What is the future of the Peneloise friendship after THAT Bridgerton finale scene?

Warning: This article contains spoilers about Bridgerton season 2.

Dearest gentle reader....

It finally happened... Eloise (Claudia Jessie) picked up on Penelope's (Nicola Coughlan) new and strangely mean-spirited penchant for gossip, put the pieces together, and realized her bestie was Lady Whistledown all along in the final episode of Bridgerton season 2.

After confirming her suspicions by finding Penelope's stash of earnings under her floorboards, Penelope and Eloise have a vicious fight, where Eloise unleashes her feelings of betrayal and Penelope taunts her for only talking and never actually taking action.

Peneloise — Bridgerton viewers' favorite platonic portmanteau — is seemingly no more. And it was just as crushing for the two actresses behind the BFFs to play as it was for us to watch.

"I found it really hard to shoot that, and Claudia did, too, because we're so deeply invested in the characters," Coughlan tells EW. "We both love to sit between takes and talk about the characters and the journeys and all that stuff. We're both very nerdy about our jobs in that way. So, those were real tears in that scene. We were really caught up and hurt by it."

"But it was bound to happen," adds Coughlan. "Penelope has been deceiving Eloise for two years and using her family's dramas as entertainment for the ton. We knew the fallout was going to be bad, but it was very bad."

Still, Jessie says she doesn't think this is the end of Peneloise forever, even if it will take a lot to come back from all the terrible things that were said. "I don't think it'll be insurmountable," she reflects. "That is one thing. The reason for that is the fact that Eloise admires and has admired Lady Whistledown for so long. She'll probably end up being a bit impressed with her best friend. However, I do think it's going to take time and effort, because the levels of betrayal are so big."

"There's so much to unpack," Jessie expounds. "She's Lady Whistledown, that's one thing. The other thing is that Penelope watched her best friend for an entire season run around humiliating herself, getting in altercations with the Queen trying to find out who Lady Whistledown was. She's lied to her that entire time. She writes about Eloise's family. She wrote about Eloise. She wrote about Marina Thompson. The humiliation, the lies, the consistency of the lies, and then the snowballing of the lies — there's so much. I don't know how she'd be able to get over that quickly."

Perhaps the worst of everything are the terrible things Penelope throws in Eloise's face, her lack of action in spite of her feminist leanings. But Coughlan is certain Penelope deeply regrets saying something so harsh, even if it is true.

"She almost immediately regretted it when the words came out of her mouth," she says. "In the next scene, she's running around trying to find Eloise. In that moment, that's when the Featherington in her really popped out. She's used to hearing people speak like that to one another growing up, so it comes quite easily to her."

As for Eloise, some might wonder why it took arguably the most intelligent of the Bridgerton brood two full seasons to uncover Lady Whistledown's identity, when it was her best friend. But Jessie says it's precisely that closeness that prevented her from realizing the truth.

"The last place your parents are going to expect to find their teenagers' cigarettes is in their own bedroom," she quips. "That's probably a good place to hide them if you are trying to sneak cigarettes somewhere, because they're never going to expect it. That's what Eloise is thinking. She's like, 'Penelope is my best friend. She wouldn't do this.' It's so loving and blind. I wouldn't expect my best friend to do something like that, she'd be the last person I'd look to, the last person I suspect. That's why she can get away with it so tremendously."

Besides the future state of their friendship, which has been ripped into shreds more forcefully than a Lady Whistledown column, there's another question remaining. Now that Eloise knows the truth, what will she do with it? Will she tell the Queen — or worse, expose her former BFF to the entire ton?

Both Coughlan and Jessie are confident that despite her hurt, Eloise would never go so far. "My instinct is no," muses Coughlan. "I would have to ask the writers, but I think they love each other too much. I don't think Eloise would ever do that to her. I don't think Eloise would betray her in that way."

Adds Jessie: "I just don't see it happening. I can't see it happening. Someone else could, maybe Madame Delacroix. But I just can't see Eloise telling anyone. She'd be like, 'There's nothing to gain here.'"

Still, the season ends with Penelope/Lady Whistledown picking up her quill once more — and that might not sit well with Eloise, considering how much her family has already suffered thanks to Whistledown's poisonous pen. "It's going to annoy Eloise a hell of a lot to see those papers flying around," says Coughlan.

But for the sake of these cast members (and our own sanity as viewers), we hope they patch things up sooner rather than later.

"I'm deeply invested in Peneloise," concludes Coughlan. "I should go to the writers of season 3 and be like, 'Hey, let's just make up in episode 1 in the first 10 minutes, and then everything will be nice again.' But I don't think I'm going get that wish. The love there is so strong and so deep, but it's not going to be a quick fix by any means."

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