The love story between Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope (Nicola Coughlan), collectively known by the ship name Polin, gets the spotlight on this season of “Bridgerton.” Taking inspiration from Julia Quinn’s fourth novel, “Romancing Mr. Bridgerton,” the longtime friends finally profess their feelings for each other inside a carriage at the end of episode four. After Penelope tells Colin that she’d like to be much more than friends, they have a steamy makeout session, unleashing years of yearning — and stripped-down cover of Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” by Archer Marsh.
It’s a surprising choice for a show that has generally chosen to give the regency-era cover treatment to more whimsical pop songs like Taylor Swift’s “Widest Dreams.”
But in a recent interview with Business Insider, showrunner Jess Brownell revealed that she personally chose the Pitbull track, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2011 and is one of his most popular songs on Spotify with more than 1 billion streams.
“Bridgerton” music supervisor Justin Kamps had given Brownell a playlist at the start of the season containing new string covers of pop songs to choose from, and this one stuck out, she said.
“I gotta tell you, I’m not a regular Pitbull listener, but I heard that song on the playlist without realizing what song it was at first, and just thought, this song has such an incredible build,” Brownell told BI.
She added that “Give Me Everything” was a fitting choice because the momentum of the song felt reflective of the couple’s journey.
“If you think about that scene, it is years worth of their friendship and Penelope’s crush coming to this giant crescendo,” Brownell said.
“I listened to a lot of slower romantic songs, but none of them felt like they had the right impact and the right build and the right crescendo. And that Pitbull song has so many builds within it that it just, I think, kind of nails the dynamic that’s happening in the scene.”
“I know it’s an odd pick, but it’s purely on the sound of the cover,” she added.
Dale!
