Bridgerton Season 3 Previews Francesca’s Love Story

Bridgerton Season 3 is telling us a ton more about Francesca Bridgerton. Netflix’s TUDUM took some time to ask showrunner Jess Brownell and Hannah Dodd about her character. As one of the younger siblings, Francesca hasn’t gotten a ton of focus over the course of the last two seasons. But, the showrunner says there are some differences with the younger Bridgerton. “Francesca doesn’t always say what she’s feeling like the rest of the Bridgertons,” Brownell explained. “So we were always looking for little ways to clue people in on the fact that there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye. She has a very rich internal world.” 

For the actress herself, she’s looking forward to audiences getting to see Fran on her own terms. Viewers are used to the Bridgerton family being very demonstrative. That’s not exactly the young piano player’s style. “There’s definitely an air of innocence about her,” Dodd explained. “Debutantes are so young. Although they prepared for these moments for their entire lives, you can’t replicate a ball or suitors that you’ve never met before coming up to you. You don’t know how those conversations are going to go.”

“She’s not fighting it. She’s going to these balls. She is trying to find a husband,” Dodd mentioned when the marriage mart topic came up. “I think the difference is that she’s not excited about it. She’s not spent her entire life dreaming about what her wedding day will look like and what her husband’s going to be. She just knows it’s her time and this is part of life, and here we go.” 

Bridgerton Season 3’s Main Character Is Penelope Featherington

All of the marketing material for Bridgerton Season 3 has focused on Nicola Coughlan’s heroine coming into her own. (Well that and our dear Colin Bridgerton figuring out that he’s really into Penelope Featherington.) So, how did this choice come about? Well, from the books. But, also from the costume and makeup team. They had big things in-store for Penelope from the word go. Talking to Netflix, Coughlan lauded the changes and the big transformation for the Lady Whistledown author in Season 3. It’s time for the wallflower to come out of her shell, and that means making a statement.

Coughlan beamed, “This is great. It needs to go from this to the big change, ’cause that’s gonna be fun for the audience, for it to look like a different person.” The actress noted the differences between her first couple of years on the show and now. “It was so different to how she was before ’cause it was all rosy cheeks and fresh,” Coughlan recalled, “It really helped the character. She has to grow in confidence. And it helped me grow in confidence, to feel good in costumes. It was great.”

Do you think Francesca could be the heroine of Bridgerton Season 4? Catch all of our pop culture discussion at @ComicBook on social media!