With Bridgerton Season 4 making its ballroom debut on Netflix in the new year, showrunner Jess Brownell is teasing an installment chock-full of “juicy conflict” in what has been the “easiest book to adapt” to television thus far.
With the new season — which will bow its initial four episodes Jan. 29, followed by its latter four Feb. 26 — audiences will see Julia Quinn’s third Bridgerton novel An Offer From a Gentleman come alive on small screens. It will trace the romance between the bohemian Benedict (Luke Thompson) and level-headed maid Sophie (Yerin Ha), whose arc follows a reimagined Cinderella story.
“It lent itself really closely to television structure for a love story,” Brownell, who also serves as executive producer and writer, told Entertainment Weekly in a new interview. “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.”
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Brownell noted the show will explore the class dynamics between Benedict’s high station as a Bridgerton scion and Sophie’s livelihood as a worker for the ton, bringing a “totally new sensibility” to the steamy Regency Era series.
“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 explained. “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.”
Of course, the show will also trace the ongoing storylines of its ensemble, including last season’s spotlighted couple, newlyweds Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin (Luke Newton), and Benedict’s sister Eloise (Claudia Jessie), who helps him search for the mysterious “Lady in Silver.”
“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 said.