Rewind and repeat: Here’s all the tea on that steamy ‘Bridgerton’ carriage scene
Warning: Spoilers below!
Give them everything.
The internet is in a tizzy over the latest steamy scene in “Bridgerton” Season 3.
In the hot and heavy moment, which happens in the fourth episode of the Netflix hit, Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) get busy in a carriage — as an instrumental version of the 2011 hit “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull plays — for nearly three minutes.
There are already countless TikToks about the scene, making it Season 3’s version of the viral Season 1 spoon-licking moment.
“My man Colin Bridgerton ravished Pen in the privacy of a carriage even though there was no one to force him to marry her for ‘compromising’ her honour. Homeboi did it knowing full well he had to propose to her after that, bc he WANTED TO, not bc he HAD TO,” one fan posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Another fan commented, “I’ve been in fandom most of my life but Colin Bridgerton confessing his feelings to his best friend before fingering her in her family’s carriage while a Pitbull song plays is some of the most unhinged media I’ve ever consumed.”
Another fan wrote, “The carriage scene. That’s it. That’s the tweet.”
“Bridgerton” follows various members of the Bridgerton family as they find love in Regency-era London, and Season 3 has focused on Penelope, who has had an unrequited crush on her friend Colin for years. When Colin starts giving her flirting lessons to help her find a husband, he starts seeing her in a different light. Julia Quinn, who wrote the books on which the show is based, told The Post that their relationship was “the hardest to plot” because of all their history.
In the scene, Penelope has fled a ball after her prospective suitor, Lord Debling (Sam Phillips), has rejected her.
She’s crying, thinking that her marriage prospects are over. She’s also angry at Colin, because Lord Debling cast her aside on the grounds that he saw the chemistry between Penelope and Colin.
Penelope believes her feelings for Colin are unrequited, so her marriage dreams have been dashed for nothing. But Colin runs out, joins her in the carriage and confesses his love to her. She replies by saying, “I would very much like to be more than friends.”
The two then hook up in the carriage, before it stops at the Bridgerton house, startling them both. A frustrated Colin says, “Could the carriage driver not keep on driving?”
Before exiting the vehicle, Colin uses just a few fingers to slide Penelope’s dress sleeve back up onto her shoulder. Andrew Ahn, a director on “Bridgerton” Season 3, confirmed that Newton improvised that.
“I wish I could take credit for this incredible moment of … physical authenticity, but I did not give this piece of direction,” Ahn wrote on X on May 18. “It was all Luke Newton!”
Colin goes on to invite her inside his home and Penelope hesitates, saying, “Your family will see me!” He says, “For God’s sake, Penelope. Are you going to marry me, or not?”
This cliffhanger ends Season 3 Part 1.
Coughlan told USA Today, “When I read the book four years ago, that was the scene that stood out to me. I remember us talking about it in one of our very first meetings and we were reading [that] he grabs her boobs. We were, like, in fits of giggles, but at that point we had no idea [if] we would ever get to that story.”
Once they got to filming the scene, she told the outlet that she was “nervous,” because she didn’t want to “mess it up.”
“It didn’t feel stilted or choreographed,” Coughlan told Today.
“We were just like, ‘I trust you. You trust me. Let’s do this. Let’s make this the best it can be.'”
She also told “Access Hollywood” that during filming, the scene felt like it was going on for “quite long.”
“But in my head I’m going, ‘Maybe that’s fine, and it’s for the edit,'” she explained.
“And then [Ahn] came to the door and he was like, ‘What were you doing? I was shouting, “Cut!”’ And we just hadn’t heard it. So the whole crew were just watching us like, ‘What are they doing?’”
The actors knew it was a “really important” moment that readers “really loved,” so there was “an extra special energy” while filming it.
“For me, it has all the things that people love about ‘Bridgerton’ all wrapped up in one. Because you have the suspense at the beginning, then you have the friction between them, then you have the romance and then you have the sexiness of it,” she went on. “So it’s — we loved filming it.”
Newton chimed in to explain, “The carriages, it’s not like we have a specifically designed carriage that’s got extra space for a crew and a camera to be in. They’re really small. So the majority of any shot that was filmed inside, it was just us in the carriage … we couldn’t see the cameras.”
He added, “We wanted to really keep the story between these two characters authentic, so as much as there are moments where it is really sexy, we still stayed really truthful to their storyline. And it’s like innocent and funny and sweet.”
Newton also told the Hollywood Reporter, “I think the fans being along for the ride the whole time really makes it special, like a shared experience. The experience that [Nicola and I] shared together, but also they’ve experienced it. They’ve seen us now on-screen for five years, although it’s only three seasons. They’ve been along the whole time and watching us develop these characters together. So, yeah, it was a really special moment to be like, ‘Wow, it got to the end.’ It was crazy.”
“Bridgerton” Season 3 Part 2 premieres June 13 on Netflix.
