Do you remember every sexy stranger from your late-night escapades? Jury’s out.
Bridgerton season 4 has finally hit Netflix, and if you binge-watched all of part 1 this weekend, you’re probably left feeling some major frustration.
Not sexual frustration—actual genuine frustration at this season’s lead, Benedict Bridgerton, the free-spirited second son of the Bridgerton family. Up until this point, we’ve watched him skip through each social season with his silly antics and flirtatious charm. He’s partaken in orgies and dabbled in some art. But we haven’t really seen him challenged by anything or anyone until he falls in love with the masked Lady in Silver at his mother’s masquerade ball.
But just when you think the ton’s eternal bachelor is about to settle down, poof! The Lady in Silver disappears without a trace.
Most of Bridgerton season 4, part 1, sees Benedict on a mission to find this mysterious lady and, when his efforts come up empty, drinking his sorrows away. While attending a party in the countryside doing just that, he ends up saving a lowly maid named Sophie Baek. Something about her is familiar to him, though Benedict can’t quite put a finger on it.
If, at this point, you jumped up from your seat like Leonard DiCaprio in that pointing meme, it’s because we as an audience know that Sophie is the Lady in Question. However, Benedict ultimately (and epically) fails to recognize her. Even worse, he ends up taking Sophie to his country estate, My Cottage, where the two develop a romance. His obsession with the Lady in Silver is at complete odds with his feelings for Sophie, resulting in a love triangle consisting of two (2!) people.
Thoughts I had while watching Benedict gaze longingly at Sophie included, What’s not clocking to you? and Baby, I need you to rub your two brain cells together and think real hard!
I was hardly alone in this reaction. Fans flocked to X.com to share similar frustrations. “I can’t believe Benedict hasn’t realized Sophie is the Lady in Silver. Sir, you are looking but you are not SEEING!!!” one wrote. Another suggested what we’re probably all thinking, “Benedict, buy some glasses pls.”
But my perspective changed once I started to think—and I mean, really think—about what a late-night escapade with a sexy stranger is actually like. Does the adrenaline leave you frazzled and out of your wits? Surely. Can the dopamine rush alter reality and make things a little fuzzy? It’s possible. And consider the flirty glances and stolen looks. Strictly speaking, you’re not staring so hard at a person to commit their features to memory.
Factor in Sophie’s large mask (it’s giving Phantom of the Opera), the low lighting (that gazebo was kinda dark, okay?!), and the fact that Benedict was probably tipsy (his mother berates him for smelling of alcohol when he arrives), and it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
In the book that the season is based on, An Offer From a Gentleman, this plot line is much more believable: When Benedict encounters Sophie again, it’s been two years since the masquerade ball. Struggling to survive, Sophie has lost a considerable amount of weight and cut her long hair to sell it to a wigmaker. Obviously, the show couldn’t use these plot devices for continuity reasons; and more importantly, Bridgerton season 4 showrunner Jess Brownell didn’t find them necessary. In fact, Benedict’s inability to recognize Sophie is crucial to his character arc.
“It is crazy in some ways that he doesn’t recognize her, and there is a bit of willing suspension of disbelief being asked of the audience,” Brownell tells Glamour. “But it’s also because we’re relying on the fact that class in that day of age made the servants practically invisible. Even for Benedict, who is progressive in so many other ways, the fact that he can’t see past Sophie’s class to understand that this is the same woman is part of the character exploration this season.”
Luke Thompson, who plays Benedict, echoed these thoughts in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, explaining that this failure points to a larger character flaw. “I mean, from a poetic point of view, it’s like Benedict can’t tie up fantasy and reality,” Thompson said. “You’re like, ‘Surely he can see!’ But then we’re all blind. We all go and do things for years, or don’t think to do things for years, or aren’t aware of things for ages, and then suddenly the penny drops. We all have blind spots, and there’s Benedict’s.”
Benedict certainly deserves an internet pile-on for some of his actions this season. (See the end of episode 4.) But when it comes to his failure in recognizing Sophie as the Lady in Silver, I will join Brownell and Thompson in saying: Not too much on my man.
