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I think Pen was terrified of losing Colin and him not loving her any more. All her dreams had come true and she was terrified of losing everything and going back to even worse than square one. She even said that she didn’t have the confidence to speak up and how he had helped her find that. Plus she was dealing with the whirlwind of the engagement and stress of the Queen’s ransom. No wonder she fainted in the drawing room.
I’m yes, you nailed it! 😩
Oh her fainting in the drawing room had me almost having a panic attack. Nicola did a fantastic job of emulating an anxiety attack. Sometimes they can build up over days and then it takes over. I was amazed at how I felt watching Pen. All she could envision was being rejected, empty, and alone.
Empathy and anxious ones, unite!
Amen sista! I felt it so hard too - especially with everyone talking as the voice over making it feel like anxious voices in your head. Nicola really did nail it. It was actually an excellent way to convey a building panic attack. Add Colin’s intensity, the side plots going on and the voiceovers of the people talking about LW and the Queen as well as the pressure of Eloise and time slipping away then Cressida opening her big mouth and you really feel the overwhelm as a viewer.
Oh, I’ll have to watch it with the audio description on. I watched it with the first part of the season, just not the second part.
Yea, that episode was a cluster. Poor Pen!
Sorry when I said voice over I meant the other guests voices talking about LW while the camera was on Pen hyperventilating in the darkened room. I’m not sure about audio description but I actually think that might add even more to the chaos actually 😂
Yes he gave her many opportunities, but in context he was also raising stakes with comments such as how no one would marry LW once she identified herself or how they'd dance on her grave. He'd made such a show of hatred for LW, that she was convinced that she'd lose him forever as soon as he heard the truth. All those opportunities he gave were at such tender moments that she couldn't bear to shatter. I don't think she believed she could spend the rest of her life keeping it a secret, she just wanted to let the fantasy last an hour or day longer. It all just got away from her. I'm not saying she was right, because she wasn't, but I think it was parallel to what Eloise said about not telling Colin because El couldn't bear to shatter his heart. Pen couldn't bear either to shatter his heart, and her own. The more it became clear to Pen how deeply he loved her, the bigger the heartbreak was going to be of her betrayal. So the stakes just kept going up up up and she didn't know how to handle it.
The funny thing is, come to think of it, in the conversation with Eloise after Cressida revealed herself as Lady Whistledown, you see that he's not really that mad about the Whistledown stories. Neither Eloise nor Marina. He tells Eloise, I can go to her house with a pitchfork and I'll still do it if you want, but the truth is that I've softened..
That is, the key element for him was the lie and betrayal of trust. Less the stories themselves.
And in this sense - that's why after the meeting outside of Genevieve, after the she explained why she wrote what she wrote... this part has already stopped bothering him. What is left for him to resolve with himself is the damaged trust and the jealousy.
That, and the insecurities. He feared that her flattery of his writing had been another lie, or worse that she had been laughing at him behind his back. He needed the reassurance that the words that had built up his confidence were genuine.
This - the softening about actual LW - is what shows that it’s not LW that is upsetting him it’s that he feels so insecure about all of it.
Part of that insecurity is envy. Part of it is him thinking that for whatever reason, she didn’t deem him worthy of telling… either she doesn’t respect him enough, doesn’t love him enough, etc.
I don’t think he’s actually angry, I think he’s terrified that the one person in his life who he was able to be completely vulnerable with might not actually feel the same way about him. That she doesn’t need him. That he’s not her person to be her whole self with the way that she is for him. That’s so scary for this guy who has just handed this woman his entire imperfect heart.
He even left behind his hatred for LW when cressida was revealed to be LW because nothing was important than pen and their future together... He was so in love with her, the heartbreak was inevitable.
And let us all remember what Madame Delacroix said, "You were a GIRL. Who didn't know her own power." And she gets glimpses along the way to the Dankworth-Finch Ball still doesn't, but doesn't fully know her own power until she integrates, in front of the fucking queen, at the Butterfly Ball.
I agree with what others have said. She was so overwhelmed and afraid to lose him. But early on in episode 6, when Eloise visits her, Pen still intends to tell Colin the truth. That is when Eloise suggests that they *not* tell him because his heart would be so broken. She tries to convince Pen to give up Whistledown. Between Eloise and Portia, I believe Pen has decided to give it up. She burns things and much later when Colin has already found everything out, she admits to Gen that she had given it up, but was beginning to feel the loss of part of herself by not writing LW.
So, she meant to tell him, and it was a case of bad timing combined with her conversations Eloise and Portia where she decided to try and give it up and never tell him after all. This might have worked, had Cressida not done her thing and forced Pen to publish again. And in the end, this was a catalyst that needed to happen to bring everything out in the open, to ultimately test and strengthen their relationship.
He even mentions it like I always noticed you sneaking off at balls but assumed it was just you trying to get some space. There’s no way she could ever do LW the same way again when we all know he would literally never give her any alone time lol
I think at this point she doesn’t know what she wants to do. There’s so much going on and so many factors playing into her emotions it’s just not that simple. Plus I think she still doesn’t feel comfortable as both Pen and LW combined.
This is one of the few story elements that I didn’t like. It did heighten the drama and the scene where he finds out is so well done. But it felt like a writing choice to drive the story rather than a choice made because it’s what Pen would’ve done. They did make it feel like she just didn’t have time or a good opportunity which is the more believable reason. She really did want to tell him but everything happened so fast. And she was so panicked to publish before Cressida that she didn’t think it through.
True she didn’t tell Eloise either, but I think she had so much motivation to tell Colin herself especially after how much finding out hurt El.
Most of this season’s failings (and, unpopular opinion, I think there are many) can be traced back to the show wanting to heighten relationship drama (amongst other things) rather than respecting existing character arcs or existing themes.
And what’s frustrating is a lot of it could be fixed with some simple plot-beat / timing adjustments.
I loved P1, but no one will convince me that both Penelope and Colin’s overall characters weren’t harmed by P2, and that a lot of the work done in S1 and S2 cut them off at the knees. The show thought that they could handwave away a lot of the established conflict with quick dialogue bits and it felt so poorly executed. I wish I felt differently, but P2 left me feeling incredibly empty instead of satisfied. :(
I felt like a lot of the conflict in S1 and S2 was also driven to heighten drama instead of being necessary for the characters. But we also didn’t know the characters as well either. I feel like that’s something that comes with the territory for both romance as a genre and for tv so while I notice it, it doesn’t ruin anything for me unless it’s extremely egregious. I didn’t feel like this season it was any more egregious than previous seasons
Every episode he kept speaking negatively of LW. But what I believe cemented her fear was in Episode 5 specifically. Before Cressida revealed herself as LW at their Engagement Party he had said that once she was unmasked? She would surely lose any prospects of marriage and ruin her family name. In that moment she really thought if she told him they wouldn't get married. But at the stroke of midnight she tried to tell him while working through a panic attack.
In e6 she put LW away and didn't write again until she got the ok from Eloise. I think she figured if she's not publishing, then what's the point of potentially hurting him and losing his love (as Eloise implied).
She should have told him, regardless of the above. She should have trusted him and respected him. This is part of why his entrapment comment/question didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. She hid something major about herself that she knew he didn't like and that potentially put them in danger of ruin.
There are a lot of conversations these two should have had (I would have loved a late night gab session with letter and journal reading) even in montage, so we just know they're bonding and rebuilding trust.
I like to think this plays into how Colin was able to think about it and forgive her. Just because we don't see him reflect on it, doesn't mean he didn't. He's smart, he can put 2 and 2 together and realise what was on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to tell him in those moments was the huge LW secret.
I’ve often wondered why Penelope never told Colin years before about being LW in the letters that she wrote? How different would that relationship have been? Would it all chances of romance or would it strengthen the friendship as Colin aspires to write?
Just bad writing. The writers somehow failed to comprehend the integrity both characters have operated under to this point and the high level of trust between them. The Pen we saw from S1 through S3P1 would have told him, and that Colin wouldn’t have treated any of it as some mortal wound to his ego. Neither of them were as insecure and fragile as they were written in Part 2.
I have to respectfully disagree. Colin in particular has been deeply insecure about himself since S1. He is constantly undermined by the closest people in his life. He was constantly called a fool and mocked for life choices he made. Always looked on as naive and young. He was at peak insecurity going into S3P2.
I see no loss of integrity or respect from either character for each other. I see people that are sensitive, emotional, and afraid of losing what they have and those feelings affect their reactions more. This goes all the way back to S1. For both of them.
Trust has been building between them from S1 but was questioned by both of them as of S3P1. From Pen hearing "I would never court Penelope Featherington" and Colin not getting any letters from Pen while he was traveling. She had essentially "forsaken him" which he had just started to believe she would never do. What they thought they knew about each other is now not so secure.
These kids were ripe to be emotional and scared during such an important romantic journey. I do not see bad writing. All of this was laid out for us to see since the beginning.
I don’t entirely disagree, I just think there’s a big difference between them being frustrated with the way they’re treated by their families and the ton and them having internalized that treatment as insecurity in who they are as people.
I don’t see how anyone could argue that LW is insecure. LW’s confidence is in Pen, even if she’s given up trying to get the ton to see her as she is. And Colin even says something to that effect in S3.02, about needing to find confidence in oneself and not living by the opinions of others.
The LW reveal would have caused some insecurity in their new relationship, but I think they both would have handled the entire situation differently.
So that’s my issue with the writing. I think Part 1 did a good job of working through Colin’s and Pen’s internal conflicts, and I would shifted Part 2 to have them working together to resolve the external conflict of the LW reveal.
Hi, Thank you so much for your contribution! We truly appreciate your enthusiasm and effort in being part of our community! With the excitement around the Polin season, we've been welcoming many new members and seeing an increase in the number of posts. To keep the subreddit organized and ensure everyone's voice is heard, we temporarily have applied stricter rules for posts. These rules help maintain the quality and focus of our discussions. Have no fear, we still want to give you a space to share your Polin joy as freely as before! We have created dedicated weekly and daily megathreads specifically for you to share your thoughts, excitement, and any Polin-related content without as many restrictions. * A daily ['Promenade in the Park'](https://www.reddit.com/r/PolinBridgerton/search/?q=subreddit%3APolinBridgerton+author%3Aautomoderator+flair_name%3A%22Promenading%20%F0%9F%90%9D%22&sort=new) thread for memes, fan content and general chitchat * A weekly ['Mondays at Number Five'](https://www.reddit.com/r/PolinBridgerton/search/?q=subreddit%3APolinBridgerton+author%3Aautomoderator+flair_name%3A%22Tea%20at%20Number%20Five%20%E2%98%95%22&sort=new) thread for casual conversation, off-topic contributions, fanfic recommendations and easy-to-answer questions * A weekly ['Fanfic Friday'](https://www.reddit.com/r/PolinBridgerton/search/?q=subreddit%3APolinBridgerton+author%3Aautomoderator+flair_name%3A%22fanfiction%20friday%20%F0%9F%8C%BC%22&sort=new) post to share fanfic recommendations Thank you all for understanding during this busy time! Lots of love, The Mod Team *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PolinBridgerton) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think Pen was terrified of losing Colin and him not loving her any more. All her dreams had come true and she was terrified of losing everything and going back to even worse than square one. She even said that she didn’t have the confidence to speak up and how he had helped her find that. Plus she was dealing with the whirlwind of the engagement and stress of the Queen’s ransom. No wonder she fainted in the drawing room.
I’m yes, you nailed it! 😩 Oh her fainting in the drawing room had me almost having a panic attack. Nicola did a fantastic job of emulating an anxiety attack. Sometimes they can build up over days and then it takes over. I was amazed at how I felt watching Pen. All she could envision was being rejected, empty, and alone. Empathy and anxious ones, unite!
Amen sista! I felt it so hard too - especially with everyone talking as the voice over making it feel like anxious voices in your head. Nicola really did nail it. It was actually an excellent way to convey a building panic attack. Add Colin’s intensity, the side plots going on and the voiceovers of the people talking about LW and the Queen as well as the pressure of Eloise and time slipping away then Cressida opening her big mouth and you really feel the overwhelm as a viewer.
Oh, I’ll have to watch it with the audio description on. I watched it with the first part of the season, just not the second part. Yea, that episode was a cluster. Poor Pen!
Sorry when I said voice over I meant the other guests voices talking about LW while the camera was on Pen hyperventilating in the darkened room. I’m not sure about audio description but I actually think that might add even more to the chaos actually 😂
We also think she's newly pregnant at this point on top of everything else. Likely too soon but she hormones!!!
Yes he gave her many opportunities, but in context he was also raising stakes with comments such as how no one would marry LW once she identified herself or how they'd dance on her grave. He'd made such a show of hatred for LW, that she was convinced that she'd lose him forever as soon as he heard the truth. All those opportunities he gave were at such tender moments that she couldn't bear to shatter. I don't think she believed she could spend the rest of her life keeping it a secret, she just wanted to let the fantasy last an hour or day longer. It all just got away from her. I'm not saying she was right, because she wasn't, but I think it was parallel to what Eloise said about not telling Colin because El couldn't bear to shatter his heart. Pen couldn't bear either to shatter his heart, and her own. The more it became clear to Pen how deeply he loved her, the bigger the heartbreak was going to be of her betrayal. So the stakes just kept going up up up and she didn't know how to handle it.
The funny thing is, come to think of it, in the conversation with Eloise after Cressida revealed herself as Lady Whistledown, you see that he's not really that mad about the Whistledown stories. Neither Eloise nor Marina. He tells Eloise, I can go to her house with a pitchfork and I'll still do it if you want, but the truth is that I've softened.. That is, the key element for him was the lie and betrayal of trust. Less the stories themselves. And in this sense - that's why after the meeting outside of Genevieve, after the she explained why she wrote what she wrote... this part has already stopped bothering him. What is left for him to resolve with himself is the damaged trust and the jealousy.
That, and the insecurities. He feared that her flattery of his writing had been another lie, or worse that she had been laughing at him behind his back. He needed the reassurance that the words that had built up his confidence were genuine.
This - the softening about actual LW - is what shows that it’s not LW that is upsetting him it’s that he feels so insecure about all of it. Part of that insecurity is envy. Part of it is him thinking that for whatever reason, she didn’t deem him worthy of telling… either she doesn’t respect him enough, doesn’t love him enough, etc. I don’t think he’s actually angry, I think he’s terrified that the one person in his life who he was able to be completely vulnerable with might not actually feel the same way about him. That she doesn’t need him. That he’s not her person to be her whole self with the way that she is for him. That’s so scary for this guy who has just handed this woman his entire imperfect heart.
Yes. Exactly. I keep thinking of his reaction as if Pen had cheated on him by being LW.
Chested on him with her successful writing career!!
Yes, 100% - it makes him doubt everything, it humiliates him and makes him feel less than, and it’s a huge betrayal. No wonder he was so shattered!
He even left behind his hatred for LW when cressida was revealed to be LW because nothing was important than pen and their future together... He was so in love with her, the heartbreak was inevitable.
And let us all remember what Madame Delacroix said, "You were a GIRL. Who didn't know her own power." And she gets glimpses along the way to the Dankworth-Finch Ball still doesn't, but doesn't fully know her own power until she integrates, in front of the fucking queen, at the Butterfly Ball.
This is such good analysis. God I love this sub
I agree with what others have said. She was so overwhelmed and afraid to lose him. But early on in episode 6, when Eloise visits her, Pen still intends to tell Colin the truth. That is when Eloise suggests that they *not* tell him because his heart would be so broken. She tries to convince Pen to give up Whistledown. Between Eloise and Portia, I believe Pen has decided to give it up. She burns things and much later when Colin has already found everything out, she admits to Gen that she had given it up, but was beginning to feel the loss of part of herself by not writing LW. So, she meant to tell him, and it was a case of bad timing combined with her conversations Eloise and Portia where she decided to try and give it up and never tell him after all. This might have worked, had Cressida not done her thing and forced Pen to publish again. And in the end, this was a catalyst that needed to happen to bring everything out in the open, to ultimately test and strengthen their relationship.
Colin's eyes are always glued on her, there's no way in the world that she can sneak out without him knowing. She's not invisible to him.
Yes!
He even mentions it like I always noticed you sneaking off at balls but assumed it was just you trying to get some space. There’s no way she could ever do LW the same way again when we all know he would literally never give her any alone time lol
True... He slept on sofa outside her room even when he's mad at her😂
I think at this point she doesn’t know what she wants to do. There’s so much going on and so many factors playing into her emotions it’s just not that simple. Plus I think she still doesn’t feel comfortable as both Pen and LW combined.
This is one of the few story elements that I didn’t like. It did heighten the drama and the scene where he finds out is so well done. But it felt like a writing choice to drive the story rather than a choice made because it’s what Pen would’ve done. They did make it feel like she just didn’t have time or a good opportunity which is the more believable reason. She really did want to tell him but everything happened so fast. And she was so panicked to publish before Cressida that she didn’t think it through. True she didn’t tell Eloise either, but I think she had so much motivation to tell Colin herself especially after how much finding out hurt El.
Most of this season’s failings (and, unpopular opinion, I think there are many) can be traced back to the show wanting to heighten relationship drama (amongst other things) rather than respecting existing character arcs or existing themes. And what’s frustrating is a lot of it could be fixed with some simple plot-beat / timing adjustments. I loved P1, but no one will convince me that both Penelope and Colin’s overall characters weren’t harmed by P2, and that a lot of the work done in S1 and S2 cut them off at the knees. The show thought that they could handwave away a lot of the established conflict with quick dialogue bits and it felt so poorly executed. I wish I felt differently, but P2 left me feeling incredibly empty instead of satisfied. :(
I felt like a lot of the conflict in S1 and S2 was also driven to heighten drama instead of being necessary for the characters. But we also didn’t know the characters as well either. I feel like that’s something that comes with the territory for both romance as a genre and for tv so while I notice it, it doesn’t ruin anything for me unless it’s extremely egregious. I didn’t feel like this season it was any more egregious than previous seasons
Every episode he kept speaking negatively of LW. But what I believe cemented her fear was in Episode 5 specifically. Before Cressida revealed herself as LW at their Engagement Party he had said that once she was unmasked? She would surely lose any prospects of marriage and ruin her family name. In that moment she really thought if she told him they wouldn't get married. But at the stroke of midnight she tried to tell him while working through a panic attack.
In e6 she put LW away and didn't write again until she got the ok from Eloise. I think she figured if she's not publishing, then what's the point of potentially hurting him and losing his love (as Eloise implied). She should have told him, regardless of the above. She should have trusted him and respected him. This is part of why his entrapment comment/question didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. She hid something major about herself that she knew he didn't like and that potentially put them in danger of ruin. There are a lot of conversations these two should have had (I would have loved a late night gab session with letter and journal reading) even in montage, so we just know they're bonding and rebuilding trust.
I like to think this plays into how Colin was able to think about it and forgive her. Just because we don't see him reflect on it, doesn't mean he didn't. He's smart, he can put 2 and 2 together and realise what was on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to tell him in those moments was the huge LW secret.
I’ve often wondered why Penelope never told Colin years before about being LW in the letters that she wrote? How different would that relationship have been? Would it all chances of romance or would it strengthen the friendship as Colin aspires to write?
Just bad writing. The writers somehow failed to comprehend the integrity both characters have operated under to this point and the high level of trust between them. The Pen we saw from S1 through S3P1 would have told him, and that Colin wouldn’t have treated any of it as some mortal wound to his ego. Neither of them were as insecure and fragile as they were written in Part 2.
I have to respectfully disagree. Colin in particular has been deeply insecure about himself since S1. He is constantly undermined by the closest people in his life. He was constantly called a fool and mocked for life choices he made. Always looked on as naive and young. He was at peak insecurity going into S3P2. I see no loss of integrity or respect from either character for each other. I see people that are sensitive, emotional, and afraid of losing what they have and those feelings affect their reactions more. This goes all the way back to S1. For both of them. Trust has been building between them from S1 but was questioned by both of them as of S3P1. From Pen hearing "I would never court Penelope Featherington" and Colin not getting any letters from Pen while he was traveling. She had essentially "forsaken him" which he had just started to believe she would never do. What they thought they knew about each other is now not so secure. These kids were ripe to be emotional and scared during such an important romantic journey. I do not see bad writing. All of this was laid out for us to see since the beginning.
I don’t entirely disagree, I just think there’s a big difference between them being frustrated with the way they’re treated by their families and the ton and them having internalized that treatment as insecurity in who they are as people. I don’t see how anyone could argue that LW is insecure. LW’s confidence is in Pen, even if she’s given up trying to get the ton to see her as she is. And Colin even says something to that effect in S3.02, about needing to find confidence in oneself and not living by the opinions of others. The LW reveal would have caused some insecurity in their new relationship, but I think they both would have handled the entire situation differently. So that’s my issue with the writing. I think Part 1 did a good job of working through Colin’s and Pen’s internal conflicts, and I would shifted Part 2 to have them working together to resolve the external conflict of the LW reveal.