‘Bridgerton’ Stars Nicola Coughlan & Claudia Jessie on Season 2’s Finale Twist

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 2 of Bridgerton.]

Bridgerton went big in Season 2, so big that one of the ton’s biggest secrets became slightly less so as Eloise (Claudia Jessie) learned something major in the finale’s final moments.

The second-eldest Bridgerton daughter discovered that her bestie and closest confidante, Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) was none other than mysterious scandal sheet writer, Lady Whistledown. Cue the Regency-era gasps!

After Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) began snooping for answers about Lady Whistledown’s true identity, Eloise came under fire due to her consistent trips to the print shop where she’d actually been meeting up with printer’s assistant Theo Sharpe (Calam Lynch). Seeing her friend under the Queen’s magnifying glass, Penelope decided to out her friend’s secret meetings with Theo to avert Charlotte’s attention.

(Credit: Netflix)

Deciding to put her quill away, Penelope believes Eloise is done searching for Whistledown, knowing it will only get her into trouble, and so Penelope lets her facade fade and gets gossipy in the finale’s ball scene. The moment tips Eloise off and she goes hunting in Penelope’s room for incriminating proof that she surely uncovers.

Needless to say, it leaves the friends in a tough situation. “She’s been so successful at being a puppet master in all these different situations, I think she decides she can control it,” Coughlan says of her character’s arrogance as Whistledown. In some respect, Penelope believes she can change peoples’ opinions through her writing, but she has to do a bad thing to reach her desired result.

“I think it really deeply hurts her to have to write such a terrible thing about Eloise,” Coughlan admits, noting Penelope’s decision to publicly out her bestie in the scandal sheet. The realization stings that much more for Eloise when she discovers Penelope’s been lying to her all of this time.

(Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix)

“There’s so much to unpack with it, isn’t there?” Claudia Jessie says of Eloise learning about Penelope’s profitable pastime. “It’s not only the fact that she is Lady Whistledown. But I think, it’s the fact that for an entire season she watched her best friend rack her brains. It’s humiliating.”

Humiliating indeed. But it’s more than a personal betrayal, as Jessie points out, “there’s a realization that Eloise has been complicit in it because Penelope must get so much information from her when they hang out together. So I think she feels like an enabler in that sense.”

With the evidence in Eloise’s hands, it’s hard for Penelope to deny her role as Lady Whistledown, but defending her actions is another thing altogether. As she has her own reasons for writing what she has, it’s hard to verbalize it with Eloise in the heat of the moment.

(Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix)

“I think it really, really weighs on her,” Coughlan says of her character, “but also, Penelope lies a lot. She’s never expressed these feelings. So, when she has to come out and speak to Eloise, it’s just a mess. It’s a complete mess, because there’s the guilt. Then when Eloise is justifiably furious with her, Penelope goes, ‘Well, I gave it up for you. You are the reason that I can’t do this thing that I love anymore.'”

Penelope doesn’t give up the pen for long, because once Eloise bolts from the Featheringtons’ big ball and she overhears Colin (Luke Newton) making a comment about how he’d never plan to court her, it’s all too much and emotions get the best of her. Paper and pen just happen to be the best outlet for her frustrations.

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Despite the heightened tensions of the moment where Eloise confronts Penelope, Jessie says, “Nicola and I loved shooting that scene. We were really nervous for it because it’s so intense, but I think it pays off really well. It’s such a massive thing to happen in their friendship. That first cut is the deepest and it’s heartbreaking when you’re that age.”

As for whether the fight will last forever? Jessie says, “obviously, they’re going to be able to patch things up, right. That’s inevitable just story-wise. It’s not fun to watch that forever.” While this is good to hear, don’t expect it to be an easy road back to where they were before the revelation as Jessie adds, “I think friends can have secrets. And I think they’ll work it out, but it will mature their relationship, which is a positive thing.”

Stay tuned for the next season to see how things will resolve between Penelope and Eloise over time and relive Seasons 1 and 2 of Bridgerton anytime on Netflix.

Bridgerton, Season 2, Streaming now, Netflix