The upcoming season, which drops its first part on Jan. 29, will see Benedict’s life change after meeting a mysterious Lady in Silver at his mother’s ball.
Bridgerton is putting a unique spin on a traditional fairy tale romance in season 4.
Shondaland’s hit Regency Era drama makes its grand return to Netflix next year, with its first part arriving Jan. 29 followed by a second installment on Feb. 26. As custom, the season will follow a brand new member of the Bridgerton family on their quest to find love, this time chronicling the charming and equally complex relationship between artsy daydreamer Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and pragmatic maid Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha).
“We start with a character trope that we’ve seen a million times before, which is a maid who falls for someone above her station,” writer, producer, and showrunner Jess Brownell tells Entertainment Weekly. “But I think a lot of times in these classic Cinderella-like stories, Cinderella is a bit of a damsel in distress. And, in the case of Sophie Baek, she is no such thing. We get to watch a very headstrong young woman try to decide her fate for herself and pick up the courage to believe in and dream for a life greater than the one she currently has.”
She notes that Julia Quinn’s third Bridgerton novel An Offer From a Gentleman, which tells Benedict and Sophie’s love story, was “the easiest book to adapt” for the screen thus far. “It lent itself really closely to television structure for a love story,” Brownell explains. “There are just a lot of rich set pieces that gave us juicy conflict and high stakes. I think fans will be happy to see quite a few of the set pieces from the book in the show.”
That includes matriarch Violet Bridgerton’s (Ruth Gemmell) sumptuous masquerade ball, where Benedict falls head-over-heels for a mysterious and dazzling partygoer known only to him as the Lady in Silver. (Spoiler alert: that’s Sophie!)
It’s a surprising turn of events for the bohemian bachelor. “We’ve watched three seasons of Benedict having a very good time and being good at everything, but unable to commit to any one thing,” Brownell says. “And I think, at the top of season 4, that’s worn a little thin for him. I think he senses that something is missing in his life — even if he isn’t ready to accept it — but once he meets the masked woman in the first episode, everything will change for him.”
While they may meet at the ball, Entertainment Weekly’s exclusive imagery (above) reveals the pair eventually flee the festivities to share a private dance together in a blossoming pergola. Brownell recalls being enchanted by the electric chemistry between Thompson and Ha when shooting the heart-fluttering sequence.
“For filming the master, they ran it all the way through, and it was just like watching theater,” she says. “I remember sitting at video village watching them run it all the way through the first time, and we made the joke on set, ‘Just print that.’ Because it was so perfect and so moving and full of so much tension and sparkle and chemistry. It’s a really special scene.”
But, alas, no moment lasts forever, and Benedict will have to dive headfirst into the marriage mart if he hopes to reunite with the woman of his dreams. Thankfully, he can count on his family to aid him on his journey.
“It’s a season where we try to make sure all of the siblings feel present in some way and present in the main love story as much as possible,” Brownell says. “Eloise [Claudia Jessie], for example, has a very tight relationship with Benedict and she will be involved in his search for the masked woman this year.”
Meanwhile, fresh from her enchanting evening with Benedict, Sophie returns to everyday life serving the formidable Araminta Gun (Katie Leung) and her two debutante daughters, Rosamund (Michelle Mao) and Posy (Isabella Wei). While Araminta and Rosamund are known to be “quite villainous characters” in the novel, Brownell shares that this season will dig deeper into the reasons behind their more nefarious decisions.
“On our show, we try not to ever present anyone’s character in black or white. We’re interested in the gray area. We’re interested in why people do the things they do,” she says. “So we’ve spent some time trying to understand Araminta, where she comes from emotionally, and getting to do that exploration was really interesting for us as writers.”
Especially since her daughters are also looking to marry this season. “Seeing the way Araminta guides her girls versus the way Violet guides her girls, or Lady Featherington guided her girls… the compare and contrast is quite illuminating,” Brownell adds.
The class disparity between Sophie and Benedict also brings a “totally new sensibility” to Bridgerton, allowing Brownell and the writers to fully pull back the curtain on the upstairs, downstairs dynamic between the socialites and their staff.
“We talked a lot about going downstairs and how that would affect the overall tone of the show and I think, actually, it seamlessly blends into the themes that we were trying to explore this season,” she says. “Benedict very much lives in a fantasy world. Sophie very much lives in a harsher reality. The idea is that, for each of them, neither of those stations are where they need to live in order to find true love.”
It was also important to Brownell that they didn’t “glamorize” the lives of the servants running these high-society households, but rather highlighted that there are still “beautiful moments and beautiful friendships downstairs, the same way there’s beauty upstairs.” As a result, viewers can expect to meet some new faces working with Sophie across the season, too.
And yet, when it comes to relationships, Sophie and Benedict’s love story is only the tip of the iceberg this season. Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin (Luke Newton) will also get a chance to showcase “what their marriage looks like” after tying the knot last season, as will Francesca (Hannah Dodd) and John Stirling (Victor Alli).
Penelope is also coming to terms with the reality of unmasking herself as Lady Whistledown — and how it puts her directly in Queen Charlotte’s (Golda Rosheuvel) sights. “It’s high stakes. On the one hand, the Queen loves to be entertained,” Brownell says. “But, on the other hand, the Queen does not like to have anything written that she disagrees with, so Penelope is in a tricky position this year trying to please the Queen without giving up her journalistic integrity.”
That means having to write about her new extended family, too. “The Bridgertons are gossip fodder,” she adds, “so she’s gonna have to do a bit of it.”
Elsewhere, Violet and Lord Marcus Anderson’s (Daniel Francis) flirtationship is continuing to pick up steam. “In season 3, they did a lot of giggling and light flirting and lots of blushing,” Brownell says. “And it feels like in season 4 we pick up from that, but we’re in a season in which we’re exploring courage in so many ways. We’re also exploring whether Violet is ready to be brave enough to put her heart on the line.”
Benedict and Sophie are on a similar journey. “Benedict needs to be braver about committing and going after what he really wants and believes in. Sophie needs to be courageous in love and courageous about allowing herself to dream,” she says. “And you can apply that to so many things outside of romantic love — I think all of us could channel a little more courage to be our true selves and go after what we really want in our everyday life.”
The first installment of Bridgerton promenades its way onto Netflix on Jan. 29, with part two arriving Feb. 26.
