This Bridgerton Easter Egg May Tease Benedict & Sophie’s Season

Spoilers ahead for the Bridgerton Season 3 finale. After seeing Colin and Penelope get married and welcome a little one in the second half of Bridgerton Season 3, there’s only one thing left to do: start making your predictions about who will lead Season 4.

Fortunately, the final scene of the latest installment provides an interesting clue, but you’ll need to hit pause (and maybe pull out a magnifying glass) to see it.

Lady Whistledown’s Final Column

To recap: A time jump at the end of Episode 8 shows Penelope and her sisters basking in their new motherhood, with Colin and Penelope’s child being the only boy (aka, the heir to the Featherington estate). While enjoying some family time, Penelope’s latest Lady Whistledown column is delivered.

The outro narration switches from Julie Andrews to Penelope herself as the writer invites readers to follow along the next part of her journey, seemingly confirming that the column will continue in some capacity, but no longer from an anonymous gossip.

But if you look closely at the lingering shot of the new column, you’ll see more society rumors. One bit stands out as potentially salacious, referencing someone “spending a lot of time with a certain unmarried young lady.” Hmm...

“Of course, she naturally had family to visit in the country and has rarely been seen around London since,” the column continues. “However, that was a few years ago now and has long since been forgotten. I wonder whether our disgraced Duke will be aloud [sic] to grace the dance floor with anyone other than his Duchess.”

What could such piping-hot Regency tea mean? While it’s too brief a passage to make any conclusive theories, the reference to a young woman disappearing from society to spend time in the country sounds like it could be a euphemism for pregnancy — and perhaps the “disgraced” nobleman is the father.

But What Does It Mean?

Interestingly, there’s a Bridgerton book that revolves around a child born out of wedlock: An Offer from a Gentleman, aka Benedict’s story. Sophie Beckett (his love interest in the books) was the daughter of an earl and his maid. Sophie’s mother passed away during childbirth, and she was raised by her grandmother somewhere “across England.” When her grandmother fell ill and couldn’t care for her anymore, she returned her to the earl, who raised Sophie as his “ward.”

So if you’re one for theories, the Lady Whistledown column could be a sneaky way to introduce Sophie’s backstory. As showrunner Jess Brownell recently told TV Insider, “I do think that there are some clues at the end of Season 3 of where we’re headed ... I think we’re tipping our hand just a little bit.”

On the other hand, this could very well be a reach. If you look closely at the column in question, you might notice the odd spelling error and cut-off sentences that suggest Lady Whistledown’s latest piece is simply a prop filled with placeholder text. Plus, Penelope is trying to use her quill for good now. So why would she be writing about a piece of drama from before she was born?

Still, the show spends several moments slowly panning over the letter — making it feel like an intentional choice, rather than something that was never meant to be read.