Warning: This story contains spoilers for part one of “Bridgerton” Season Three and Julia Quinn’s book, “When He Was Wicked.”
“Bridgerton” Season Three features two new love stories.
This time around we see Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) fall in love with Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan).
Meanwhile, another Bridgerton sibling makes a match, as Francesca (Hannah Dodd) starts to fall for John Stirling (Victor Alli) in part one of Season Three, which dropped on Netflix May 16.
The season opens with Francesca, who was played by Ruby Stokes in the first two seasons, making her debut to Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel). While the queen initially fails to name a diamond of the season, Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) influences her to see the shy Francesca in a new light.
“She just doesn’t want to be the center of attention,” Dodd tells TODAY.com.
As a result, Francesca’s approach to finding love is “logical.”
“She’s not excited about it. She’s kind of in between Daphne and Eloise in the sense that she’s not fighting the system, and she’s not against getting married,” Dodd says. “It’s not something that she’s dreamed about her whole life. She knows that it’s her time. She knows that she’s going to have to go through these motions and do it.”
Francesca is named the queen’s “sparkler,” but trouble emerges as Queen Charlotte’s match for Francesca — Lord Samadani — conflicts with her fondness for the Earl of Kilmartin, a quiet, reserved gentleman.
It also sparks concern from Francesca’s mother, Violet, who wants her daughter to find a love match.
“(Francesca’s) not doing anything wrong. She’s not being a problem in any way. But Violet obviously wants her to have the love that she deserves,” Dodd says.
Alli tells TODAY.com that John and Francesca’s relationship comes from compatibility.
“We’re so similar in a way, and I quite like that,” he says. “We share such an interesting bond where we don’t have to say too much but we can still connect.”
In the show, the two share many moments of silence, simply sitting and listening to the world around them. Francesca, who loves playing music and reading, develops a sense of companionship with John.
“That’s not the conventional way of getting to know someone, but somehow we managed to sort of explore that and it sort of goes further,” Alli says. “The relationship blossoms and we get to understand each other through the silences, and then yes, of course, we do speak as well, but it’s quite nice to sort of have these moments of silence and have inner monologues.”
At the end of part one, John gives Francesca a piece of sheet music, owning up to the fact that he’s “not a man of many words.”
“But I do believe in the power of a gesture,” he says.
After, Francesca is giddy as she plays her piano forte.
“Lord Kilmartin, he had the music we heard earlier this week rearranged exactly as I imagined it,” she tells her mother, blushing.
Their relationship is likely to be explored further in the second installment of episodes, which hits Netflix June 13.
What happens in the ‘Bridgerton’ book about Francesca?
While viewers are getting a taste of Francesca’s love story in Season Three, the third Bridgerton daughter doesn’t take center stage until book six in Julia Quinn’s series.
Dodd says the first thing she did when she was cast in Season Three of “Bridgerton” was read “When He Was Wicked.”
“It definitely went into my character development with Francesca because she’s not really present in the other books. That was all I really had to work off,” Dodd says.
“When He Was Wicked” opens with Francesca and John in love and married, living in Scotland as the Earl and Countess of Kilmartin. The couple also maintains a close friendship with John’s cousin, Michael Stirling, a character who has not been introduced on screen yet.
The book is told from Michael and Francesca’s perspectives. Readers quickly learn that Michael fell in love with Francesca at first sight — only they met just hours before her wedding to John.
Two years later, John dies suddenly of a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, leaving Francesca a widow and making Michael the new earl. But instead of stepping up to the task, he flees to India in his grief and doesn’t return to Francesca’s side for four years.
When he returns, Francesca has decided she wants a child and is seeking to remarry, while Michael realizes he has not moved on from his unrequited crush. Their friendship gives way to sizzling chemistry, and they eventually fall in love.
Dodd says Francesca’s arc in Season Three does contain some foreshadowing to the events of “When He Was Wicked,” specifically through Francesca’s relationship with her mother, Violet, as they are both widows in the book.
“I’ve tried to kind of create that relationship with Violet just because there’s so many similarities going forward,” Dodd says. “Everything that I kind of did to create Francesca comes from that book.”
