Regency Romance
‘Bridgerton’: Nicola Coughlan Calls Polin’s Mirror Scene the ‘Most Beautiful Profession of Love’
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Bridgerton Season 3, Episode 5, “Tick Tock.”]
Bridgerton‘s long-anticipated Polin mirror scene has finally arrived with Part 2 of the Netflix hit’s third season, making way for a pivotal Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin (Luke Newton) milestone as the pair finally took the trope of “friends to lovers” seriously.
A moment inspired by the pages of author Julia Quinn’s novel, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the mirror scene merely gets a passing mention in the book, but in the show, it truly comes to life. In the series’ version of events, Episode 5’s “Tick Tock” sees Penelope and Colin announce their engagement at Bridgerton house, and the next day Colin calls on his bride-to-be at her home where he overhears her mother Portia (Polly Walker) making suggestive comments about how Penelope might have forced Colin’s hand in proposing.
Upon hearing Portia’s comments, Colin promises that he only asked for Penelope’s hand because he loves her before whisking her away to their future home together. When Penelope thanks Colin for his support against her mother, he begins to tell Penelope about the ways he truly sees her. As she thanks him for standing up for her, Colin says, “Oh, I will always stand up for you, because I love you, Pen.”
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When she questions that, saying, “Are you sure?” Colin responds by adding, “Everything I said to your mother is true. And you should see it as well.” He then turns them to face a mirror where he gets more descriptive about the things he loves about Penelope.
“You are the cleverest, bravest woman I have ever known. You make me feel seen in ways I have never felt seen before,” he begins. “And then there is the way your hair cascades down your shoulder. The way your eyes shine when you look at me, like two blue pools. The firmness of your lips parted just so. The softness of your skin. And then there are other parts I’ve been… I’ve been dreaming about.” As the dialogue suggests, things begin getting a little steamy to the point where he undresses her in front of the mirror before the couple consummates their relationship.
“What was lovely is we were entrusted with really beautiful writing,” Coughlan gushes to TV Insider about the pivotal sequence. “I love both the carriage and the mirror scene. It encapsulates everything people love about Bridgerton because it’s got romance, suspense, drama, and conflict. It’s got that sexiness to it. It’s got humor to it. And when we got the script for that scene, it really bowled me over because it’s just gorgeous.”
When it came to Colin’s speech for Penelope, Coughlan says, “Luke delivered it just so beautifully. And, yeah, I think it’s just so gorgeous. For me, it’s the most beautiful profession of love in Bridgerton. I’m biased, I don’t care.”
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“It’s what everyone would love to hear, and it just felt true and beautiful,” Coughlan continues. “So it was daunting in that we knew it was a famous scene for the books, even though it’s kind of not. And also daunting because we knew we were going to be quite revealed,” she says of herself and co-star Newton.
Despite being exposed, there was no point in which the performers didn’t have a say, as Coughlan shares, “We actually had a lot of say in [it]. We decided completely what we showed and didn’t show and what we did and didn’t do, which I imagine people wouldn’t think, but we did.”
For showrunner Jess Brownell, the mirror was a no-question inclusion as she acknowledges that the book version might now have played out, “But we used it to a much larger effect in this season and to the point that mirrors became a strong motif across the season in terms of representing the idea that there’s a self you see in the mirror and the self that is standing on the other side of the mirror. The self you show to the world versus the self you are.”
One of the important aspects of this encounter between the couple surfaces after they’ve connected emotionally and physically, as Penelope is still hiding her Whistledown secret at this point. Still, despite this lingering mystery, the scene is among the most vulnerable moments Penelope and Colin have ever had on the show.
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“I think the moment in the book has more to do with how sexy the moment is,” Brownell points out, but for the show, “In terms of keeping the scene respectful and professional, we always lead with what the actors are comfortable with and have a conversation with them before we write. And then when we were writing the scene, it was all about the storytelling and the character growth, which I think allows us to earn that moment without it feeling gratuitous,” she continues.
“So to me, every moment in that scene is really representative of something emotional for the characters growth-wise. Penelope being nude in front of the mirror is obviously a stand-in for vulnerability. Her looking in the mirror is about her seeing herself in a season that’s all about her needing to see herself and be seen,” Brownell points out.
“Colin is behind her telling her what he sees, which helps her gain a certain amount of confidence,” adds Brownell. “And then there’s a moment where she takes her arms away from covering herself and allows herself to give in to Colin, but she has real agency in that scene.”
That agency was something Coughlan certainly felt while performing. “We felt a lot of power in that and a lot of agency, and it was actually one of my favorite things to film,” she says. “I never thought I would say that before I shot this season, but it was wonderful. It was a great experience.”
Another aspect that Brownell found important was Penelope’s desire “to be an active participant” when “she asks, ‘hey, teach me,'” rather than allowing Colin to take the lead because of his experience when it comes to sex. “That’s who she is. She’s someone who has a lot of strength. And then the part of the scene that I love the most is the laughter that follows it. To me, it was really important to portray friendship,” Brownell points out. “Love and friendship intimacy and the fact that sex doesn’t all have to be torture and passion. That’s beautiful, we love that, but I don’t see a lot of jokey friendly laughy sex on TV screens and I think it’s a nice example to put out there.”
What did you think of the highly-anticipated mirror scene? Did it live up to the hype? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section, below.
Bridgerton, Seasons 1-3, Streaming now, Netflix
