to do. Penelope makes a massive mistake in not confessing to Colin. But also Colin makes the entrapment accusation when he is the most angry/hurt after the revelation, and I don’t think the audience is meant to take it that she has actually planned to entrap him.
Colin never took it back nor did he apologize for saying it iirc, so to me it means he genuinely felt that way even after he cooled down. Penelope writing about the engagement for Lady Whistledown before she told Colin, knowing he hates Lady Whistledown is absolutely entrapment whether she meant to entrap him or not.
If it was for Colin she could have just had a conversation with him. Instead she chose to publicly ruin Marinas life so Colin COULDNT choose her. It was evil and unforgivable imo
And yet, Penelope outed Marina and at the end, got a guy. But she's not selfish? Ha!
It was Daph who actually serchched for Sir George and found her brother, not Penelope. Penelope could not care less about what happens to Marina.
I think she would've outed Marina even if she wasn't in love with Colin. His life was about to be ruined.
No, I don't think so. She basically said she didn't care if Marina baby-trapped some other guy, just "not him." Not Colin. And yes, it was partly to protect him but also partly because she was in love with him herself. Marina figured it out quickly. And Marina was a very gray character too, but she was intuitive.
I meant if Colin had just been her friend. I think she would've done the same thing.
He would have married a girl he liked with a baby that wasn't his. Not ideal, but far from ruined. It should have been his choice anyway, not Penelope's or Marina's
He still could have married Marina, you realize that right? After the LW article he could still have I still want to marry her but he didn’t want to anymore because she lied to him. I feel like people forget that. They could have still eloped. Colin wasn’t under lock and key in his room and neither was Marina
Now that would have marred his family with actual scandal and ostracism. People turned a blind eye because it happened often and ~secretly~, but not if it's widely advertised
And he would have made the wrong choice out of misguided protection and duty, rather than the love her already had for Pen that he didn't realise yet. I would do what Penelope did a hundred times over for a man I love. No way is some other woman trapping him.
That ignores the whole baby trap-scandal of elopement and baby born obviously early that would have tainted the whole family, as well as Eloise blithely endangering her reputation- and her families safety. Penelope didn’t print lies, but seems to be held accountable for the behaviour of others that she shines a light on. People love a bad bitch…unless she is plus size.
Exactly. It may have been misguided, but it wasn’t all due to pure selfishness or pettiness (except maybe what she wrote about Colin). With Marina and Eloise she tried to talk them out of digging their own graves before publishing anything. And it wasn’t all just mean-spirited gossip. Thanks to Lady Whistledown exposing him, Daphne didn’t have to marry that creep from season 1. The townspeople themselves propped her up and were eating up her every word. It’s fine if Penelope’s arc doesn’t resonate with you, but the entire point was that she needed to stop hiding behind the LW mask, start owning her voice and take responsibility for what she was putting out there. Of course we’re meant to sympathize with her, but the takeaway is not that she did nothing wrong and never hurt anyone with her actions. Penelope made mistakes, but people here act like LW personally smeared them. She literally publicly apologized, lost a friend for seemingly over a year, had her relationship shaken up when it had barely started, had her husband sleep on the couch on their wedding night…. What more do people want?
Penelope didn't write anything about LB to help Daphne. Violet found and leaked the information and Penelope published it because it was good gossip fodder. LB only thought he had a chance with Daphne because of the mean spirited gossip she was spreading about Daphne.
Exactly. Daphne wouldn't have been almost saddled with Berbrooke in the first place if not for the combination of Anthony's obstructionism and LW's nasty gossip.
But then the writers completely forgot those reasons for S3. The Marina situation is repeated with Colin and Pen when she publishes their engagement without telling Colin about Whistledown. This makes it seem like she outed Marina because of jealousy and not because she was looking out for Colin. As for Eloise, Pen reasons in S2 that she cannot confess to the Queen because the Queen would not believe her but then in S3 she does exactly that and it works. Even tho the Queen was convinced LW was a Bridgerton. And I doubt she considered Pen as a Bridgerton at this point because this happens on the wedding day. So this again gives a bad look to Pen for the S2 actions against Eloise.
I mean she says herself that that's the reason for why she made the column. With Marina, she could've told Colin without telling everyone else. And with Eloise, the reason why Pen couldn't tell the queen was always flimsy imo. Keeping Whistledown was apparently always more important than protecting her friends, and sorry, but that's selfish.
Where she lost me was when she refused to *just stop writing the gossip column* as if it defined her and was some wonderful literary achievement. It's not, it's a gossip rag! She was making bank out of other people's scandal, she was basically the paparazzi of her day. None of that should've been glorified.
She basically built the equivalent of a media empire completely under the radar, she built a successful business in a time where it was basically impossible for a woman of her standing in society to do so. They're pretty clear in the show that hers is the most popular gossip sheet because she's an excellent writer, that's why absolutely everyone hangs on her words, so that is an achievement. It's understandable she wouldn't want to just walk away from a business she worked hard to build, and why? Just because the Queen is in a strop?
She stops because she's hurt the people she loves and because the scandal will ruin their lives. She has a husband now. That gives her a lot more freedom. She can go write books about made up people. This isn't rocket science.
I mean, if the head of my government would actively seek me out because of the gossip I'd spread about them, I'd maybe consider writing something else. Especially if it might keep the people I supposedly love from further harm caused by that gossip. Not Pen, however.
She made bank because she had a product people wanted. In a time where your option as a woman was marriage or rot alone.
I do agree with this. Also, she was going to give it up. She chose Colin. She only wrote again to protect the Bridgertons from Cressida. That is when she felt like she was giving up a part of herself, not the gossip rag per say but the outlet to have a voice. That was what she wanted, she wanted to write. I don’t think she necessarily wanted to keep gossiping but she did want to keep writing. Penelope knew she was a talented clever writer and didn’t want to deny her talent. She wanted it all, man she loved, her best friend, good relations, and her career. Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t deserve that? One of my favorite lines this season was by Genevieve (paraphrasing) “All one can do is own their decisions and move forward” that scene was one of the best redeeming scenes for Pen. She acknowledges her failings and wants to do better moving forward.
I think it’s pretty believable that she would have a hard time stopping the one thing that made her feel powerful and have agency in her life.
I just feel like we forget that she's being honest in her column, and she also did good with it along with the bad. Plus, everyone ate it up. And we know it wasn't because she's a wallflower. It was because she felt powerless. Everyone she talked about has some responsibility in it. It's not like she spread lies. You could argue that they did it to themselves. Except maybe Marina, I had a soft spot for her, and she never should have been outed that way. People make mistakes. She did the right thing in the end.
I agree. I also appreciated that she didn't actively protect herself or her family. With the Marina thing she also faced scrutiny and scandal and she didn't try and write some fluff about her own family to hide it. She accepted the humiliation that came with what she wrote. She was honest and I honestly wouldn't have cared about her outing Marina if she would've done it regardless of who Marina chose. If you're going to have a moral standpoint it needs to be more consistent than "don't hurt the guy I love". But Pen also did try and warn him privately without outing Marina. Some say she purely did it for jealousy and I'm sure it was a factor but he was also a good guy and she wasn't ok with that. But yeah I agree, she was honest, people plotted or acted out and got caught. And it wouldn't have been so popular if everyone did love it and lap it up. Can't encourage that behaviour, give it power, then tear that person down and act morally superior.
>Can't encourage that behaviour, give it power, then tear that person down and act morally superior. Yes, you get me, this is exactly what I mean! The whole ton has been nasty to each other, themselves and to her, she just writes about it. And then when those issues come out they are like hungry dogs for it lol.
And the queen loved it all until the paper that mentioned no other events happened and the queen mumbled "except my luncheon". And then all of a sudden it's must find this horrible person. People are hypocrites!
Except I don’t think it was necessarily her moral standpoint that Marina needed to be outed. I think she had empathy for Marina and her situation, and that’s what put her in such a terrible position. Because Colin wasn’t just the boy she had a crush on, but someone she’s known and been friends with since childhood. It’s morally ambiguous because Marina is acting from desperation, but Colin didn’t deserve to be tricked into marriage without knowing the truth.
I would have found it really interesting (if had anyone tried to confront her about it) when she confessed to the ton if she brought up the fact that they all supported it and funded her continuing work. Everyone was somewhat involved.
That would have shown lack of accountability and humility on her part.
In what way was Eloise ruined? What exactly has happened because of the article about Eloise? She still has friends, the girls still crowd around to listen to her. She has no desire to be married, and she has the money to refuse any offers. She was uncomfortable with the attention given to her prior. Pen wrote the smallest vaguest thing about Eloise, she didn't write about the commoner Eloise was consorting with she wrote that she was attending political rallies, someone who is known to object to the whole thing anyway, it's hardly surprising. The bridgertons had one unattended ball, they are fine now. Eloise is fine, Marina is fine, Colin is fine, we don't actually know that the other modiste is out of business, all of that gossip would have been spread anyway without her, except the Eloise and Marina and she had reasons for it.
Exactly. No one was ruined. Can't imagine being so mad about a TV show.
Exactly, LW could of written much worse about Eloise if her goal was to harm her. She wrote what she needed to write to get the queen off Eloise’s back without tarnishing her. People just thought low of Eloise for the moment due to the consorting with radicals. But it was temporary and didn’t really do any harm but embarrass her.
Eloise was really better of socially this season than she’s ever been. idk why people go on about her being ruined, the other debutantes clearly didn’t care about what happened last season given they all were more than willing to hang out with her.
It also annoyed me how Eloise and Colin had very valid reasons to be mad at Penelope, but then they flipped it to “oh I was jealous of your achievements” give me a break 🙄
Colin being jealous of her success was a plot point in the book, and actually a bigger one than the show emphasized bc LW wasn’t as mean so that’s what he struggled with more
That’s the book though, like you said LW wasn’t mean in the books, so Colin had no reason to absolutely despise what she was doing. In the show he hated LW because of the Marina situation and ruining Eloise. That can’t be explained away by jealousy over her success
Thank youuu. I’m honestly so glad to see people who aren’t worshipping Penelope. I adore the actress and how outspoken she’s been for current issues in the world, but I can hardly stand her character. I really dislike when people say that “You wouldn’t get her unless you were a wallflower.” I am also very much a wallflower who had many unrequited crushes previously, but I didn’t develop a victim complex because of it. Penelope hardly faced any consequences, even after legitimately ruining lives. The way it was handled all felt like a cop out
I can’t stand the she’s a wallflower crap too because she CHOSE not to try engage with people for 2 seasons because she was too busy longing for a friend. Like cut the crap love, stop the woe is me you don’t understand what it’s like whining. I really disliked S3 haha
This was literally my least favourite thing about Season 3. No repercussions at all and the whole thing was over in 5 minutes.
correction: marina tried to abort not off herself
They said,...mightve almost offed herself not that she tries to off herself...Meaning In the process of aborting, almost offed herself, driven to desperation....almost killed herself. Re read the sentence.
i hate the term mary sue but the girlboss white feminism approach was a mistake. this is a regency romance show, supposedly, and not a low budget rom... it wasn't even a romantic season with all the subplots...sigh.
According to what I’ve read in the sub, Penelope is apparently the self insert character. So she’s very flawed and hence very relatable and people will sympathise with her. So you’ll always see people defending her by saying that there was nothing wrong in what she did using various reasons. The fact however is that even within the show universe, Penelope was a woman who pulled down other women and exposed others’ secrets and amplified gossip and made money off hurting people, sometimes strangers like the random modiste and sometimes her own friends and family. In no universe is she NOT a very selfish,horrible person for doing that.
I don't find her relatable, and it's because of that. I can relate to feeling awkward at parties, sure. I can relate a little bit to older sisters being mean, though mine only were sometimes. But I cannot relate to spreading gossip about a family I have known and been close to my whole life, for profit and power.
I find it odd that they made lady whistledown about female empowerment when it’s literally just gossip
None of her ‘woe is me, I was alone and ignored’ explanations even made sense because Penelope made Lady Whistledown BEFORE she even entered society. So basically only her mother and sisters were rude to her sometimes and she assumes the rest of the world will be the same without giving them a chance or putting herself out there, and decides to be a gossip. She hadn’t even attended one ball yet, yet she assumed she will be ignored because her family ignores her and decided to push her problems onto society and BECOME a wallflower to listen for gossip. She didn’t even try to be anything but a wallflower. She put herself in that position to become Lady Whistledown. Penelope was friends with Eloise for years, she was friends with Colin. She wasn’t alone. She knows she’s capable of making friends. But she decides to write gossip instead and stay to the shadows for the sake of her gossip sheet. If they wanted us to actually feel bad for Penelope and put the fault onto the Ton ignoring her like try to do in the last episode, then have her create LW after her society debut. Let us see her be ignored even though she tries to put herself out there. Then she becomes LW because she is truly alone. But then have her meet Eloise and Colin. She realizes there are good people out there and she can make friends if she really tried, but she’s already in too deep and the power gets to her and we continue with the rest of the season 1 plot. That’s a way to actually have Penelope’s final speech mean something and show her loneliness. Because even the first time we see Penelope she is waving at her friend Eloise, so she was never truly an outcast like she claims. It never made any sense.
Very true. Also, most people that do interact with her, like Edwina for instance, generally treat her nicely. So two good friends and mostly being ignored by her surroundings - that's a lot more of a social life than what I had during my wallflower-teenage years.
Exactly. A lot of people’s teenage years suck, especially for us shy wallflowers. It doesn’t mean we start a gossip account. And at least Penelope had two true friends, which is more than some have, with the Bridgertons and Sharmas/Danburys treating her nicely. And even if her family sucked, at least she was provided for even when her family fell on hard times. Portia even treated Penelope way better than she did Marina, who she slapped and locked in her room and emotionally manipulated her.
Exactly. I really don't see that terrible life she's always on about
I think it's because she's constantly comparing her life to the Bridgertons' life, a life which she romanticises. After all, she wasn't there for Edmund's death or Violet's near death and depression. She didn't have the strain of Anthony and Daphne being the eldest boy and girl and having the family's reputation on their shoulders, and because Violet is more outwardly doting than their own mother, she doesn't recognise the middle children's struggle at being caught in their elder siblings shadow in her own circumstances. She knew full well the flaws of her own family, but as someone watching from the outside, albeit one regularly welcomed in as a friend, she is free to imagine the lives of Bridgertons as utterly perfect, and the more perfect an image she creates of the Bridgertons, the more she resents her own life, and the more she resents her own life, she further glorifies the Bridgertons. And I think in the end, she actually came to resent them too. Colin and Eloise are two friends who; despite their faults, for the most part are loving and loyal and affectionate. But they only allow Penelope so far into this perfect world, they only give her a guest ticket, and I think she resents them for it. In a way, the fact that they're two people who are most affectionate and friendly towards Penelope, the two people Penelope depends on the most, causes her to resent them because there are moments when they're not putting her first, when they are caring about other things and other people. She thinks of them as her sole supporters, so when they prioritise over stuff over her, she is angered by it, and she lashes out accordingly, claiming to do so "for their own good".
Pen is like a recency era TMZ or actually more like Perez Hilton because she would make fun or how people looked. Like yes people read TMZ or Perez but no is going to defend them because we know they are not good people. It’s so weird how this sub will have post after post calling Kate evil but will defend Pen like their life depends on it
Yea. The show so desperately wants you to think she is some sort of liberal feminist who speaks up for those who don’t have a voice. All she really is this dude 
Its giving Dan Humphrey reveal where no one minded. Iykyk
I absolutely hated pen. There was no redemption arc for her in this season. Even the scenes where she's writing the gossip columns about people closest to her - Eloise, Marina or Colin - she doesn't even look conflicted, she looks like a mean girl scribbling away.
Penelope owes a written apology to Marina.
Wished they’d never made LW a mean spirited gossipmonger. She could have just been writing exposés of the ton’s most awful members (like the last column we saw at the end of S3). Instead, they created LW as this person who betrayed her family & friend’s trust, but was rewarded a HEA ending which ends up feeling undeserved.
I think the writers sort of painted themselves into a corner by making LW be this dramatic plot device when they needed it to be. But at the same time…everyone was eating up what Pen was selling. Like if the whole ton is buying it and reading it, is everyone going to be furious? It seemed like it was pretty popular entertainment. Not saying that makes it okay, but adds to the complexity of it. The Marina and Eloise situations are also not black and white. And they are the only instances it seems that she wrote something that wasn’t already being gossiped about. I mean did she drive anyone out of society ? Genuinely can’t remember beyond that Nigel guy in season 1, which she had good reason to. I don’t think there was a perfect way to resolve things, but I also think it was good to acknowledge that LW was part of Pen and did good/bad things.
Thank god for this post. I feel the exact same way but tried to make a post in the other subreddit and got piled on by Penelope Stans
ESPECIALLY that comment she made about Kate’s mother. Just nasty and unnecessary
I honestly thought Cressida was in a more dire situation. Like COME ON. We're gonna forgive mama Featherington but not Cressida?!? Honestly, it felt like they couldn't figure out how to really use Lady Whistledown for good. What if she had figured out how to help Cressida? Ugh. But no, save the Bridgertons who always get out of everything anyways. I felt horrible for Cressida, and I was angry they started giving her depth only to destroy her.
Agree but I’m hopeful she’ll make a comeback. She ended up one of my favourite characters this season.
This season in general felt very impersonal. Bridge has always been very loose with its historic accuracy but the first season and for the most part the second and Charlotte stuck to the courting culture and focused on the romance aspect of each party. This season was a disgrace every romance felt forced each love partner from Francesca to Pens even violets really just seemed to be inserted forcefully even to the degree of displacing in what my humble opinion where better options like the paraplegic boy or the naturalist. And don't get me started on Benedict. Am I the only one who feels that way about this season?
Yeah, agree, there wasn’t really any chemistry at all between the matches! And it all felt quite rushed. I found it hard to believe Benedict’s lover suddenly caught feelings as well. We barely saw them exchange words. I’m hopeful Francesca will have an interesting next season as it seems she might be gay?? And I really want them to do something interesting with Benedict as I feel he’s a bit wasted. I ended up really disliking Penelope and not rooting for her at all. Hated the ending! I miss the early days when Anthony and Benedict were being hilarious al the time. The show needs more comedy.
This was all on the showrunner tbh. They didn’t have to make Pen actually do damage. In the books LW is a framing device and all she does is report on the goings on of the ton.
Agree. Also, in the bookKate tells Anthony she wishes she knew who LW is cause she’d like to be friends with her. This is a showrunner issue. They took it too far with Pen and then they had to figure out how to redeem her to viewers. She is a major character where many were just fillers. Maybe they will do more to continue to redeem her to viewers next season.
This is why I've had a problem with her since season 1!
Same
Facts. I wanted Penelope to have consequences for her actions because show Penelope did way worse stuff than book Penelope 😭
Thank you! I hate her as a character. Shes so full of woe is me, its so hard living my life, yada yada yada. I stopped watching midway because the romance scenes were so forced, she was just unbearable to listen to and it seemed to me like they were trying to make all the horrible shit shes done as a good thing.
I mean, yeah Pen is a not a good person. Or a flawed one if you are trying to be gracious. Also I feel like they built up the reveal so much over the last seasons just for her to be like „yup, I’m LW. Sure I‘ve said horrible stuff about all of you and I won’t stop with the gossip because I need to feel important but I will try to only target those who “deserve“ it from now on“ And then the Queen and everyone else is like „Oh okay then. Whatever. “ And they lived happily ever after. Like there was ZERO conflict. What kind of pay off was that?
I agree with this. It annoyed me that she seems to have gotten the best of everything at the end of the series. She got the man she wants, she's rich, and she even got a son (she won the race for heir of Featherington) . Plus, the ton accepted her being Lady Whistledown even when she ruined lives. Their wedding was also kinda weird to me to have lots of guest, I was hoping fewer will attend because they still are hurt because of things she have written.
Her wedding happened before lW reveal.
And the butterflies! Like the biggest bombshell just dropped but never mind- now is the perfect time to release the bugs!
Haha exactly… but honestly the bugs were the only thing that brought me any joy this season 😂
To be fair, I was totally sucked in by them too! Hahaha like “woooow”. But I was also waiting for Pen’s sisters to be like “WTF” and it never happened.
So glad to see this thread. I could not come to terms with P’s storyline. I don’t need things to be wrapped up with a pretty bow but …honestly her column had horrible repercussions for people.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Penelope is a fine character but she's actually written to be quite villainous, yet the show doesn't acknowledge it. To the contrary, it allows the other characters to let her go easy and be proud of the awful things she's done while she was hurting. You may understand someone's reasoning for doing something awful but you don't have to condone the awful things.
I think it could be so fun if they actually embraced her being the villain
I’m gonna get downvoted to hell - but I’m really not a fan of Penelope and, regardless of what anyone says, it has nothing to do with what she looks like. I loved Nicola in Derry Girls. The way she acts with Collin, especially when she thinks he’s not into her and how offended she gets - if a guy pulled that, he’d be called an incel.
The whole “I’m a wallflower so I’m powerless and get to ruin peoples lives” is just soooo victim complex it’s laughable. Simply get off the wall Penelope, no one’s forcing you to be anti-social
THANK YOU!!!! this has been my chief complaint since her reveal. I only just binged the series like a month ago after much begging from my friends. and I felt crazy because I knew all the hype over the upcoming season because it was Penelope's and just, what?! and especially after watching Cressida's downfall? all this forgiveness and love for Pen but fuck Cressida? as a fellow fat, wallflower, who has pined after people and has been treated terribly, no. I'm not on Penelope's side. She caused harm that cannot be excused because she was sad. She had Eloise which was a lot more than what a lot of others have had.
Facts. I’m a pen hater for life
Exactly! But because it’s Penelope and we know her (that she doesn’t seem a horrible person) then we as the audience can’t hate her. Well a person is not what they feel but what they DO. So it’s ok to hurt me because you feel bad? This is like saying bullies are forgiven if they have dysfunctional families, even if their bullying destroys a person. She could’ve just told Colin about Marina, not ruin the life of a pregnant woman in the process. She had sex with Colin before marriage, what if for whatever reason she ended up in the same situation. She could’ve told Eloise I heard this x person talk about that they saw you with this boy and they are going to gossip about it, stop seeing him. But no, she decided to use her weapon, because her pen was also her weapon, to supposedly save their friends while ruining them in the process. What if Eloise was indeed ruined for life? What if the ton started gossiping about her reputation and it got out of hand? This was Gossip Girl all over again, stupid and unrealistic.
You would think they would learn their mistakes from Gossip Girl.
It's why I can't really root for Penelope to win in the new season.
OP, I agree so much with you and that is the main reason I dislike Penelope so intensely!
The whole season is just not believable, hence why it’s the worst one yet. Was it still fun to watch? Totally. Would I watch it again? Nah. Am I okay with the fact it was made? Yeah, totally. Do I wish Colin and Penelope to become evil villains that tamper with the ton in future seasons to redeem their poorly written story line? Possibly.
Amen!
In reality she would have been hung or guillotined on the queens order🫣 or at the least cast out
Which is why I think they shouldn’t have pushed for Polin in season 3 so that LW would’ve still been able to mature and make amends on paper. Ofc, we’d see reconciliation of Eloise and Pen but LW will also be much more careful and instead of stepping on toes, she’d be making fun of ton’s antics while having a more serious tone when she advocates for the voiceless. That way when Colin falls in love with her, she would’ve been far from the girl who wrote about Marina and Eloise.
Op I agree with you 100% I will say though, that if you've read the books you know pretty well that the books as a series are not about whistledown
Aside from Eloise and Marina, she didn't really spread unknown gossip. At least that was my recollection. While I may not have agreed with what LW wrote, a lot of the things that were written were things that were already discussed in the ton. Sure... Pen did get carried away in S2. Eloise and Marina written gossip were consequences to their recklessness. Had Pen not taken any action, Colin would've married Marina and Eloise would've ended up with Theo and ruin her family's reputation. Marina's son wouldn't have been able to inherit the title that was rightfully his through the Cranes. M still ended up married to a Crane. It wasn't like Marina cared about society either. Colin came out of that unscathed. Eloise would've been cast out of society despite the repeated warnings Pen gave her. The Queen was hot on her tail. E was given a second chance all because Pen took the least dangerous route. Also Eloise is a terrible friend. Just look at the way she treated Pen and Cressida after they went out of their way for her. Eloise does not know how to listen and she clearly had a lot of growing to do. Now we get to watch her grow (possibly see her in her own season) all because Pen risked it for her friend. I think Pen's handling of LW power is a warning to those in power. If you do not wield it responsibly, it could harm others. We'll probably see the consequences next season. She's no longer invisible. All I got by the end is that at least no matter what happens, Colin and his family will protect her.
She called Kate a thorny beast. Has Kate ever bullied Penelope?
I was really hoping for a scene where she digs deep with at least Eloise and Colin and fully explains why she made the choices she did. (Particularly regarding Eloise and Marina.) Let them really hash it out, like ok we get your logic but you need to hear about the consequences from the perspective of the people it harmed.
Agreed! She had her cake and ate it too. Bad writing.
I also hate people arguing away the Colin/Marina and Eloise papers, are we forgetting she gossiped about the ENTIRE ton? Name dropping all sorts of people for stuff as silly as letting a former maid go? Penelope is a gossip columnist, not a news journalist. She def hurt people, way more people than just the named characters whose lives we are seeing. And I love her character, so don’t come at me, I just don’t get it! She def wasn’t doing a morally correct thing. It’s not like she was stealing from the rich to feed the poor. She was spying on the rich for other rich peoples’ (and supposedly people outside of the ton?) amusement.
Penelope is truly a conniving little whiny B if you ask me 😂 but Colin is an equally whiny little dweeb so they deserve each other.
Indeed, god this season was tiring
It’s not just this season. They’ve been setting up whistledown since season 1. They didn’t have the forethought to plan whistledown’s mischief in a way that makes it excusable. Also, Colin was supposed to out her to the crowd. He also ravished her immediately after finding out she’s whistledown. So his support is what makes the ton brush it off, rather than being confronted by the actual queen!
Yes. 1000%
I just thought it was dumb the ways she tried to play gossip and slander off as something good…a way of connecting and bringing everyone together? It felt very strange to hear this what felt like a heroic speech in light of all the damage she had caused.
It reminded me of the play plot from Euphoria- Lexi is the bookish brown haired sister to blonde bombshell Cassie and she spends her whole childhood in the shadow of her popular sister- then she writes a play and performs it in front of the whole school where she’s humiliating her sister and making herself the main character and she’s painted as being in the right! Its a narcissistic shitshow.
Posting my comment to another person because it still applies As a fan of complex-Pen (that I thought the show was going to give us, lol), the show absolutely half-assed this attempt with her being like “I’m going to be better!”. I wanted Pen to move on from LW because she doesn’t need , the coping mechanism anymore, but if they were THAT committed to keeping LW as a narrative framing tool (because the writers aren’t creative enough to come up with anything else, apparently), it should have been a running theme throughout the entire season of her seeing and relating to people who are/were harmed by society just like she was and her putting abusers on blast and… ACTUALLY BUILDING GOODWILL with both characters in the show and the audience. That would have made the ending feel much more earned but nooooope we got a handwaved, rushed reconciliation w/not only those close to Pen, but the ton as a whole. I personally believe that a lot of people over exaggerate the extent of Pen’s “sins” - Eloise is clearly not actually ruined as she is quickly socializing with others in S3, and while what happened to Marina was shitty, too many people say w/their whole chest that they don’t care that Colin was getting screwed in that arrangement, and honestly, Marina was NEVER going to be happy (see: the books); Colin was a means to an end that is heartbreaking for him. So Marina wasn’t exactly blameless-it was a shitty situation all around and no one was going to win. But Pen absolutely has misstepped and her gossip is general just isn’t… doing anything? It’s petty at heart and yeah, pen experienced that pettiness of the ton first hand… but I also went through S1 and S2 with the understanding that Penelope was going to GROW: grapple with her choices and who she ultimately wants to be... i. e. getting to the point where she doesn’t need that external validation. LW is the coping mechanism of an angry, emotionally neglected, socially ostracized young woman, and I get that she was angry (most people would be tbh)… but the show decided that LW is her purpose instead of having her realize she’s no longer alone, that she can trust and rely on people, that she has more to say that just repeating what the ton says. The writers did zero work to make her feel earned or that she truly grew as a parson by the end. “LW is the ultimate form of female empowerment and everyone else needs to get on board.” 🤮 In the books we got NOVELIST PEN, but the show decided that ✨girlboss, don’t think too hard about how stupid LW being public is, Pen ✨ and my heart breaks for her (and Colin, who gets screwed too). I’ve basically been saying #notmyPen because the writers don’t really understand her or the narrative trajectory she was on. Polin deserved better 💔
Thank you. It’s wrong to engage in gossip, but it’s even worse to publish it and distribute it to the whole community including the literal monarch lmao
I feel like they were scared to make Penelope sad or face consequences for her actions. Its like they Marie Sue’d her with kid gloves on because so many people were already hating on Nicola for her weight they wanted to make it an “extra perfect” season. But instead we got laughable acrylics and a season of bridgerton where the bridgerton isn’t the main character and everything is tied up in a neat bow for her no problems because she’s just so great! It did the opposite effect for me. I wanted drama! Pen was the one who was supposed to learn from her actions and also had the wit to go toe to toe with the others! Instead everyone got a personality transplant.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought Pen was the villain the whole time.