'Bridgerton' showrunner teases the 'tense, thrilling' conflicts ahead for Penelope and Colin

Warning: This story contains spoilers for part one of "Bridgerton" Season Three.

For the first time, "Bridgerton" is coming out not in one binge-able drop on Netflix, but in two parts.

Showrunner Jess Brownell says “Bridgerton” Season Three has a “natural break” after the first four episodes. But the team behind the hit Regency romance didn’t plan to split the season in two.

“Netflix approached us after we had finished producing the season about breaking it up,” she tells TODAY.com.

The first four episodes of Season Three, which sees Nicola Coughlan's Penelope and Luke Newton's Colin take center stage as romantic leads, hit Netflix May 16 and picked up shortly after where Season Two left off — Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) and Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) are happily married and Penelope Featherington is on the outs with her two best friends in the Bridgerton family, Colin and Eloise.

Penelope's giving Colin the cold shoulder because she overheard her unrequited crush publicly declare that he'd never court her. Eloise is icing out her former best friend after discovering Penelope's big secret — she's the literal "Pen" behind gossip columnist Lady Whistledown.

The first part of Season Three primarily follows Penelope's efforts to reconcile with Colin. Once she decides she wants to take a husband in order to get out from under the thumb of her overbearing, financially-strapped mother, Colin offers to provide lessons to help her attract a suitor.

But those efforts might prove too successful.

Here's what happened at the end of part one and what the cast and crew say could be next for Penelope and Colin after that cliffhanger ending.

What happened at the end of 'Bridgerton' Season 3, Part 1?

Penelope's courting practice with Colin pays off as she attracts the attentions of Lord Debling, played by Sam Phillips. The eccentric naturalist takes a liking to Penelope's candor and seeks out loyalty and stability — but not necessarily true love — as he looks for a potential wife.

By Episode Four, Lord Debling is preparing to propose, but Colin is unable to get a kiss he shared with Penelope earlier in the season out of his head. As the courting couple dance at a ball, Colin looks on in jealousy before cutting in.

Lord Debling sees the former friends dance and sees firsthand Penelope's lingering feelings for Colin, leading him to withdraw his plans to propose.

A distraught Penelope leaves the ball and hops into a carriage — until Colin interrupts, forcing himself inside. He confesses his feelings for Penelope and the two finally give into the romantic chemistry between them, sharing a kiss and a sexual dalliance as they are transported from the ball and back to their neighboring homes in Mayfair.

In the last few minutes of Episode Four, instead of leaving the carriage and going inside the Bridgerton family home, Colin holds out his hand and asks, "For God's sake, Penelope Featherington. Are you going to marry me or not?"

Penelope gives a shocked breathless smile, but the screen goes to black before she gives an answer.

Jess Brownell tells TODAY.com the end of Episode Four marks a point where "everything's about to shift."

The first half of "Bridgerton" Season Three leaned into "pure rom-com sensibility," with tropes like friends-to-lovers, dating (or should we say courting) lessons and transformations.

The back half, however, is a "much more tense, thrilling place," she says.

"Once Pen and Colin move into being a couple, the conflict comes more from the fact that Penelope is holding this giant secret in the form of Whistledown. And also you have Eloise's reaction to these two getting together to come," Brownell says.

When does part two come out?

The second half of Season Three, with four more episodes, hits Netflix June 13.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com